The traditional narrative of urban–rural educational disadvantage is that urban pupils do less well in the English exam system. Decontextualised data (as exemplified in table 1 across different English exam performance measures) demonstrates how rural pupils outperform their urban counterparts. This blog post and the evidence presented demonstrates how rural underachievement in England has been masked by the relative sizes and socioeconomic deprivation (SED) distribution of rural and urban populations.

Table 1: Urban and rural GCSE performance [percentage of pupils] (Source: DfE National Pupil Database 2018)

While this pattern can be noted every year for which rurality data has been gathered in England, it is a prevailing narrative of urban underperformance which has attracted political attention and funding (DfEE, 1999), in part due to the concentration of SED in urban areas.

It is only in the past three years that the pupil GCSE outcome database in England has provided rurality measures (DfE, 2023) and in part, this lack of visibility has meant that rurality is rarely integrated into the analyses of educational inequalities (Hatt et al., 2005; McGrath, 2001; Shucksmith, 2000). Rural disadvantage in secondary (high school) education in England is therefore an important but understudied dimension of educational disadvantage. Fortunately, this discontinuity has recently been given more political attention (Baker et al., 2022; DLUHC, 2022).

‘When you take account of measures of SED, rural performance presents very differently from the traditionally described narrative of urban underperformance shown in table 1. Taken together, the findings suggest that rural disadvantage has been hidden in the average data and is an educational gap worthy of further investigation.’

However, analysis with this new rurality categorisation of the 2019 pre-Covid English exam outcomes (at age 16), demonstrates that examining headline figures without the lens of SED distorts the picture (as illustrated in figure 1). SED is not distributed evenly across rural and urban areas, and the mean deprivation as measured by the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) is higher in urban communities in England. This is a pattern not seen to the same extent in other countries across the OECD (Echazarra & Radinger, 2019).

Figure 1: 2015 Rural & urban pupil population size by IDACI (Source: DfE, 2023)

Analysing GCSE performance data through the lens of SED (as in figure 2) shows how traditionally held ideas (table 1) about rural and urban performance may be an artefact of SED rather than a consequence of rural living. Further, when SED factors are considered, there are emerging patterns of rural underperformance, particularly at the extreme IDACI deciles that have not been given much attention to date.

Figure 2: 2015 Rural & urban GCSE performance by IDACI (Source: DfE, 2023)

When you take account of measures of SED, rural performance presents very differently from the traditionally described narrative of urban underperformance shown in table 1. Taken together, the findings suggest that rural disadvantage has been hidden in the average data and is an educational gap worthy of further investigation. Rurality provides another analytic lens through which to understand educational participation and the stigmatising impacts of education policy and practice.

References

Baker, C., Brien, P., Burton, M., Clark, A., Coe, S., & Ward, M. (2022). Levelling up rural Britain. House of Commons Library. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CDP-2022-0193/CDP-2022-0193.pdf

Department for Education [DFE]. (2023). GCSE and equivalent results, including pupil characteristics (Statistics). https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-gcses-key-stage-4  

Department for Education and Employment [DfEE]. (1999). Excellence in cities. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199899/cmselect/cmeduemp/610/61004.htm

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities [DLUHC]. (2022). Levelling up the United Kingdom (White Paper). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/levelling-up-the-united-kingdom  

Echazarra, A., & T. Radinger (2019). Learning in rural schools: Insights from PISA, TALIS and the literature. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 196. https://doi.org/10.1787/8b1a5cb9-en

Hatt, S., Baxter, A., & Tate, J. (2005). Who benefits from widening participation? A study of targeting in the South West of England. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 29(4), 341–351. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098770500353508

McGrath, B. (2001). A problem of resources: Defining rural youth encounters in education, work & housing. Journal of Rural Studies, 17(4), 481–495. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0743-0167(01)00023-7

Shucksmith, M. (2000). Exclusive countryside?: Social inclusion and regeneration in rural areas. Joseph Rowntree Foundation. https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/exclusive-countryside-social-inclusion-and-regeneration-rural-areas