The influence of socioeconomic status on changes in young people's expectations of applying to university

A much larger proportion of English 14-year-olds expect to apply to university than ultimately make an application by age 21, but the proportion expecting to apply falls from age 14 onwards. In order to assess the role of socioeconomic status in explaining changes in expectations, this paper applies duration modelling techniques to the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England, analysing transitions in young people’s expectations both from being ‘likely to apply’ to being ‘unlikely to apply’ and vice versa. Young people’s socioeconomic background has a significant association with changes in expectations, even after controlling for prior academic attainment and other potentially confounding factors; in addition, young people’s backgrounds affect their responsiveness to new evidence on academic attainment at age 16. This suggests more could usefully be done to maintain the educational expectations of academically able young people from less advantaged families, especially providing guidance on how to view new academic results

HMP Peterborough Social Impact Bond - cohort 2 and final cohort impact evaluation

In 2010, the world’s first Social Impact Bond (SIB) was launched at Peterborough Prison. It was used to fund an intervention – ‘The One Service’ – aimed at reducing the reoffending among prisoners discharged after serving a sentence of less than 12 months. Under the terms of the SIB, investors are paid according to how successful the One Service is in reducing reconvictions. If a minimum threshold of a 7.5% reduction in reconviction events is reached across the pilot, payment is triggered. Additionally, there is an option to trigger an early payment if a 10% reduction is noted in the number of reconviction events in individual cohorts. A propensity score matching (PSM) approach was used to estimate impact. For cohort 1, the impact was estimated, by a previous team of independent assessors, to be a reduction in reconviction events of 8.4% (Jolliffe and Hedderman, 2014). Anders and Dorsett (2017) reviewed the PSM approach, prompted in part by the desire to understand the reasons behind the differences in reconviction rates between prisoners discharged from HMP Peterborough and prisoners discharged from other prisons. Following their review, Anders and Dorsett (2017) recommended that the cohort 1 approach be maintained for cohort 2. They also recommended an adjustment to the sample selection in Cohort 2. It is important to note that this recommendation was based on the analysis of cohort 1 data and was not informed by cohort 2 reoffending data. Matching was performed for cohort 2 using a dataset that excluded reoffending data. We estimate that the One Service reduced the number of reconviction events among those discharged from HMP Peterborough by 9.7% for cohort 2. The reduction across both cohorts is estimated to be 9.0%, which reached the minimum threshold of 7.5% across all cohorts. This reduction is sufficient to trigger an outcome payment

A review of the matching process for the impact analysis of the HMP Peterborough Social Impact Bond.

In 2010, the world’s first Social Impact Bond (SIB) was launched at Peterborough Prison. It was used to fund an intervention – ‘The One Service’ – aimed at reducing the reoffending among prisoners discharged after serving a sentence of less than 12 months. Under the terms of the SIB, investors are paid according to how successful the One Service is in reducing reconvictions. If a minimum threshold of a 7.5% reduction in reconviction events is reached across the pilot, payment is triggered. Additionally, there is an option to trigger an early payment if a 10% reduction is noted in the number of reconviction events in individual cohorts. A propensity score matching (PSM) approach was used to estimate the impact. For cohort 1, the impact was estimated, by a previous team of independent assessors, to be a reduction in reconviction events of 8.4% (Jolliffe and Hedderman, 2014). This report reviews the PSM approach, prompted in part by the desire to understand the reasons behind the differences in reconviction rates between prisoners discharged from HMP Peterborough and prisoners discharged from other prisons. Its primary aim is to identify whether there is a need to revise the approach taken before it is applied to cohort 2 (and the final cohort - the weighted mean of cohort 1 and cohort 2). To do this, various amendments to the methodology were explored. It was not possible to replicate the results of Jolliffe and Hedderman (2014). This should perhaps be no surprise given the difficulties often encountered with replication attempts. However, the difference between the replication result and the Jolliffe and Hedderman (2014) result was not statistically significant. Since this review did not identify any clear improvement in the matching process, the conclusion is that the cohort 1 approach be maintained. We also recommend an adjustment to the sample selection in cohort 2. It is important to note that this recommendation is based on the analysis of cohort 1 data and is not informed by cohort 2 reoffending data. In more detail, the review began with a replication of Jolliffe and Hedderman (2014) and then explored whether various changes might give better estimates: changing the set of variables included in the propensity score model; changing how propensity score matching was implemented; allowing for unobserved prison- and/or area-specific differences in outcomes. The analysis used data for cohort 1 plus a number of years prior to the introduction of the One Service. The results suggest: it may be possible to alter the set of variables in the propensity score model in order to achieve a somewhat better fit, but this did not lead to any overall improvement in the methodology; changing the implementation of matching did not achieve any overall improvements in the model; controlling for historic differences in outcomes between prisons is problematic since the mean number of reconviction events at HMP Peterborough has followed a different trend from other prisons over the 2006-2009 pre-treatment period. In view of these findings, the recommendations for cohort 2 are as follows: Use the same matching variables as for cohort. While some advantages to altering the variable set were found, these were not sufficient to justify a change; Use the same matching approach. The cohort 1 approach of (up to) 10:1 matching without replacement, within a 0.05 caliper performed as well as alternative approaches; Estimate effects only for men aged 21 or above. This reflects the fact that, in cohort 1, there were almost no under-21s at HMP Peterborough. If under-21s are similarly absent at HMP Peterborough in cohort 2, the recommendation is to exclude them from comparator prisons too. This will help make the composition of individuals from other prisons more similar to that of HMP Peterborough; Report standard errors of impact estimates. This is suggested as a means of providing some sense of the statistical significance of the estimated impacts. The protocol for cohort 2 and the final cohort is included as an appendix

Socioeconomic Inequality and Student Outcomes in English Schools

This chapter explores socioeconomic inequality in educational outcomes in England. We begin by describing the key features of the English education system and highlight the characteristics of the student population. We explore the educational outcomes of socioeconomically disadvantaged young people through comparison of a number of different outcomes during educational careers. We analyze policies introduced or mooted in recent years to consider the extent to which they are likely to address these challenges successfully. These include the introduction of “academy” schools, reforms to the school curriculum, changes to education funding, the potential (re-)growth of academically selective schooling, increased investment in early years education, and an increased focused on gathering and disseminating robust evidence on ‘what works’ in educational attainment. Many of these changes seem unlikely to hold many lessons for other countries wishing to reduce attainment gaps. However, there are notable exceptions, particularly regarding early years’ education and improving the evidence base on what practical changes schools can make to promote attainment among those from disadvantaged backgrounds

Socio-economic inequaliites in access to Higher Education in England

This thesis analyses inequalities in access to Higher Education (HE) in England. In particular, it provides new evidence about this issue in three major ways. First, it estimates the family income gradient in university participation overall, and at a group of high status institutions. It also analyses the income gradient in university applications. While there are substantial income gradients in university attendance, and attendance at high status institutions, most of these differences are driven by application decisions, particularly once we control for ‘ability’ at age 11. This suggests that universities do not discriminate against students from poorer backgrounds; such students are less likely to apply. Second, it assesses the role of socio-economic status in explaining changes in university expectations across the teenage years. It analyses transitions in young people’s expectations from being ‘likely to apply’ to being ‘unlikely to apply’ and vice versa, using dura on modelling techniques. Young people’s socio-economic background has a significant association with changes in expectations, even controlling for prior academic attainment and other potential confounding factors. This suggests more could usefully be done to maintain the educational expectations of academically able young people from less advantaged families. Finally, it looks at the impact of aptitude tests as a screening device for entry to elite universities by looking at the effect on the proportion of successful applicants by school type (state versus private) and gender. The es mates are obtained by applying a difference in differences approach to administrative data from the University of Oxford. Although introducing the test increased the proportion of interviewees getting an offer overall, this is not the case for women. Nevertheless, the policy has no apparent effect on the overall chances of applicants being offered a place by school type or gender

Socio-economic status and subject choice at 14: do they interact to affect university access

There is a large socio-economic status gap in higher education (HE) participation in England. However, most evidence suggests that this is driven by inequality that emerges before the point of application. It has been suggested that one such source of inequality is the subjects and qualifications studied by young people while still at school. The importance of this factor for young people's chances of progressing to HE in general, and to highly selective HE institutions in particular, has increasingly attracted the attention of policy-makers. This has been most notable in the UK Government's introduction of the English Baccalaureate performance measure for schools at age 16, and the introduction of performance in Russell Group "facilitating subjects" at A-Level for schools at age 18. However, this area is under-studied in the academic literature. This project aimed to address this gap using a combination of survey and administrative data on a recent cohort of English students. It analysed the subject choices taken by young people at age 14 (affecting subjects and qualifications studied for examinations predominantly at age 16) using statistical analysis to estimate the subsequent importance of subject choice in the probability of attending university or a highly competitive university. It also considers the association between socioeconomic status and young people's subject choices, and the extent to which this acts as a transmission mechanism between socio-economic status and inequality in attendance at university

Weak and ultrastrong coupling limits of the quantum mean force Gibbs state

This is the final version. Available from the American Physical Society via the DOI in this recordThe Gibbs state is widely taken to be the equilibrium state of a system in contact with an environment at temperature T. However, non-negligible interactions between system and environment can give rise to an altered state. Here we derive general expressions for this mean force Gibbs state, valid for any system that interacts with a bosonic reservoir. First, we derive the state in the weak coupling limit and find that, in general, it maintains coherences with respect to the bare system Hamiltonian. Second, we develop a new expansion method suited to investigate the ultrastrong coupling regime. This allows us to derive the explicit form for the mean force Gibbs state, and we find that it becomes diagonal in the basis set by the system-reservoir interaction instead of the system Hamiltonian. Several examples are discussed including a single qubit, a three-level V-system and two coupled qubits all interacting with bosonic reservoirs. The results shed light on the presence of coherences in the strong coupling regime, and provide key tools for nanoscale thermodynamics investigations.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)Royal Societ