Is a Low Socio-Economic Status Background a Disadvantage to Achieving and Completing a Higher Education

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Is a low socio-economic status background a disadvantage to achieving and completing a higher education? Introduction: This essay will attempt to answer the issue of lower participation in higher education by students from a low socio-economic background, compared with students from the opposing sector of society where participation has increased slightly with the current trend of lower participation. When the numbers are continually lower than students from higher socio-economic backgrounds is there a factor in a hidden curriculum that disadvantages students from certain low socio-economic areas and suburbs from the beginning of their education? Are students from low socio-economic area schools exposed to a cultural capital that de-rails their chances if they actually aspire to higher education? Socioeconomic status is defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics using a system called Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) as a pointer to social positioning This system uses a set of indexes which categorise areas according to advantage, disadvantage, economic resources and, education and occupations (abs.gov.au). These are defined by means of census variables related to each group, for example; income levels, whether the population is in employment or unemployment and the educational levels that members of individual households have attained in areas of disadvantage. Regarding studies of student’s school achievement socioeconomic status refers to the educational attainments of the parents or employment status.(Gillian Considine and Zappalà, 2002). The Commonwealth government commissioned a report during the late 1990’s which identified that the previous method of measuring socio economic status by means of postcodes was not accurate enough to identify causal factors or influences. The main authors of the report; Western et al, suggested that this

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