Widening participating among White Students from Disadvantaged Backgrounds

Earlier this year, the Education Secretary challenged the schooling system, universities, the government and wider community on the low rates of progression to higher education among white males from disadvantaged backgrounds. 

NEON are keen to support their members in successfully engaging this demographic in their outreach work, and subsequently, higher education.

We are also keen to expand the focus of outreach on young white people from disadvantaged backgrounds, from males to both males and females.

With a view to identify challenges and good practice in this area, we will require a clear picture of current and pending initiatives. We are therefore asking members to provide us with information on whether they are doing any work in this area and if so, the nature of this work. 

Your responses will form the NEON members' report and will be presented at our summit on this issue. This summit is to be held on February 14th in Central London, and aims to raise awareness about the lower likelihood of HE participation among white males and females from disadvantaged backgrounds and to discuss the sector’s progress in improving higher education participation among this group of young people.

We will also be sharing the findings with the Secretary for Education, Damian Hinds, and the Minister of State for Universities and Science, Chris Skidmore.

All raw data from the surveys will be held in a secure server, accessible only to NEON staff.