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Using Spatial Microsimulation to Model Social and Spatial Inequalities in Educational Attainment

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Abstract

This paper presents a spatial microsimulation approach to the analysis of social and spatial inequalities in higher education attainment. The paper provides a brief review of microsimulation and spatial microsimulation, highlighting the paucity in applications aimed at the analysis of educational policy. It then briefly reviews the educational policy framework in Britain and discusses relevant application areas for spatial microsimulation. It also demonstrates how spatial microsimulation modelling can be used to generate educational policy-relevant outputs and to map and analyse social and spatial inequalities in educational attainment. The paper presents three educational policy scenarios and uses a spatial microsimulation model to assess their spatial and social impact in the region of Yorkshire and the Humber, UK. Finally, in the light of the model outputs and policy analysis scenarios, the paper discusses possible future extensions and policy applications. One of the major findings is the division in the participation of young people to higher education changes by where they live.

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Acknowledgements

The work reported in this paper was funded by the White Rose Consortium. All census and digitised boundary data used in this paper are Crown Copyright. The BHPS data were made available through the UK data archive. The data were originally collected by the ESRC research centre on micro-social change at the University of Essex, now incorporated within the Institute for Social and Economic Research. All responsibility for the analysis and interpretation of the data presented in this paper lies with the authors. The spatial microsimulation model that was used for this paper was implemented using the “Iceberg” grid computing facility of the University of Sheffield, which is a node of the White Rose Computing Grid. The authors would like to thank the editor and two anonymous referees for their invaluable comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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  1. Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece

    Dimitris Kavroudakis

  2. Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Dimitris Ballas

  3. School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Mark Birkin

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  1. Dimitris Kavroudakis
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Correspondence to Dimitris Kavroudakis.

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Kavroudakis, D., Ballas, D. & Birkin, M. Using Spatial Microsimulation to Model Social and Spatial Inequalities in Educational Attainment. Appl. Spatial Analysis 6, 1–23 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-012-9075-2

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