About this study

This study set out to test existing evidence, which suggests pupils living in rural areas have higher secondary school attainment than those living in urban areas.

You can find out how our study is different to previous studies by reading the methods section at the bottom of this page.

One of our key findings was that once we had adjusted the data to allow for factors such as social position, there was virtually no difference between the attainment of rural pupils compared to urban pupils.

Our other findings included the discovery that some groups of rural pupils may actually be disadvantaged compared to pupils in urban areas. These groups include certain minority ethnic pupils, those with low qualified mothers and those living in the South East of England.
You can read more findings like this here or the full report here.

Potential Policy Impact

This study provides the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with an accurate and sophisticated evidence base for policy making.

Methods

This study uses data collected from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England and the National Pupil Database.

We first conducted a literature review to find out how previous research had been conducted. In contrast to these existing studies, we decided to analyse the data to see if there were any 'true' differences between rural and urban pupils, once factors such as social position had been controlled for.

We also conducted analysis to discover what factors affect attainment in rural areas, and to quantify how much of the variation in attainment between rural and urban areas is due to the individual, schools and Local Authorities. We also looked at the differences in attainment between regions of England.