ABSTRACT
Once compulsory schooling is complete, concern over disadvantaged students tends to focus on patterns of participation and non-participation in post-compulsory episodes rather than attainment. In fact, as this chapter demonstrates, a love of learning and a positive lifelong attitude to education are further possible wider outcomes of schooling. In England and Wales, over a third of the adult population regularly report not having participated in any formal episodes of learning at all since reaching school-leaving age (Selwyn et al. 2006, White & Selwyn 2011). This third is heavily stratified. Individuals living in remote areas, from families with less prestigious occupational backgrounds, with lower incomes, the unemployed or economically inactive, severely disabled people and ex-offenders with lower literacy skills are all less likely than average to participate in any episodes of formal education or training after the age of 16. For as long as we have accurate records it appears that certain groups in the population of the UK have been more likely to be routinely excluded from participation in many forms of post-compulsory education (HEFCE 2005). Those individuals who do participate in post-compulsory education are often heavily patterned by ‘pre-adult’ social, geographic and historical factors such as socio-economic status, year of birth and type of school attended (White 2012). Similar patterns have been found in all other countries.
