Marketing as Cooking: The Return of the Sophists

UCAS (formerly UCCA and PCAS) has been extremely cooperative in providing data on applicants and admissions to higher education. Stuart Smith at UCAS deserves a special mention for his help. Appending MOSAIC codes to the records and completing initial analyses were undertaken at SPA Marketing Systems. The work would not have been possible without their assistance.

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The general context for this paper is access to higher education (HE) in the UK but the particular concern is participation. An important distinction is drawn between access and participation. The heterogeneous characteristics of HE and the complex choice processes of applicants mean that a finer level of description and analysis is required which goes beyond aggregate measures of access and examines the extent and the nature of participation. Equality of opportunity provides the underpinning for this paper, access to HE is the starting point, the focus is on participation and the approach is empirical and pragmatic. In 2002, the target for access to UK HE was set at 50 percent, which requires attention to shift from broad measures of access towards detailed measures of participation; particularly when the agenda is one of social inclusion, and when certain groups within society are still significantly under-represented and disadvantaged at the level of participation.UCAS was very supportive in releasing data for analysis and in allowing that data to be published in new formats and via new media. Experian was particularly helpful in making available several of their software and data products.