This new study seems to disprove existing evidence that suggests secondary school pupils living in rural areas achieve more than pupils living in urban areas. Our analysis of data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England and the National Pupil Database found that:
Pupils from rural areas had slightly higher levels of attainment in comparison to pupils from urban areas.
Although pupils from rural areas had slightly higher levels of attainment, this was only statistically significant at Key Stage 3.
However, higher attainment amongst rural pupils was due to factors other than living in a rural area.
We found that the higher attainment of rural pupils was due to higher social position, lower area deprivation and previous higher attainment at Key Stage 2. Moreover, higher attainment at Key Stage 2 was likely to be due to higher social position earlier in life.
Some minority ethnic groups living in a rural area were actually at risk of lower attainment.
Black African pupils at Key Stage 3 and Indian pupils at both Key Stage 3 and 4 tended to make slightly less progress in attainment if they lived in rural rather than urban areas. However, because there are only a small number of minority ethnic pupils living in rural areas this analyses is based on a small sample size and requires further research.
In rural areas a mother's qualifications made a greater difference to the attainment of pupils than in urban areas.
Pupils whose mothers had low levels of qualifications made less progress in rural areas compared to urban areas. This difference became larger and more significant from Key Stage 3 to Key Stage 4.
There are regional differences in the relationship between attainment and where pupils live.
We found that while pupils living in rural areas in the South East had lower attainment, in the North West, Yorkshire and the Humber and the East Midlands there did seem to be some advantages for pupils living in rural areas. However, this relationship between region and higher education attainment is based on small sample sizes in the more sparse areas, and further investigation is needed.