Conclusions from the ASPIRES research project - a 14-year mixed methods investigation led by Professor Louise Archer (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society) - show that students from the most deprived backgrounds leave STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) degrees at around double the rate of those from the most privileged backgrounds.
At degree level, Black students and those from the lowest IMD (Index of Multiple Deprivation – a UK dataset used to classify relative deprivation) quintile remain under-represented in STEM, particularly in subjects like physics.
However, even in areas where these groups are better represented, such as computing, ASPIRES evidence suggests these students are more at risk of not completing their degrees.
The project collected survey data from over 47,000 young people and conducted over 760 interviews which tracked 50 young people between the ages of 10 and 22.
