Depicting Rural Deprivation in a Higher Education Context: A Scottish Case Study

Abstract

This paper addresses educational inequality of access to higher education for Scottish rural communities. Inequality results from the sole use of a national socio-economic index in order to meet a key milestone for higher education goal. I show (1) how the use of this index can have adverse effects on these communities and (2) how contextual considerations of rural education research could mitigate these effects and enrich policy-making.