Education

Education and skills are crucial in determining major outcomes and decisions in life, such as going to university, employment trajectories, income and health.

What data do Understanding Society collect?

Understanding Society is a study of individuals within their household context. We interview all members of the household over the age of ten and we ask parents a variety of questions for younger children. In the youth questionnaire (age 10-15) we ask children about their experiences at school and home. With parent’s consent, we link the survey information to information about the schools children attend and their school results. Understanding Society is longitudinal, so follows the same people over time. This means we collect information which captures the complex picture of personal and household interactions with education; the effects of institutional performance, different stages of education, family background, ethnicity, deprivation and social norms.

Education data linkage

Education data linkage allows researchers to analyse information from educational records together with Understanding Society. Data can only be linked if Understanding Society participants give their informed consent. Understanding Society has been linked to the National Pupil Database for England and to data from the Scottish Government. The NPD England combines the examination results of pupils with information on pupil and school characteristics and is an amalgamation of a number of different datasets, including Key Stage attainment data and Schools Census data. Scottish education data is an amalgamation of different individual and school-level datasets, including attainment data and Pupils and Schools Staff Census data.

The education data linkage area gives more information, links to access these data and the specialist user guides.

Education during the Covid-19 pandemic

Schooling for children in the UK was massively impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, with schools closing for most children during parts of 2020 and 2021. The Understanding Society COVID-19 survey asked questions about children’s involvement in schooling during this period, access to online learning and technology, and who in the household helped children with their online lessons and home education. Researchers at the Institute for Social and Economic Research looked at how children and their families coped with the changes in education during Covid-19. You can read their report here: Coping with school closures: changes in home-schooling during Covid-19.

Find the publications on education and the pandemic in our publications library.

Podcast

Listen to Topic Champion, Professor Birgitta Rabe, talk about how the pandemic related school closures affected children in the UK.

Tips for analysts

Index terms

To find out about the specific questions asked in the Study use the index terms where you can search for education variables including background and attainments, expectations and recent education and training.

Questionnaire modules

The questionnaire modules show the areas covered in each wave of the Study and allow you to see the actual questions asked in the survey.

Use the code creator

Create your own Stata code to extract the data you need from the EUL main survey. Save your variables, then use the code creator to generate your code. The code will allow you to create your own data file containing your variable selection, plus a handy set of commonly used sociodemographic variables and cross-sectional and longitudinal weights.

Need help?

Visit our new user pathway to explore the data and online resources or contact the User Support forum if you have a question for the Study team.

Webinar

Using admin data with Understanding Society for education research

Podcast: Education and gender roles

Do education levels affect gender roles in UK households? Do men with degrees do more childcare and housework? With guests: Barbara Okun, Professor of Demography in the Sociology Department and Demography Division at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Dr Sara Reis, Deputy Director and Head of Research and Policy at feminist economics think tank the Women’s Budget Group.