Oxford University admissions favour men, study finds

guardian.co.uk Education Web
• White students also more likely to be offered place
• Admissions director rejects discrimination claims
Jessica Shepherd
The Guardian,
Wednesday 19 August 2009

Women are less likely than men to be offered a place at Oxford University even when they have better grades and are from similar backgrounds, a study has found.
Academics at Oxford, Manchester and London University's Institute of Education analysed details of 1,700 UK students who had applied to 11 Oxford colleges in 2002.
They asked students what kind of school they attended, their GCSE and predicted A-level results, the number of books they read in a year, and the jobs and qualifications of their parents.
The students were asked how often, in the past year, they had visited a museum, art gallery, classical music concert, theatre, opera or ballet, and whether they played a musical instrument. They were then asked to tick in which field figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Lloyd George and Graham Greene were best known.
The academics found men were twice as likely as women to be offered a place in a science subject, and 1.4 times more likely than women to gain a place in an arts subject. This was despite the fact that the women had the same or better grades, had similar scores on the historical figures test, came from similar backgrounds to the men and claimed to have read more books.
Some 86.3% of the women had been predicted straight As at A-level, compared with 81.5% of the men. Despite this, 34% of the women were offered places, against 40% of the men.
The research, published in the latest edition of the journal Sociology, also found white applicants were five times more likely than students of south Asian heritage to be offered a place on science courses. Students from state schools were 1.7 times more likely than those from private schools to be offered a place on an arts course, even when they achieved the same or worse grades, were from similar backgrounds and had comparable scores in the historical figures test. There was no difference between state and private school pupils on science courses.

Full Story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/aug/19/oxford-university-men-places-women