Shaping and testing the GUIE dataset: Roma, Gypsy and Traveller children case study

This project aims to shape, test and demonstrate the value of the newly linked Growing Up in England (GUIE) Wave 1 dataset in addressing data gaps and building up new quantitative evidence. It will do this with a focus on Roma, Gypsy and Traveller (RGT) children and young people.

The GUIE dataset

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has linked 2011 Census records to attainment data from a bespoke extract of Department for Education data named the All Education Dataset for England (AEDE) to create the GUIE dataset. This new data linkage will enable us to examine the educational progression of a cohort of children and young people who were aged 10 to 25 at the time of the 2011 Census. We will be able to follow the cohort of children up to academic year 2014/15 (when the children were ages 14 to 29) using the educational records included in the AEDE. In addition, we will be able to examine the previous educational records of the cohort going back to 2001/02. In an earlier ‘proof of concept’ GUIE dataset, around two million records were matched. We will be using wave 1 of the GUIE dataset for our analysis which will include records from further education colleges as well as schools, producing a larger overall sample size for analysis.

Key questions

The proposed project will explore the potential for using the GUIE dataset to build up a much-needed evidence base on the relationship between RGT childhood circumstances and experiences and their educational participation and progression, including within post-16 education.

There are three main objectives to this project: 

1. To shape and develop the linkages of the GUIE dataset to maximise its potential for the analysis of the RGT group
2. To test the GUIE dataset and evaluate its quality for the purposes of RGT analysis by providing feedback on unmatched cases
3. To conduct initial analysis of the GUIE data with a view to demonstrating its value added in building up new evidence, knowledge and understanding of the RGT group. 

What is the potential impact of this work?

A lack of robust data limits knowledge and understanding of the RGT community and is a barrier to effective policy interventions and, ultimately, to social change and equality. The proposed research will promote the public good by helping to build up quantitative evidence on the childhood circumstances and educational achievements and trajectories of children and young people from the RGT ethnic minority group, and by contributing to the evidence base for policymaking.

Amongst other early uses, the findings could feed into work being undertaken by the Children’s Commissioner’s Office on childhood vulnerability ,  work undertaken by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) in building up its evidence base for the national strategy for tackling RGT inequalities. In addition, it could feed into work by the Race Disparity Unit in addressing a lack of RGT data and work undertaken by NGOs working with Roma, Gypsy and Travellers.

The research will address the conceptual and methodological challenges associated with tailoring and using the GUIE dataset for the analysis of the childhood circumstances and educational outcomes of RGT children and young people. The findings will add to a growing body of research that addresses the problem of ‘data exclusion’ and ‘invisibility’ in social statistics, and which builds up quantitative evidence on disadvantaged and at-risk groups of children.

Project details

• Researchers include Polly Vizard and Polina Obolenskaya, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE), London School of Economics (LSE)
• Funded value: £168,234
• Duration of project: 1 January 2021 – April 2022

This project is funded via the ADR UK Strategic Hub Fund, a dedicated fund for commissioning research using newly linked administrative data, in consultation with the former Research Commissioning Board (RCB). Details of the funding grant awarded by ADR UK to UWE for this project can also be found on the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Gateway to Research platform.