Creating open source geodemographics: Refining a national classification of census output areas for applications in higher education

This paper explores the use of geodemographic classifications to investigate the social, economic and spatial dimensions of participation in Higher Education (HE). Education is a public service that confers very significant and tangible benefits upon receiving individuals: as such, we argue that understanding the geodemography of educational opportunity requires an application-specific classification that exploits under-used educational data sources. We develop a classification for the UK higher education sector, and apply it to the Gospel Oak area of London. We discuss the wider merits of sector specific applications of geodemographics and enumerate the advantages of bespoke classifications for applications in public service provision.