Institute of Education London

UPTAP

Understanding Population Trends and Processes Programme

This research explored the potential of matching newly available data on languages spoken by children at school to other administrative data in order to estimate total populations of language speakers and the relationship between language, ethnicity and social position.

Building a Linguistic Diversity Map in London

2008 was the first year for which data on the languages spoken by schoolchildren schools had been consistently recorded for all schools, providing an opportunity to explore the extent of linguistic diversity, the interactions between language, ethnicity and socio-economic characteristics, and the relative importance of these factors for education and other outcomes.
The project provided some initial analysis of the school language data, through a series of maps showing the linguistic diversity of children in London (the UK's most linguistically diverse area) and also generated a small scale 'proof of concept' case study to examine the value and practicality of combining this data with other sources, most notably GP registers, and Local Land and Property Gazetteers.

Findings

The research enabled us to estimate total populations of language speakers and the relationship between language, ethnicity and social position.  Our work suggests that language spoken provides a means to better understand the relationship between ethnicity and educational performance. We provided information and guidance for users on "how to do it for themselves".

Languages, ethnicity, and education in London, working paper  |  Download (pdf) 

See recent London Digest publication about the project  |  Download (pdf).
For further information on the final report, please contact Professor Dick Wiggins.