Event information
About the project
Previous research has shown that students who are first-in-family have lower chances of attending university. However, we do not have robust evidence on 1) how first-in-family status intersects with identified equity groups, such as low-socioeconomic status background(SES) and Women In Non Traditional Areas (WINTA), and 2) how first-in-family individuals access different higher education fields of study. Furthermore, most of the Australian evidence on first-in-family students comes from small-scale qualitative studies. This project uses unique whole-of-population administrative data (PLIDA) linking, among others, Census and higher education records to produce robust evidence on intersections between first-in-family status, equity groups, university access, and field-of-study choice.
About Dr Tomasz Zajac
Tomasz is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) at the University of Queensland (UQ) and the Deputy Lead of the Opportunities research program at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (the Life Course Centre). He is a sociologist specialising in quantitative methods, particularly in using linked administrative data. His research interests include individual educational trajectories, especially within tertiary education, labour market outcomes of graduates, and social inequality and its impact on young people’s educational and professional paths.
