Is Free School Meal Status a Valid Proxy for Socio-Economic Status (in Schools Research)?
This paper analyses whether Free School Meal (FSM) status is a valid proxy for socio-economic status when conducting schools related research. The authors compare data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) with FSM data. Significant differences are found between the two sets of data, but this cannot be seen as definitive reasoning for questioning FSM as a measure. ALSPAC is not a nationally representative sample and suffers from a lack of ethnic diversity.
