Conference Agenda

Research on school mobility often emphasises its disruptive effects on student achievement. However, it can also be the result of a strategic choice to access better educational opportunities. This study examines the effects of school mobility from marginal to central areas in Italy, characterised by significant geographical disparities in the provision of educational services and considerable mobility in the transition to upper secondary education. Using longitudinal student population data on two cohorts of students, we apply a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the effect of school mobility from marginal to central areas between grades 8 and 10 on students' standardised test scores in reading and mathematics. In addition, we provide an indirect test of three key mechanisms highlighted in the literature on school mobility: logistical costs, changes in school quality, and dissolution of social ties. The results show that mobility to central areas improves academic performance in both Italian reading and mathematics, with gains of 0.067 and 0.078 standard deviations, respectively. Importantly, the positive effect is more pronounced for students who move to higher quality schools and for those who commute shorter distances, while the dissolution of social ties seems to play a negligible role.

Implicit Dropout refers to students who, while obtaining credentials certifying educational cycle completion, fail to achieve basic competency in any field. It can be seen as a strategy opposite to the one adopted by Early School Leavers, who abandon education because of the perceived advantage of this choice on their future prospects. While the consequences of ESL can easily be tracked through official statistics, the ones relating to Implicit Dropout are unclear.

In the first phase of our study, we apply a multilevel approach to disentangle individual, class, and school-level factors that may influence the likelihood of underachievement in the 13th grade, while also aiming to distinguish implicit dropout from other types of low achievement and shed some lights on the differences between the two conditions. This analysis uses INVALSI data from the 2019 cohort to assess divergences in the identified underachievement conditions related to geographical macro areas and school tracks and disentangle the role of students, families and peers’ characteristics. These first findings constitute the basis for exploring in further research how future educational choices and performance in tertiary education are related by the assessed condition of implicit dropout for students with different profiles. 

Retention is a policy used in many countries to deal with situations of poor academic performance. While the effects of retention on retained students are often debated, evidence on its effects on the general student population is more limited. This paper focuses on the causal effect of retention on the learning of the student population by exploiting variation in school 'strictness', understood as the propensity of schools to retain students, net of observable characteristics of the schools and of the students. We use a rich longitudinal dataset covering the population of students who entered grade 9 in Lombardy, Piedmont and Veneto in 2014/15. As the decision to retain is discretionary, schools may differ in their strictness. Therefore, it is possible to exploit the variability in strictness between schools by comparing the learning level of promoted students in more rigorous schools with other comparable students in less strict schools. We find (preliminary results) that, with the exception of non-traditional lyceums, school strictness does not influence INVALSI results in grade 10. Our analyses suggest that retention not only has negative effects on the retained students, but in most cases does not even contribute to maintaining the learning standards of the other students.

Most parents overestimate their children's skills and performance in school. These parental misconceptions can exacerbate educational inequality, as parents’ beliefs about their children's current performance influence their investments in their children's skill development. This paper utilizes variation in report card distribution across federal states in Germany to examine whether high-stakes signals from schools regarding a child's performance affect parental beliefs and behavior. Our findings indicate that while information from schools does not impact parents’ beliefs, it does influence their behavior. This suggests that receiving signals from schools can be valuable, as it reinforces the importance of educational activities for parents, although it does not lead to a change in their beliefs.

The present contribution investigates the factors affecting students’ decision process during the educational transition from high school to university. Specifically, it examines the role of egocentric networks as a form of social capital, considering their interplay with socioeconomic background and familiar context. Family, teachers, classmates at school, friends, and acquaintances in social environments can provide different kinds of support, facilitating access to university. Indeed, students embedded in strong social networks tend to experience better integration and personal development. An integrated data collection approach, combining a questionnaire with a network-based research design, will be adopted in a sample of students attending high schools located in Southern Italy. The first insights on the pilot survey highlight trends in the composition and structure of egocentric networks, including gender dynamics, social circles, and support types.