Conference Program

This paper aims to examine the phenomenon of school dropout, viewed as the result of a complex interplay of individual, social, economic, and institutional factors that influence, to different extents, the failure, partial participation, or discontinuous participation of young people in the education system (Autorità Garante per l'Infanzia e l'Adolescenza, 2022).

At the national level, there are two main categories of early school leaving: explicit early school leaving, corresponding to the Early Leavers from Education and Training (ELET) rate, which refers to the premature interruption of schooling, and implicit early school leaving, which refers to students who, despite having completed mandatory schooling, do not achieve adequate competence levels in key areas of knowledge.

Starting in 2019, Italy implemented an integrated system for monitoring implicit early leaving, based on the National Student Registry, established by the Ministry of Education, and on periodic standardized surveys by INVALSI (Invalsi, 2024), which allow for the objective measurement of the degree of acquisition of basic skills by the school population. At the same time, the national picture is characterized by the significant presence of so-called NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training), young people aged between 15 and 29 who are not in education, training, or employment.

According to the most recent available data from Eurostat (Eurostat, 2024), the incidence of NEETs in Italy (aged 15–29) will be 15.2%, confirming the country's second place in the EU, after Romania. This situation highlights a twofold systemic problem: on the one hand, the high rate of early school leaving; on the other, the persistent mismatch between the skills acquired and those required by the labor market.

In proposing a critical pedagogical interpretation of the relationship between educational poverty and NEET status, this paper focuses on NEET status not as an individual failure or personal choice, but as the systemic outcome of cumulative processes of educational vulnerability: fragmentation of educational environments, weakening of local networks, and insufficient integration of guidance systems and school-to-work transition pathways.

From a perspective of democratic education and educational justice, focus groups are presented, carried out in the Campania Region (Vegliante & Coppola, 2024), which involved a group of experts (teachers, operators from employment centres, counselors from CPIA) from which emerge how educational poverty is therefore interpreted not only as a risk factor, but as a priority field of pedagogical and political intervention for the construction of paths of empowerment, capacity building and active citizenship, aimed at addressing inequalities and promoting inclusive and democratic social trajectories.