Conference Program

This paper examines educational inequalities through the case of Southern Italian migrations to the North (Italy and Europe), developing a Bourdieusian and intersectional framework to analyse how territorial origin shapes social recognition, educational trajectories, and opportunities for social mobility. In particular, the paper highlights the role of territorial stigma in reproducing inequalities and constraining opportunities for social change within educational systems. Drawing on documented micro-aggressions against “new Southern Italian migrants,” the paper examines how these stereotypes have persisted over time—becoming more latent yet remaining deeply effective in structuring social reality and producing forms of structural exclusion (Mazzola et al., 2019; Veneziano Labanca et al., 2025; Berti & Zanotelli, 2008).

In the Italian context, historical North–South divides and entrenched anti-Southern racism manifest in unequal access to educational opportunities, including educational services, underinvestment in school infrastructure in the South, and higher levels of educational poverty. This divide also persists in more recent educational migrations, including at the university level. In this context, migration has often functioned as a strategy for social mobility, with individuals and families moving to Northern Italy or Northern Europe in pursuit of better educational and economic opportunities.

The theoretical framework integrates Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice with insights from social stratification and migration sociology. While Bourdieu documented the reproduction of inequalities through habitus, symbolic power, and different forms of capital, this paper extends his framework to a geographical dimension by conceptualizing Geographic Capital as a distinct form of capital. Geographic Capital interacts with cultural and symbolic capital, is field-dependent, closely tied to social class and gender, and operates through mechanisms of symbolic violence that structure recognition and legitimacy within educational contexts. This approach allows us to integrate social class, gender, and territorial origin as interdependent axes shaping educational outcomes, highlighting how inequalities are reproduced within schooling.

The concept emerges from structural inequalities both within the nation-state and across European regions, helping to explain the “territorial penalty” observed in historical internal migrations of the 1960s as well as in more recent mobility patterns, including second-generation educational outcomes (Badino, 2014; Berti & Zanotelli, 2008; Ceravolo et al., 2011; Panichella, 2014, 2018; Romito, 2012). By positioning geographic origin as a central axis of inequality within an intersectional perspective, the paper combines decolonial and gender analyses with Bourdieusian sociology (Bourdieu, 1972; Kimberlé Crenshaw, 1989; Conelli, 2022; Chambers, 2014; Giuliani, 2011; Mezzadra, 2002). Historical patterns of internal migration and the formation of peripheral neighbourhoods demonstrate how territorial stigma and layered social networks are reproduced across generations, shaping educational aspirations, trajectories, and opportunities for mobility.

The key contribution of the paper is both conceptual and analytical. Geographic Capital provides a tool to understand how territorial origin mediates recognition, capital convertibility, and social trajectories within educational fields. By foregrounding the spatialized dimension of inequality, the paper contributes to debates on the reproduction of educational inequalities and offers insights for addressing persistent territorial disparities in contemporary European education.