Conference Program

The institutional definition of school dropout only partially captures the breadth of its implications and consequences. While it is generally understood as the lack or irregular use of education and training services during school age, the phenomenon in practice reflects the interaction of individual, familial, social, political, economic, and territorial factors. Moreover, the long-term consequences of high dropout rates are often underestimated, despite their systemic effects on individuals, social cohesion, and economic development.

This raises a key question: is school dropout primarily a matter of educational system performance, or does it entail broader political implications?

Drawing on empirical evidence collected in Rome’s Municipality VI through the project BELLA! Fateci spazio, coordinated by ActionAid Italy in partnership with local organizations and in collaboration with IREF, this paper examines the structural conditions that reproduce educational disadvantage in peripheral urban contexts. These areas are characterized by multidimensional poverty and by vulnerabilities that increase the likelihood of the intergenerational transmission of educational inequality.

Based on an integrated set of quantitative and qualitative data, the analysis explores how the local configuration of policies and institutional arrangements can either mitigate or reinforce existing inequalities. Within this framework, early school leaving is interpreted not simply as an individual or family outcome, but as the manifestation of broader mechanisms of social and territorial inequality that traverse educational institutions and local communities.

Through a cross-cutting analysis of interventions implemented in contexts of vulnerability and marginality, the paper proposes a broader operational understanding of early school leaving that accounts for its causes, reinforcing and mitigating factors, and long-term consequences. By doing so, it seeks to reposition the issue within a political perspective that acknowledges the central role of educational inequalities, moving beyond a purely technical or administrative approach.

Finally, the discussion highlights the relationship between community dynamics and educational processes, emphasizing the need for integrated, high-impact public policies aimed at prevention and at the progressive construction of an education system approaching the goal of “zero dropout”.