PRIN -2022, Unifi
UNIFI Research Unit: Valentina Tocchioni
Other Unifi researcher: Alessandra Petrucci e Gabriele Lombardi
Project lead by Università degli Studi di Cagliari (PI: Isabella Sulis), in collaboration with l’Università degli Studi di Salerno (RU: Maria Prosperina Vitale)
Brief description of the proposal
The quality of an educational system is strictly related to its capability to enhance the performances of students and to reduce inequality related to their initial conditions. Many researchers document the persistence in Italy of marked differences across educational institutions and geographical areas. The family, the school environment and the peers have also an important influence on educational choices and outcomes, as well as in the transmission of inequalities.
The project aims to study some facets of the mechanisms of reproduction of inequalities within the Italian educational system, with particular attention to the study of the role that the school and academic environment play in shaping interactions between peers, aiming at reducing initial disadvantages and gender gaps. In this context, intangible assets such as the so-called soft skills (as leadership, creativity, self-efficacy, and risk-propensity) are recognised as key variables, fundamental for the development of an innovative mind-set of young people, and consequently their personal development. The study intends to define how and in which contexts the effect of peers, observed at micro and meso level, interacts in the process of reproduction of inequalities in learning outcomes, in the persistence and transmission of intergenerational and gender disparities at school and in the subsequent transition to the university; to attain these objectives, we will take into account the geographical differences and the heterogeneity in the teaching programs. Finally, a further aim is to detect which schools and universities have been able to develop institutional arrangements and practices in such a way to perform as social equalisers, identifying those that have also triggered virtuous and egalitarian processes.