Sessione 11 - Rethinking educational poverty from a sociological perspective: indicators, measurements and approaches

Coordinatori / Coordinatrici di sessione: Antonio de Falco (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II), Enrica Morlicchio (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II), Jonathan Pratschke (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II)

Abstract:
In recent decades, educational poverty (EP) and its measurement have emerged as one of the most critical and important topics in the international scientific debate. Given its role in producing social inequalities, several disciplines have addressed the topic, attempting to delimit the perimeter of EP and to define methods for its analysis. However, despite many efforts made by scholars, there is no common consensus on how to define and measure EP, mainly due to its internal complexity and multidimensionality.

Mostly, four different main problems emerge: EP is frequently associated with pedagogical and individual performances in educational achievement; the targeting of the population (i.e. which age group should be considered?); sociological reflection to understand the main mechanisms behind the phenomenon is not fully developed; finally, the existence of multiple definitions of EP may affect the possibility of measuring and collecting data on the same phenomenon.

In the Italian case, the first attempt to define and measure EP was made by the NGO Save the Children, followed by the proposals of a team of researchers from the University of Pisa, the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), and Con i Bambini impresa sociale, a third sector organization. However, despite the significant progress made in the study of EP, there is still work to be done to achieve a shared definition and accurate measurement of the phenomenon.

Accepted paper:

• Educational poverty: definition of the concept and ways to measure it. A literature review di Marco Ferracci (Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II), Antonio De Falco (Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II), Marco Gherghi (Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II), Rosaria Romano (Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II)
• Measuring and representing educational poverty. An empirical application of recent indicators di Giulia Biazzi (Università degli studi di Brescia)
• Leggere e mappare la povertà educativa attraverso alcuni indicatori costruiti dai dati delle Rilevazioni Nazionali INVALSI di Paolo Barabanti (INVALSI)
• Building indicators of educational poverty: a reflection on the measures to be adopted di Sabrina Girardi (Università degli studi di Bari), Caterina Balenzano (Università degli studi di Bari), Giuseppe Moro (Università degli studi di Bari)