Early school leaving is a complex phenomenon involving a number of environmental, social and psychological variables. The research group MoMiLab of the IMT School, in collaboration with the Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center's Neuroscience Lab, conducted an innovative applied research project on the issue of early school leaving, which involved 13 secondary schools in Lucca and Turin, and collected the answers of 2,646 students. The main purpose of the project was to investigate the indices of psychological distress most commonly associated with the intention to drop out of school: difficulties in socialisation, behaviour against social norms and attention disorders were found to be central risk factors.
Early school leaving, however, involves many other environmental, social and psychological variables. In addition to individual factors, concerning the personality, behaviour, health and psychological life of the individual, measures were collected on factors involving the family and school environment and in general the life context of the person. These data are of demographic and social interest, allowing the project to be placed in the more traditional line of research on early school leaving.
A gender effect?
The data collected during the survey show a trend that marks a gender asymmetry consistent with the literature on the topic of early school leaving: boys show a significantly higher intention to drop out of school than the girls. Camilla Borgna and Emanuela Struffolino explored gender differences in more detail in their 2016 article in the journal Social Science Research. In their paper, Pushed or pulled? Girls and boys facing early school leaving risk in Italyit emerges that boys and girls drop out of school for different reasons. Among the main factors, for example, is the labour market, which would offer more opportunities to boys than to girls.
A further element related to gender socialisation concerns conscientiousness, a personality trait that reflects organisation, responsibility, and observation of rules, and is strongly correlated with diligence and reliability. This personality trait is more frequently found in girls than in boys, and is considered a contributing factor to more rewarding school performance. A higher conscientiousness score is also found in girls in our sample, and there is also a significant correlation between conscientiousness and self-efficacy at school. That is, people with a high level of conscientiousness tend to have greater confidence in their ability to cope successfully with school challenges.
Finally, beyond grades, there are other factors that push boys away from school, i.e. disciplinary problems, which also manifest themselves in our sample in a strongly skewed manner. Out of a total of 2647 respondents, 93 boys indicated that they had been suspended from school or otherwise expelled from the classroom during lessons, compared to significantly fewer girls. A further finding from our study concerns people who do not identify themselves as male or female, or who prefer not to declare their gender. This is the demographic sub-sample that not only manifests higher drop-out intention scores than the others, but also greater signs of psychological stress. Future research should also focus on the possibility of intervention to ensure the educational well-being of these groups.
The theme of nationality
In recent years, Italian schools have reflected the evolution of society, welcoming greater cultural and ethnic diversity. The data we have collected snapshot this multiculturalism: there are 189 so-called first generations, i.e. respondents with a state of birth other than Italy (average age of arrival in Italy four years), and 443 second generations, i.e. people born in Italy of at least one foreign parent. Finally, 308 people indicated that their mother tongue was not Italian.
The life of first and second generations is different from that of those born in Italy to Italian families. Indeed, boys and girls from this sub-sample report a lower quality of life and lower socio-economic status. School life is also very different between these groups, with the same attitude towards school (indeed, among the first generations we find a slightly higher appreciation for school), the first and second generations suffer from lower self-efficacy and lower school aspirations, variables that are closely correlated with each other and with the risk of dropping out. Further disadvantaging factors for the first and second generations are social relationships: mirroring each other, we find a higher isolation score and a lower social life quality index.
The research group led by Dora Bianchi of La Sapienza University in Rome has just recently conducted a study on first and second generations of international migrants from poor social backgrounds. Often victims of marginalisation, the research shows that the support and acceptance of classmates is a decisive factor in protecting the motivation and self-esteem of immigrant male and female students and ultimately counteracting the risk of dropping out, a promising result for the implications on possible prevention programmes.
Economic barriers
Most studies on early school leaving have focused on the issue of socio-economic status, highlighting it as a determining factor of educational pathways. One of the key concepts in this context is the social lift, i.e. the possibility for individuals to improve their social and economic position through education and employment. However, the effectiveness of the social lift is often hindered by deep-rooted inequalities, which are already manifested in the early stages of education.
A 2017 survey of the graduate population identified that the largest gap between graduates and non-graduates remains determined by social class, with a clear difference between sons and daughters of university-educated parents working in the tertiary sector and daughters and sons of unschooled parents belonging to the working class. This disparity is reflected in educational opportunities and academic aspirations, profoundly affecting the likelihood of academic success and the propensity to drop out.
A study led by researcher Carmen Aina focused on immigration between the south and the north, examining the educational backgrounds of people born between 1979 and 1995. The results showed that those born to parents who emigrated to the north are more likely to drop out of school than sons and daughters of natives of the north. However, the economic differences have tended to narrow since the 2000s, reducing the gap over time. Also in our sample it was seen that not only the most at-risk groups, such as the first and second generations, are characterised by a lower socio-economic status, but that the same socio-economic status is strongly correlated with the intention to drop out of school. In particular, low socio-economic status is correlated with low academic aspirations. Many young people belonging to these social classes feel that high schools, as well as universities, are not suitable environments for them, perceiving a cultural and social distance that makes it difficult to imagine a future in such contexts.
This situation highlights the need for targeted interventions that can support students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, fostering inclusion and educational continuity. Promoting policies that reduce inequalities and support the social lift is crucial to ensure that all young people have the same opportunities for success and personal fulfilment.
