Investigating Social Integration of Second-Generation Foreign Children in Italy: A Model-Based Indicator

Alessio Buonomo, University of Naples Federico II
Stefania Capecchi , University of Naples Federico II
Rosaria Simone, University of Naples Federico II

Social inclusion and integration are key topics in social sciences, and they are particularly relevant in the educational field to counteract the experience of inequality conditions. With specific reference to migrants educational integration, in 2008 the European Commission’s Green Paper established important guidelines, stressing the importance of involving migrant communities in schools. As a matter of fact, the educational path of children with a migratory background, especially of those born abroad, can present specific problems (for instance: the linguistic ones). Our contribution concerns indicators computed on the basis of information collected as ordinal data, as generally arising from surveys where people are asked to manifest their perception about multiple aspects of a latent construct. The interest lays in synthesyzing opinions/evaluations of a complex phenomenon with a rating based on a set of ordered discrete choices. Using data stemming from the 2015 national survey on “Integration of the second generation” (ISG) - carried out in lower and upper secondary schools by the Italian National Institute of Statistics - the paper introduces an indicator of second-generation foreign children integration. Considering the procedure by Capecchi and Simone (2019), this study aims at providing a synthetic measure able to synthesize subjective evaluations while accounting for both agreement towards the items and heterogeneity/uncertainty in response patterns. Main Reference Capecchi, S. & Simone, R. (2019). A Proposal for a Model-Based Composite Indicator: Experience on Perceived Discrimination in Europe, Soc Indic Res, 141(1) 95-110 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-018-1848-9

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 Presented in Session P3. Poster Session Migration, Economics, Environment, Methods, History and Policy