1,721,093 research outputs found
The Nexus of Gender Equality and Children’s Participation in Early Childhood Education: A Longitudinal Study in the Italian Provinces
No full textEarly childhood education (ECE) is increasingly recognized as a crucial opportunity for children's development and well-being. However, most studies at a policy level focused on public expenditure for ECE underestimating factors related to actual participation in ECE. We investigated at a local level the relationship between gender employment equality (GEE), gender wage equality (GWE), and children's participation in ECE using a high-quality national data source collecting official statistics for 103 Italian provinces from 2009 to 2019. We adopted a standardized measure of gender equality, and we estimated mixed-effects linear models and Latent Markov models to disentangle the spatial-temporal pattern of the association. Results indicate that GEE, but not GWE, is associated cross-sectionally with the rate of children's participation in ECE. We discovered 4 clusters of provinces, characterized by different degrees of estimated participation in ECE, and quite stable longitudinally. We showed that Central Italian provinces are the best performing. On this basis, acting to promote local policies focused on women's empowerment and participation in the labor market, especially in Southern European countries, may also have beneficial effects in terms of reducing children's disadvantage by improving participation rates in ECE
School-to-work transition: putting non-cognitive skills in context. The case of NEET and suggestions for policy
No full textNEETs represent a category at risk for social exclusion and may show poor non-cognitive skills. In this review we target this issue, taking the contemporary theory of skills formation as a theoretical framework. Intrapersonal agency and motivational components, including educational aspirations, goal attainability, and investing in active efforts are protective factors for a successful school-to-work transition. Having an internal locus of control may help teenagers but might not compensate for a low socioeconomic status. Experiencing high-quality apprenticeships and internships could help teenagers find their vocational specificity. Large-scale intervention programs, promoting investment in human agency and motivation constitute a proper policy strategy
Risk Factors for Dropping out of High School: A Review of Contemporary, International Empirical Research
No full textSchool dropout is still a relevant problem in the US, Canada, and European countries. The factors that determine, or contribute to, this phenomenon are still not clear and, especially in recent years, have been extensively investigated in the US, using large databases. This article presents a review of international literature from an interdisciplinary perspective, takes a developmental systems theory as a theoretical framework and examines personal, social and contextual risk factors for dropout. Results show that several determinants are associated with dropout, such as truancy, lack of motivation, health, bullying, and living in economically depressed areas. However, at the current state of the art, little is known about how these variables interact and their specific roles in different environments
Young people’s literacy, numeracy achievements, and the school-to-work transition: a longitudinal study of regional variation
No full textWe studied at a local level the relation of economic capital, cultural capital, young people’s literacy, numeracy achievements, and the school-to-work transition. We investigated whether participation rates by very young children in early childhood education (ECE) may mediate the historical effects of economic and cultural capital. We analysed longitudinal data from a high-quality national database that included information from 103 Italian provinces. We used structural equation modelling (SEM), multi-sample SEM to investigate geographical disparities, and mediation analyses. Vector Autoregression models were estimated to determine the temporal trend and the relationship occurring between economic capital and ECE. Results indicate that economic capital is associated with young people’s literacy and numeracy achievements and with the NEET rate, with only partial mediation played by the rate of participation in ECE. The effect of cultural capital on the NEET rate is near to significance, but it is strongly mediated by participation in ECE. Together, these results imply that the rate of participation in ECE in the Italian provinces may mediate the effect of cultural capital, but only partly that of economic capital
Cultural capital, economic capital, and participation in early childhood education: A place-based approach
No full textEarly childhood educational development (ECED) is increasingly recognized as a crucial period for human development. We studied the relation of cultural capital, economic capital, and participation in center-based ECED at a local level. We used a high-quality national database, collecting data from 103 Italian provinces. Choropleth maps, structural equation modeling (SEM), and mediation analysis were adopted to assess the effect of cultural and economic capital on participation in ECED. We employed multi-sample SEM to assess geographical disparities at a regional level. We found that Central Italian provinces present the highest level of cultural capital, as well as the highest rate of participation in ECED. Cultural capital, but not economic capital, is associated with participation in ECED in the short and medium term. At least in part, cultural capital can mediate a historical effect played by the economic capital or by the cultural capital itself. Together, these results highlight the importance of investing in cultural capital, as it may also foster the development and rate of participation in center-based ECED. This may mitigate the effect of social disparities and economic inequalities on education
The Effect of Cultural Capital on High School Dropout: An Investigation in the Italian Provinces
No full textThis article studies at a detailed geographical level the relation between cultural capital and high school dropout. Bronfenbrenner's systemic theory and Heckman's perspective on cognitive/non-cognitive skills are considered as theoretical framework. We analyzed data from 103 Italian provinces employing Covariance Structure Analysis and spatial indices of autocorrelation. We found a consistent protective effect of cultural capital on dropout, independently of economic performance, in Central and Southern provinces, but not in Northern provinces. Spatial analyses showed very heterogeneous patterns of autocorrelation for dropout (especially across Southern provinces) even between neighboring areas, in spite of a more compact clustering when considering cultural and economic indicators. These results indicate that living in an environment with animated cultural life might enhance students' non-cognitive skills, thus fostering their involvement in formative activities and the development of their human capital
Primordial gas heating by dark matter and structure formation
No full textDark matter (DM) decays and annihilations might heat and partially reionize the Universe at high redshift. Although this effect is not important for the cosmic reionization, the gas heating due to DM particles might affect the structure formation. In particular, the critical halo mass for collapse is increased up to a factor of ̃{}2. Also the fraction of gas which collapses inside the smallest halos is substantially reduced with respect to the cosmological value. These effects imply that DM decays and annihilations might delay the formation of the first structures and reduce the total star mass in the smallest halos
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