Territorial Differences: What Role Does School Play?

The purpose of this essay is to present certain thoughts prompted by a research project on youth policy in the Pianura Est social services-health district of the Bologna metropolitan area which is still under way. In particular, from the starting point of the then Bologna province school observatory, we consider the impact of the area’s structural conditions on delayed study progression and school commuting. The underlying hypothesis is that territorial differences impact on the effects of school socio-cultural segregation – by amplifying or tempering them – and consequently the opportunities of students from various contexts to break free of these in an educational demand mechanism generated by supply.