Educational outcomes in secondary schools in Bologna

The aim of the present work is to analyse the relationship between some of the individual characteristics of the cohort of students who were born in 1988 and their educational outcomes during their school career at secondary schools in Bologna. In recent years measuring success at school has become increasingly important as it has become the key concept behind how a school is seen: it is now a public institution which is assigned the task of training citizens to be able to manage their lives as a project. Therefore an analysis of individual characteristics that may significantly influence success at school represents a first and fundamental step towards defining strategies to curb the phenomenon of school drop-out. Extensive international research has shown that there is a close correlation between educational outcomes and individual characteristics such as constancy, levels of distraction and activity; furthermore, individual temper, approach to new situations and adaptability have proved, although to a lesser extent, to be correlated to success at school (Harter, 1983). Recent research done by the CNR (National Research Institute) in Rome has shown the great influence a student's self-esteem, his skills, life experiences and family links and relationship with society has on educational outcome (Varmigli et al., 2002). Unfortunately, with the data currently available, it isn't possible to investigate in detail the reasons behind educational outcomes; however, the data is sufficient to give a descriptive analysis of the phenomenon and to attempt to understand the effect of the main social and demographic characteristics of the students during their school career.