Page 19 - IO1-Report

KA201 - Strategic Partnerships for School Education
The Universal Language of Mathematics (2018-1-TR01-KA201-059704)

2009, Barban and White 2011, Gabrielli and Paterno 2011). The collected data allowed a better analysis
of the situation of foreign pupils in Italy accounting for migrant condition, countries of origin, family
situations and relationships with parents. The survey was oriented on school pupils who had at least
one foreign-born parent, were living in Italy and attending middle school at the time of the research.
The main focus of the research was social integration of pupils with foreign origins. The schools were
randomly chosen among those with 10 percent of foreign student (in five of the Central and Northern
regions: Lombardy, Veneto, Tuscany, Marches and Lazio) and 3 percent of foreign pupils (in four of the
Southern regions: Campania, Apulia, Calabria and Sicily).

Wave I worked with the sample of 6,368 foreign and 10,537 Italian respondents (Barban and Dalla
Zuanna 2010; Dalla Zuanna et al. 2009) who lived in 44 provinces and attended 228 different middle
schools. In every school the researchers interviewed three entire classes (one from each level of middle
school). In schools with more than 60 foreign pupils, data was collected from more classes to improve
the sample and balance out the ratio of natives to foreigners. In the mean, 64 Italians and 51 immigrants
were interviewed in every school. Wave I survey was focused mainly on collecting the data on
characteristics of respondents’ families, the process of migration, the way children use their time and
what are their plans for the future. However, during wave I the researchers were not collecting any
information on respondent’s scholastic achievements. (Barban and White 2011)

The next wave was the first follow-up and took place in 2008, two years after the first series of
interviews. By that time almost two thirds of the initial sample group already finished middle school.
This time the questionnaire included a set of questions regarding pupils’ scholastic achievement and the
data was collected via CATI (Computer-assisted telephone interviewing) interview among the subsample
in five Italian regions: Veneto, Marches, Apulia, Calabria and Sicily. The target population included 1,389
migrant children and 1,589 Italians. The response rate was 70 per cent among Italians and 47 per cent
among foreigners, however, the great majority of the non-responses was attributed to technical
problems (such as disrupted phone calls etc.) rather than to refusals. To collect the data on scholastic
achievements of the respondents a series of additional interviews were performed in schools (only in
Veneto and Apulia). The researchers also collected the data on the final middle school exam for 364
pupils. The general data pile, that included the results from wave I, follow-up interviews and the
supplementary survey, allowed the researchers to trace the educational career of pupils who attended
the 7th or 8th grade during the 2005/2006 school year.

This research was particularly important not only because it was the first wide survey on “second
generations”, but also because apart from foreign pupils it included also more than 10,000 young
Italians. The choice to interview also Italian children was made based on two reasons - to compare the
two groups and to discover their "strengths" and the problematic aspects. Some of the results provided
by ITAGEN2 showed in regard of emotional dimension of relationships, children from foreign or mixed
couples more often feel isolated, presumably because of language barriers. (Barban et al. 2011) The
analysis of the results of the second wave, published by Barban et al. (2011) showed that the children
of foreigners (those with at least one parent born abroad) got worse school results, but with the
difference between the children born in Italy (generations 2 and 2.5) and those who have moved there
in pre-school age (Generation 1.75 and partially Generation 1.5). Among Italians, the number of pupils
with good grades for exams is two times higher than among foreigners, even those who were born in
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