School tracking and social selection in northern Italy

The links between tracked secondary schooling and social selection form part of a complex narrative regarding educational inequality in European schools. The relative contribution of family and school to unequal educational outcomes has dominated educational debates across the continent for more than fifty years. This article contributes to this debate by focussing on students in the final year of schooling in northern Italy. It asks whether there are social differences in enrolments and aspirations across the three different types of schools. It also considers whether aspirations can be linked to differences in levels of family support or to school-related factors. To examine these links, we consider four main ways of conceptualising aspirations and propose an approach that draw on theories explaining preference formation and choice.