Labour Market for Teachers: Demographic Characteristics and Allocative Mechanisms

Towards better Schools and more Equal Opportunities for Learning in Italy

“…The effect of social segregation on performance can be explained by a number of interrelated factors: peer and neighbourhoods effects, as well as teachers' self-selection into better schools Leonardi, 2007;Barbieri et al, 2007). Social clustering in schools occurs through the selection of type of upper-secondary school (theoretically-based in a liceo or vocational-based in an istituto tecnico or an istituto professionale).…”

“…In fact it is quite likely that the direction of causality is twofold: VET schools have to educate pupils with lower skills but, at the same time, VET schools offer a less good education because better teachers are not attracted to such schools (Barbieri et al, 2007) and possibly because the depth of curricula is not as satisfactory as in the academic upper-secondary schools. Overall, since it is very difficult to disentangle these two directions of causality, policy makers should be aware that VET schools are probably attracting students with learning difficulties, but not providing them with enough tools to overcome those difficulties.…”

“…The average age of Italian teachers is above the OECD average, and there are more women (OECD 2008a, see also Barbieri et al, 2007). These two features have no clear implications on the average quality of Italian teaching: an older workforce is more experienced, but may also be less qualified and less able to satisfy the needs of new generations.…”

“…However, it is likely that, as for the population as a whole, Italian teachers lag behind in terms of human capital. According to Barbieri et al (2007) 41% of teachers have no more than an upper-secondary education; low educational attainment among teachers is more prevalent in the South than in the North. Only 27% of primary school teachers have more than an upper-secondary diploma; this reflects different formal access requirement to the teaching profession for different grades taught but does not necessarily result in lower teaching quality.…”

The Italian middle school in a deregulation era: modernity through path-dependency and global models

“…Also at the middle school level, contract teachers move between schools on a yearly or even monthly basis, while permanent staff may request relocation at any time as a self-selection process. The student flow between schools and classes is also a dysfunctional trend that further intensifies the high instability at the school level produced by teachers turnover (Barbieri, Cipollone and Sestito, 2007). The presence of transition points represents another enduring trait of a selective path: a first transition from the elementary to the lower secondary, and from this latter to higher secondary.…”