Does Schooling Equalize Achievement Inequality in Italy? Evidence from an Adjacent-grade Discontinuity Design

The role of schools in equalizing educational disparities has been a subject of debate in educational sociology. This study revisits the school-as-equalizer hypothesis by empirically examining it along lines of socioeconomic status, migration background, and gender, and in the societal and educational context of Italy. Drawing on educational census data (INVALSI) on mathematics and reading skills of more than half-a-million students in fifth and sixth grade, we develop a refined adjacent-grade discontinuity design (AGD) that, in contrast to previous applications, can separate the effects of school-year exposure from the effects of both chronological age and relative age in classroom. Results demonstrate that school exposure has clearly contributed to narrowing disparities in learning by social and migration background. However, schooling did not equalize gender gaps in neither reading or math. In fact, results suggest boys gaining comparably more from schooling. Our study’s methodological and substantive insights challenge and refine the debate on the ambivalent role of schooling in educational inequalities by providing, for the first time, empirical evidence from a Southern European country.