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The goal of successfully incorporating ethnic minorities represents a decisive challenge for modern societies. However, migratory background continues to negatively affect the life trajectories of migrants' descendants. 'Hard' and 'soft' barriers determine long-term inequality gaps and low intergenerational social mobility in both longstanding and more recent European immigration countries. This special issue complements the sparse findings on education, labour market outcome and wellbeing relating to immigrant offspring by providing original insight in order to individuate strategies for removing the obstacles that the descendants of migrants face. In-depth analyses have been performed for specific Southern European contexts in order to explore the specific inequality patterns that are emerging in these more recent and unexplored immigration contexts. The main findings suggest that the lower academic performances of immigrants' descendants can be raised through language-support programmes, mentoring programmes, positive role and disciplinary climate, extra-scholastic activities and parental involvement. Equality opportunities in education should support school-to-work transitions and better allocate the underutilised human capital reserves of migrants' descendants. Conversely, long-lasting penalties in educational careers and integration processes may arise when children are physically separated from their parents because of delayed family reunification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In terms of organizational structure, educational systems are closely related to the administrative systems of their respective countries. Looking at Southern European countries (and namely Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and, to a lesser degree, France) from a comparativist stance, one can see a number of common elements characterizing their administrative systems. Their main common feature is the lack of decentralization in educational decisionmaking, a fact that makes them rank very low in OECD assessments. This paper attempts to identify the reasons and factors that led Southern European countries to this position by examining their laws and their administrative and educational system peculiarities. The type of legal system and type of state in Southern Europe offer an alternative analysis platform when researching the similarities and differences of educational systems. This comparativist view opens up a broad research field: it can support networking and help exchange ideas on policy and practices with a view to improving education and the future of our children.