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Since the origins of economic science scientists have been defining Human Capital (HC), the human being’s contribution to production by virtue of his innate and acquired abilities. In more recent times many authors linked HC to the quantity and quality of knowledge acquired in school and training. In recent years it has emerged that HC does not depend only on knowledge but also on non-cognitive skills, individual’s traits and behaviors influencing his ability to relate to others and to reality as a whole. These non cognitive skills are malleable and can be improved in the educational path; their increase leads not only to a positive effect on school and work performance but also to a greater solidity and stability. Therefore we can conclude that non cognitive skills can be seen as the observable characteristics of the underlying inseparable personality of a human being.

In the economics of education, educational production functions are widely used to evaluate the impact of different factors such as socio-economic background and school's characteristics on students' achievement. We discuss the main features of traditional value added models used in this context. We suggest the use of a multilevel latent Markov Rasch model, recently proposed in the literature, to improve the understanding of educational processes. An empirical illustration is reported in the last section.

We estimate a variety of models to evaluate costs in US higher education institutions. A novel feature of our approach involves the estimation of latent class and random parameter stochastic frontier models of the multiproduct cost function. This allows us fully to accommodate both the heterogeneity of institutions and the presence of technical inefficiencies. Our findings suggest that global economies could be achieved by effecting a reduction in the number of institutions providing undergraduate instruction, while increasing the number of institutions engaged in postgraduate activity.

This paper uses the OECD-PISA 2009 data for studying the factors associated with the probability of poor students being resilient, i.e. obtaining good test scores despite their disadvantaged socioeconomic background. The results reveal that not only students' individual characteristics matter, indeed a positive school climate is statistically associated with resiliency; also, educational systems that invest more resources and postpone tracking may help disadvantaged students to overcome their unfavourable background and promote higher equality of opportunities.

Le scuole paritarie cattoliche o cristianamente ispirate, tra marzo 2020 e febbraio 2021, hanno riorganizzato l’attività didattica in forme tali da prevenire i contagi da Covid-19. .E’ stata avvertita da tutti la mancanza delle relazioni interpersonali in presenza. Complessivamente la sfida della didattica a distanza ha sollecitato la creatività educativa degli insegnanti e dei dirigenti scolastici. Sono presentate 9 buone pratiche di dirigenza scolastica durante la pandemia e 17 buone pratiche didattiche, distribuite fra tutti i livelli scolastici. Le famiglie sono state contente di come i propri figli sono stati seguiti dalla scuola durante la fase dell’insegnamento svolto obbligatoriamente a distanza. Sono migliorate le competenze tecnologiche dei docenti che saranno impiegate anche quando la scuola potrà funzionare pienamente in presenza. The Catholic or Christianly inspired peer schools, between March 2020 and February 2021, reorganized their teaching activities in ways that prevent infections from Covid-19. Everyone felt the lack of interpersonal relationships in presence. Overall, the challenge of distance learning has stimulated the educational creativity of teachers and school managers. 9 good school leadership practices during the pandemic and 17 good teaching practices are presented, distributed across all school levels. The families were happy with how their children were followed by the school during the compulsory distance teaching phase. The technological skills of the teachers have improved and will be used even when the school will be able to function fully in the presence.

Il capitolo presenta i risultati della ricerca Lo sviluppo delle competenze cognitive e non cognitive negli studenti trentini effettuata sugli studenti delle scuole medie della PAT. La ricerca si basa su una prima indagine svolta nel maggio-giugno 2018 su studenti di terza media dell’anno scolastico in corso (2017-2018), volta a valutare l’impatto delle NCS sulle CS e l’efficacia di attività realizzate negli anni scolastici 2015-2018 con lo scopo di migliorare il livello delle NCS. L’indagine è stata svolta su oltre 5.000 giovani, ossia l’insieme degli studenti delle 58 scuole trentine che nel 2017-2018 frequentavano la terza media. Si è poi svolta una seconda indagine basata su due interviste, in dicembre 2018 e nel maggio-giugno 2019, su studenti di terza media dell’anno scolastico 2018-2019 ine- rente l’esito sulle NCS di programmi educativi predisposti ad hoc nell’ambito della ricerca. Dopo una breve ripresa della letteratura che riprende quanto detto nella prima parte del volume e che presenta le ricerche più rilevanti nel panorama internazionale inerenti i legami tra NCS e CS (par. 1), si descrive il progetto di ricerca iniziato nel 2017 per le scuole della PAT (par. 2). Particolare enfasi viene posta sui criteri di costruzione del database, ottenuto mediante matching di dati INVAL- SI, dati amministrativi della PAT e un’indagine diretta sul campione di studenti (par. 3). Il paragrafo 4 descrive la metodologia statistica applicata, mentre nel paragrafo 5 sono riportati risultati e commenti. Infine, le conclusioni evidenziano gli sviluppi ulteriori dei risultati della ricerca, in termini sia di analisi dei sistemi educativi che di policy (par. 6). La descrizione delle modalità con cui, a partire dalle informazioni ottenute dai questionari somministrati durante la ricerca, sono state rilevate e quantificate le NCS considerate nell’analisi e scelti i programmi educativi atti a migliorarle viene riportata nelle appendici. This chapter presents the results of the research The development of cognitive and non-cognitive skills in Trentino students conducted on middle school students in the PAT. The research is based on a first survey carried out in May-June 2018 on eighth-grade students of the current school year (2017-2018), aimed at assessing the impact of NCS on CS and the effectiveness of activities implemented in the 2015-2018 school years with the aim of improving the level of NCS. The survey was conducted on more than 5,000 youth, i.e., the total number of students in 58 schools in Trentino who were in the eighth grade in 2017-2018. A second survey was then conducted based on two interviews, in December 2018 and May-June 2019, of eighth-grade students from the 2018-2019 school year ine- rence the outcome on NCS of educational programs prepared ad hoc as part of the research. After a brief review of the literature that echoes what was said in the first part of the volume and presents the most relevant research in the international landscape pertaining to the links between NCS and CS (para. 1), the research project initiated in 2017 for schools in the PAT is described (para. 2). Particular emphasis is placed on the criteria used to construct of the database, obtained by matching INVAL- SI data, PAT administrative data, and a direct survey of the student sample (par. 3). Paragraph 4 describes the statistical methodology applied, while paragraph 5 reports results and comments. Finally, the conclusions highlight further developments of the research findings, in terms of both educational systems analysis and policy (par. 6). The description of the ways in which, starting with the information obtained from the questionnaires administered during the research, the NCS considered in the analysis were found and quantified, and the educational programs to improve them were chosen, is given in the appendices.

Il presente volume affronta il tema della conoscenza e dell’apprendimento in ambito scolastico e lavorativo considerato come un processo che coinvolge capacità non solo cognitive, come ricordare, parlare, comprendere, fare nessi, dedurre, valutare, ma che implica anche qualità trasversali, disposizioni della personalità dette character skills, quali l’apertura mentale, la capacità di collaborare, la sicurezza. Il titolo, Viaggio nelle character skills. Persone, relazioni, valori, esprime l’approccio che si è inteso dare al lavoro, che non intende proporre affermazioni di principio, ma vuole inoltrarsi in un percorso esplorativo nel quale confluiscono le riflessioni sviluppate da un gruppo di studiosi di varia formazione e di competenze diverse. I contributi suggeriscono le molteplici prospettive con cui accostare le character skills per averne piena contezza, proprio come quando in viaggio possiamo guardare il paesaggio naturale e le opere dell’uomo da diversi punti di vista così da farcene un’idea più ampia di ciò che sono e significano. Si tratta di un viaggio che vorremmo compiere con il lettore intorno al futuro dell’educazione e della scuola. E non solo.

This paper explores the degree of educational poverty in European countries using data from OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This research adopts the class of additive multidimensional poverty measures proposed by Alkire & Foster (2011) and investigates the degree of educational poverty in terms of incidence, breadth, depth and severity. Also, we analyse the impact of students’ characteristics and school-level factors on the probability of being educational poor in various learning dimensions. The findings reveal that between 2006 and 2015 the incidence of educational poverty became more relevant in many European countries, while most of them experienced a reduction of poverty depth and severity. Therefore, several policy scenarios are simulated in order to highlight the school factors that can be activate to alleviate the risk of educational poverty in the European countries that experienced the highest incidence of educational poor student.

According to the European University Association, nowadays financial sustainability is one of the key challenges for Higher Education Institutions. The financial sustainability of public universities is threatened by cutbacks in public funding and by society&rsquo, s growing demand for improvements to the volume and quality of services provided. A recent reform in Italy has determined that universities are required to move to accrual accounting, starting from the assumption that this system responds more effectively to issues relating to financial stability control. This paper evaluates whether the new financial reporting system is better placed to represent the universities&rsquo, conditions of financial sustainability. Moreover, specific measures have been developed to investigate which financial strategies, if any, have been adopted in Italian universities to react to the new competitive context. Working in collaboration with practitioners from the HE sector, the research team developed a framework based on specific financial ratios to assess the financial sustainability of these institutions and to analyse their financial strategies. The findings reveal that, notwithstanding some common features, there are significant variations between Italian universities and they are addressing the new challenges with a range of different approaches.

We use a statistical (multilevel) approach to study the relationship between Math Scores and individual-level and school-level factors. The sample contains data about 21,336 students sorted into 163 schools. Our results show that students attending schools in Northern Italy outperform their counterparts in the South. Moreover, the between-schools variance is much higher in Southern Italy than in Northern Italy, albeit it is not due to student sorting based on different socio-economic status (SES), as suggested by the traditional literature in this field. Finally, between-schools variance actually masks achievement differentials due to the different economic development of the Regions.

The aim of this article is to analyse the effect of introducing voucher schemes in higher education context. In the first part, the main economic characteristics of educational vouchers are discussed, in order to identify their expected effects on efficiency and equity in tertiary education. The second part contains the results of a case study that documents the experience gained at the University of Bologna between 2003/04 and 2005/06. The results suggest that the main effects of vouchers are on (1) the effectiveness of public support, and (2) course prices (fees).