Classi sociali, famiglie e disuguaglianze di istruzione in Italia, 1899-1984

Most analyses performed on IEO either do not take into account mother's occupation as an indicator of social origin, or consider it on the basis of the dominance approach. However male breadwinner and dual-earner families can be considered as different actors in the educational and labour markets, having at their disposal a different mix of economic, cultural and occupational resources. The analyses rely on a large data base consisting of 18 studies collected in Italy between 1985 and 2008, which covers cohorts born between 1899 and 1984 and includes both men and women. As for the techinque of analysis, a new variant of conditional association models is applied, in which the row and column parameters are linearly constrained. The results show that IEO follows indeed a different pattern over time according to the type of family that respondents lived in at the age of 14, and that this differs according to gender. The relative inequality between classes remained largely unchanged over the period of interest, with the exception of the agricultural classes. Finally, as shown by others before, the location of major inequalities in the educational system shifted from the transition primary-to-lower secondary to the transition lower-to-higher secondary school.