IN AND OUT OF CATCHMENT AREASBETWEEN AVOIDANCE AND MULTICULTURALISM: EXPLORING THE TRANSITION TO LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN MILAN

In Italy, after the School Autonomy Reform, parents are granted freedom of choice of school since the first levels of education. Therefore, parents may enroll their children in the preferred primary or lower secondary school, regardless of the catchment area system. While research has long underlined how parents’ schooling decisions may produce and reproduce inequalities on a social and ethnic basis, in schools and urban areas, the choice of common core curriculum school has been rarely explored in Italian sociological research. The present study aims to bridge this gap in the literature, focusing on public lower secondary school choice in the city of Milan, with the aim of understanding on the basis of which declared criteria Italian parents orient their choices, how these choices are mediated by class resources and to what extent strategies of avoidance and closure are in put in place.