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This paper analyses the causal effect of grade retention on students’ high school track decisions in Italy. Using longitudinal administrative data, we propose a matching strategy to assess the impact of retention in institutional settings with substantial leeway in the promotion/retention decision. If decision makers differ in their propensity to retain students (strictness), it is reasonable to expect some of the students kept back to be fully on a par with others who are promoted. Assuming that strictness is a school-related factor, we argue that it is not theoretically possible to find a good match within the same school. We therefore match retained students to students with a similar array of ability measures, who were promoted in schools displaying a lower degree of strictness. We find that grade retention dramatically increases school dropout rates and that the negative impact is stronger for students with poorly educated or immigrant parents.

Grade repetition requires students with lower performance in comparison with their peers to repeat the same grade for an additional year. Educators and parents generally favour such policy. The distribution of grade repetition among different levels of education varies across educational systems, but, in general, all European countries rely on grade repetition to improve performance of students. Yet, little attention has been paid to the link between grade repetition and inequality in educational opportunities. By relying on an ad-hoc large panel dataset which collects the population of secondary school students in three northern Italian regions, the present paper asks to which extent disadvantaged students (in terms of parents’ educational title and migration background) incur in grade repetition on top of prior performance differences. The paper also contributes to further the understanding of the interaction between school context (in terms of track and social composition) and family background in determining a grade repetition. Italy is a relevant case study in the European context; as in other southern European countries, grade repetition typically occurs during high school, significantly fluctuates across tracks, and teachers have a high degree of discretion in implementing this remedial policy. This paper suggests to carefully use grade repetition - especially with regard to students with a disadvantaged economic and social background. Among students with comparable (poor) performance, the risk of grade repetition is substantially higher for students with low educated or migrant parents. By contrast, grade repetition for students with highly educated parents is smaller in academic tracks and schools with a large share of students with tertiary-educated parents. The paper critically assesses likely justification for the observed inequalities in grade repetition such as differences in parents’ support and teachers’ expectations.

Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 28 septembre 2019. EchoGéo est mis à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Attribution-Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale-Pas de Modification 4.0 International