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TopAdolescent Disorders And The Drop-Out Phenomenon
Irregular attendance and failures are often bound to end in the “drop-out,” a phenomenon characterized by students withdrawing from the educational path. It will inevitably affect the young’s future identity and work, as they will live a future marked by unstable and irregular working paths and social exclusion with an exponential increase of “NEET” (i.e., youth not in employment, education or training) (Dorn, 1993). This background is confirmed by the 2019 report of Oxfam (Oxfam Italia, 2021a) (Eurostat), which indicated that 14.5% of children aged between 18 and 24 had dropped out of school, limiting themselves to the secondary school degree. Even the data from the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istituto Nazionale di Statistica [ISTAT]) takes into consideration the period from 2017 to 2019 (i.e., pre-pandemic period). This phenomenon is strongly rooted in Italy, where one student out of four aged between 15 and 29 abandons education. Also, in relation to the drop-out indicator that affects the young aged between 18 and 24, Italy, compared to the European average (10.6%), shows to be the fourth country to record a higher incidence of early school leaving (14.5%) after Spain (17.7%), Malta (17.4%), and Romania (16.4%). The ISTAT (2019b) clearly evidenced how this gap, compared to the European average set by the Europe 2020 Strategy at 10%, rises to -3,9 points. The phenomenon affects mainly males (16.5%), less women (12.3%) and young foreigners, and it is evident that it is strongly rooted especially in the south. All this proves that school drop-out is not spread evenly among the population (Batini & Bartolucci, 2016). The data in questionhighlight how this problem affects the entire Italian Peninsula, extending from the Mezzogiorno (i.e., Southern Italy) (18.8%), through the centre (10.7%) up to the north (12.2%). This situation is confirmed by an ISTAT’s (2021) report, which illustrates that Italy is still far from the target set by the Europe 2020 Strategy. Indeed, 13.1% (equal to 543,000) of the young leave school. This testifies a slight decrease of the phenomenon, compared to 2019.