Operationalizing ethnic origins: a multi-dimensional typology

Abstract This paper explores methodological issues concerning the operationalization of ethnicity in the field of education. The sole criterion of citizenship often applied in official educational statistics may exclude naturalized students with foreign and/or immigrant origins from the “non-national” category. The challenge of collecting reliable statistics on ethnic origins has become crucial in most Western European countries in recent years, as the quantification of this phenomenon is a fundamental starting point for the implementation of policies aimed at contrasting ethnic inequality and discrimination. Resorting to the 2011 Italian general population census, a multi-dimensional typology combining students’ and parents’ countries of birth, citizenship at census and citizenship at birth has been developed. Although the detection of ethnic origins should not be problematic in a country where the acquisition of citizenship is based on the right of blood, results reveal that official statistics classify almost 1 million students (9.35%) with foreign- and/or immigrant-origins as nationals. Moreover, an in-depth exploration of the origin country allows one to discern between native-born descendants of non-nationals born abroad and native-born descendants of Italian emigrants born abroad. This multi-dimensional typology may be a useful tool for obtaining more reliable data and implementing more effective policies to address educational inequalities.