Statistics and Citizenship

Statistics and Citizenship is a project promoting statistical literacy, endorsed by Istat and launched in 2017. It is aimed at upper secondary schools and encourages students to test their perception of reality by comparing it with official statistical data. The project’s motto, “Shall we bet?”, invites to reflect on the reliability of one’s own beliefs or information widely available online: if we were to bet on an outcome based solely on our impressions, would we really win the bet? Or would objective data show us that our perception has deceived us?

How does the project work?

Each year, the project addresses a new theme of interest to young people: social, economic, or environmental, and analyses it from the perspective of subjective perception and official statistical data.

The activities involve the whole school, which is asked to complete an online questionnaire, but the implementation of the entire project is managed by a small team of students that guide all its phases:

• Collecting the perceptions: all students in the school complete an online questionnaire prepared by Istat, expressing their perception on various aspects of the chosen topic;
• Data analysis: the team of students involved in the project is responsible for collecting and processing the responses, comparing them with official Istat data, selected from institutional documents and databases;
• Measurement of the gap: the comparison between perception data and objective data allows to quantify the distance between what is believed and what the official statistics reveal.

Training and skills: during the process, students acquire skills in statistical analysis, graphical representation of data, scientific dissemination, event organisation, results presentation, and data comparison from different sources, both direct and indirect.

Final event at Istat: participating teams are invited to a national meeting at Istat (in person or online). During the event, students share their experience, analyse the results of their research, and discuss their growth journey and acquired skills.

For more information, write to: statisticaecittadinanza@istat.it