Educational poverty

Educational poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon resulting from the family and social context in which children and young people live.

Over the last decade, the issue of educational poverty has received increasing attention in various academic, political, legislative, and media contexts, highlighting the need for a definition and a set of agreed statistical indicators.

For this reason, in 2023, Istat established an inter-institutional scientific Commission with the aim of defining and measuring educational poverty and identifying the areas most affected by the problem.

The Commission concluded its work in January 2026. The main findings are presented at the conference Measuring Educational Poverty: Findings and Outlook from the Work of the Inter-institutional Scientific Commission, held in Naples on 16 and 17 April 2026.