Mechanisms of peer interactions between native and non-native students: rejection or integration?

This paper focuses on mechanisms of “peer interactions” among native and non-native students. We present a theoretical framework based on Lazear (2001) education production model and on the “sub-cultural” sociological theory and we test the theoretical predictions exploiting a dataset of Italian junior high school. Results show that non-native school share has small and negative impacts on Language test scores of natives’ peers, while it does not significantly affect Math test scores. The negative effects to natives’ attainment are concentrated in schools characterized by low levels of non-natives’ isolation or where non-natives’ school share is above 10%.Peer effects, native and non-native students, social interactions

Mechanisms of peer interactions between native and non-native students: rejection or integration?

This paper focuses on mechanisms of “peer interactions” among native and non-native students. We present a theoretical framework based on Lazear (2001) education production model and on the “sub-cultural” sociological theory and we test the theoretical predictions exploiting a dataset of Italian junior high school. Results show that non-native school share has small and negative impacts on Language test scores of natives’ peers, while it does not significantly affect Math test scores. The negative effects to natives’ attainment are concentrated in schools characterized by low levels of non-natives’ isolation or where non-natives’ school share is above 10%

Quality differentials in Italian Universities' freshmen: the case of Medical and Dental Surgery schools

The paper compares the quality of Italian Medical schools’ freshmen on the basis of the scores obtained in the locally conducted entry exams which are using a common national test frame. The test is quite selective (partly because of the reduced size of the intake yearly allowed): winners are people on average better than the average graduates of their own secondary schools and 15% of them have already had some college education in other fields. Among Universities there appear to be sizable and stable over time differences in the average quality of freshmen; while students from the South have on average worse results in the tests, those of them moving to Northern Universities contribute to the higher average quality of these Universities’ freshmen. Comparing, for Dental Surgery schools which have used both, local tests and a national test (the position in the national test governing the priority in the choice of the school where to enroll), it seems that the latter amplifies (shrinks) the difference between (within each of the several) Universities in the freshmen’s composition.college enrollment, freshmen quality, selection mechanisms

Students' cheating as a social interaction: Evidence from a randomized experiment in a national evaluation program

We analyze students' cheating behavior during a national evaluation test. We model the mechanisms that trigger cheating interactions between students and show that, when monitoring is not sufficiently accurate, a social multiplier may magnify the effects on students' achievements. We exploit a randomized experiment, which envisaged the presence of an external inspector in the administration and marking of the tests, to estimate a structural (endogenous) social multiplier in students' cheating. The empirical strategy exploits the Excess-Variance approach (Graham, 2008). We find a strong amplifying role played by social interactions within classrooms: students' cheating behaviors more than double the class average test scores results. The effects are found to be larger when students are more homogeneous in terms of parental background characteristics and social ties

Bullied because younger than my mates? The effect of age rank on victimization at school

Using census data on three cohorts of 5th grade Italian students we investigate how the ordinal rank in the within-school age distribution affects the probability of being bullied. Identification is achieved by exploiting within-school between-cohort variation in the age composition of different school cohorts, and through an IV strategy based on the discontinuity in the probability of enrolling in a given school year generated by an end-of-year cut-off rule. We find that being in the upper part of the school age distribution reduces the probability of being bullied: a one-decile increase in the within-school rank decreases the probability of being victimized by about one percentage point. The effects are stronger for females, children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and children spending the entire day at school; they do not depend on the choice of the reference group, as defined according to socio-demographic characteristics

Efficiency of dispersive wave generation in dual concentric core microstructured fiber

We describe the generation of powerful dispersive waves that are observed when pumping a dual concentric core microstructured fiber by means of a sub-nanosecond laser emitting at the wavelength of~1064 nm. The presence of three zeros in the dispersion curve, their spectral separation from the pump wavelength, and the complex dynamics of solitons originated by the pump pulse break-up, all contribute to boost the amplitude of the dispersive wave on the long-wavelength side of the pump. The measured conversion efficiency towards the dispersive wave at 1548 nm is as high as 50%. Our experimental analysis of the output spectra is completed by the acquisition of the time delays of the different spectral components. Numerical simulations and an analytical perturbative analysis identify the central wavelength of the red-shifted pump solitons and the dispersion profile of the fiber as the key parameters for determining the efficiency of the dispersive wave generation process.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figure

SOCIAL INTERACTIONS AT SCHOOL

Il lavoro tratta gli effetti delle interazioni sociali tra compagni di scuola o di classe (c.d. peer effects) sugli apprendimenti degli studenti delle scuole medie. Il periodo di frequenza della scuola media rappresenta un momento critico nello sviluppo dell’adolescente che passa molto tempo con i compagni (a scuola e fuori da scuola) determinando forti legami di amicizia che ne influenzano lo sviluppo. Nel primo e nel secondo capitolo si tratta dell’effetto delle interazioni sociali tra studenti nativi e non nativi sull’apprendimento. Il terzo capitolo analizza il comportamento di cheating durante gli esami ufficiali come una forma di collaborazione che scaturisce da interazioni sociali. Il lavoro contribuisce alla letteratura esistente identificando gli effetti delle interazioni sociali con metodi innovativi e fornendo un’interpretazione stilizzata dei risultati mediante semplici modelli teorici. La tesi utilizza una banca dati innovativa che unisce i risultati dei test Invalsi in matematica e italiano (Esame Finale del I Ciclo, e Programma di Valutazione Nazionale, a.s. 2007-08, 2008-09, 2010-11), a dati amministrativi sulle scuole e dati censuari sulla popolazione (Censimento 2001). I risultati mostrano che le interazioni sociali influenzano in maniera significativa i risultati scolastici degli studenti.I focus on social interactions among junior high school students attending the same class or the same school. Junior high school is generally considered by educational psychologists as the period in which friendships ties are usually formed and interactions with school mates take a relevant part of students’ time at school and outside school. In first and in the second chapter I focus on the effect on attainment of social interactions between native and non-native students. The third chapter deals with students’ cheating as a form of social interaction among classmates taking an official exam. The thesis contributes to the existing literature in proposing different empirical strategy to identify social interactions parameters and linking the results to stylized theoretical frameworks to shed light on the possible social mechanisms driving the estimated effects. The three chapters exploit rich and newly available datasets combining test score results in Math and Language from INVALSI (First Cycle Final Exam and National Evaluation Program, s.y. 2007-08, 2008-09, 2010-11), school administrative records, and the Italian Population Census Survey 2001. The results of the research demonstrate a strong role played by social interactions among school mates in affecting students’ attainment

Rethinking the crime reducing effect of education: the role of social capital and organized crime *

Abstract This paper estimates the causal effect of education on adolescent crime by exploiting a compulsory education reform implemented in 1999 in Italy. To identify the causal relation we use the reform as an instrument for adolescent high school enrollment, and compare the offending rates of the cohorts affected by the reform with the ones not affected. We find that one percentage point increase in the enrollment ratio reduces adolescent crime by 2.47 percent, and that the effect is highly heterogeneous across areas and mostly influenced by the degree of social capital and by the presence of organized crime. In areas characterized by pervasive organized crime, preventing adolescents from staying on the streets, by keeping them at school, is not enough to ensure the same crime reduction effect as in areas where organized crime is not pervasive. JEL Classification: I20, I28, J13, K4