Topic of the thesis: The Italian skill formation system from a historical-institutional perspective.

Abstract: My project investigates the policy-making processes that led to the present institutional configuration of the Italian vocational education and training (VET) system. Among other industrial economies, Italy represents a historical example of long disequilibrium of the educational and economic system. Typically, literature in comparative public policy has focused more on the development of general and higher education, overlooking vocational education and training. More recent work addressed this important research gap exploring the development of vocation and training systems in the United States, Britain, Germany, and Japan. As for today, we lack an in-depth analysis of the evolution of the Italian VET system rooted in historical institutionalism and/or comparative political, and historical accounts tend to neglect the vocational sector. Specifically, no or very little attention has been devoted to the role played by the employers, and the relationship between the state and employers in steering the system. The project addresses this gap, relying mainly on qualitative and historical methods. It is a single-case study but situated in a comparative context. The most visible route to institutional change is through processes of reform. Political confrontation mediated by institutions at critical junctures in history determined the set-up of education and training systems. The study analyses the coalitions of social or political actors that provided the support for the relevant changes in policy and regulations and the factors motivating their support. Three critical junctures are investigated, corresponding to the post-war economic growth accompanied by the expansion of mass education, the postponement of tracking and the “opening up” of the educational system and its aftermath (60-70), and the more recent period (starting around the 90s) of globalization and growth of the service economy. Beyond a traditional model of path dependency or punctuated equilibrium, the study considers incremental institutional change. Alongside processes of reform, it is possible to identify processes of endogenous institutional change that shift institutional practices ‘from below’. In the Italian case, notably, the education system, as a somewhat self-governing system subject to the play of internal forces, did not simply play an auxiliary role towards more central social and political processes.

Research interests: Vocational education and training – The evolution of education systems – The comparative political economy of education and training.

Graduated from: Bocconi University Milan.

Degrees obtained: MA in Business and economics.

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