Introduction to the Special Section: Educational Paths, Social Inequalities and Life Trajectories

This special issue of the Italian Journal of Sociology of Education deals with ‘Education paths, social inequalities and life trajectories’. When this special issue was first conceived, our purpose was to bring together scientists from different social sciences to develop an interdisciplinary understanding of how characteristics of educational systems (primary, secondary and tertiary education) are related to various sorts of social inequalities, promoting the sharing of theoretical and empirical reflections. Thus, the aim was to deal with one of the most central issues in sociology, i.e. inequality, which acquires a great importance in sociology of education, inviting authors to submit manuscripts presenting theoretically engaged studies that explore and address such issues in conceptual and/or empirical ways, assuming either a local, national, European or international perspective. The largely debated question is about whether the educational system can effectively overcome social inequalities, or just merely reflect or even intensify them. In order to deal with such a question it is necessary to recognize the multidimensional nature of contemporary inequality, as the focus of debates on inequality has become ever more complex over time, involving more of the traditional dimensions regarding inequality, such as class, race, gender and disability.