We are happy to announce the Winter School on “School composition and inequalities: a multidimensional approach” to be held on site at Polytechnic University of Milan (Italy) from 3 to 5 February 2027.
Aims
The objective of this three-day Winter School is to provide young scholars with a comprehensive understanding of school segregation as one of the key challenges facing education systems across Europe. Through engagement with state-of-the-art research from different national contexts, participants will explore the drivers of school segregation, its relationship with residential segregation and institutional arrangements, and its implications for educational inequalities.
Bringing together leading scholars in the field, the Winter School has three main objectives: (i) to examine the key dimensions of school segregation and the methodological approaches used to measure it; (ii) to explore the mechanisms driving school segregation in different residential and institutional contexts; and (iii) to assess its consequences for students’ educational outcomes and educational trajectories.
The Winter School is hosted as part of the EDIN project, funded by Fondazione Cariplo, which investigates how the socioeconomic and ethnic composition of schools shapes students’ educational outcomes. The project examines how school composition affects students from different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, explores the mediating role of career guidance, educational choices, and educational pathways, and identifies strategies to mitigate the negative consequences of school segregation by drawing on promising practices from different European countries.
The EDIN project is led by Costanzo Ranci (Polytechnic University of Milan) and involves research teams from Polytechnic University of Milan and the University of Naples Federico II, where the research unit is coordinated by Jonathan Pratschke.
Target
The Winter School is aimed at PhD students and early career researchers in sociology, political science, economics and related disciplines. In addition to lectures, participants will have the opportunity to present their own research and participate in dedicated mentoring sessions.
The Winter School aims to foster an international community of early-career researchers working on educational inequalities, providing participants with opportunities to engage with leading scholars, discuss their own research, and develop new collaborations.
Format
The programme combines keynote lectures, presentations in a workshop format, and hands-on mentoring sessions (both theoretical and methodological) held by invited international experts and members of the EDIN research team.
Practicalities
Participation is free of charge. Participants are expected to cover their own travel, accommodation and meal expenses.
The school will be held at Polytechnic University of Milan (Leonardo Campus).
Application deadline
15 October 2026.
Applicants should submit a recent CV, a short summary of their research topic (max. 500 words) and a brief motivation letter explaining their interest in participating.
Successful candidates will be notified by 25 October 2026.
Please send applications and information requests to: berenice.scandone@polimi.it
Confirmed keynote speakers
Xavier Bonal, professor of Sociology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), former Director of the research group Globalisation, Education and Social Policies (GEPS) and Coordinator of the GLOBED Project, an Erasmus Mundus Master on Education Policies for Global Development. He is the author of several books on sociology of education, education policy and globalization, education and development.
Roberta Cucca, professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences where she teaches Urban Sociology. Her research primarily focuses on socio-spatial inequalities in European cities and urban governance for just transitions, with particular interest in green gentrification and school segregation.
Marco Oberti, professor of Sociology at Sciences Po and former Director of the Centre de Recherche sur les Inégalités Sociales (CRIS). He has also participated in and coordinated scientific collaborations and PhD programs with the following institutions: Northwestern, University (Chicago), UCLA (Los Angeles), IESP-IUERJ (Rio de Janeiro), CEM (Sao Paulo), Università Bicocca (Milan). His most recent work concerns the Urban and Educational Inequalities from a Segregation Perspective, Housing and school dynamics in gentrifying areas and Inequalities in Access to Selective Higher Education.