Foreign and immigrant populations: multidimensional definitions for multidimensional problems

The presentation is devoted to explore the possibility of defining foreign or immigrant populations and those of foreign or immigrant origins by making use of complex criteria of identification and the possibility of measuring these aggregates through the data available. Especially with reference to the children of immigrants it is important to consider also the country of birth and the age at immigration for the persons born abroad.The theme of the school enrolment of foreign children and children of foreign origins is very important in the analysis of integration process. The analysis that has been carried out has highlighted the articulation, at least by nationality and generation, of an enormously complex reality that needs a specific attention. It has emerged also the need to give attention to the problem of the evasion of compulsory education and, most of all, the dropping out by foreign teenagers from high school formation, which appears to be higher in comparison with Italian teenagers, especially for those who arrived in Italy during their adolescence