Does maternal ethnic identity affect the educational trajectories of immigrant descendants?

According to Eurostat (European Commission 2014, 2016), Italy has one of highest quota in Europe of immigrant youths (aged 18-24) with at most a compulsory level of education, who left school before they have finished their course and have not attended any other course in the last four weeks. After a short presentation of the international literature on ethnic identity (section 2), we will introduce the survey and the method of analysis adopted (section 3). The maternal ethnic identity of children (aged 14-24) will be presented in section 4 and in the following one (section 5) the determinant of educational trajectories will be discussed with special attention to the role of maternal ethnic identity. In the final section, the main results will be synthetized and the possible political implications will be highlighted.