Small schools promoting democracy, equity and social justice: Food for thought

Abstract

This work aims at deepening, through a bibliographic review, especially in the international context, the impact on students of the creation of small schools. In particular, in the American context, high schools in large urban districts, which are afflicted by high drop-out rates, increased violent behavior, low levels of performance and involvement among students, tried to reorganize themselves into smaller learning communities. Over the last two decades, this reform has triggered numerous research that dealt with evaluating the effects of this change. We will take into account said research in order to critically reflect on the enhancement of these educational realities, which might be both a starting point and a benchmark for our Italian educational context.