Mathematical discomfort and school drop-out in Italy

Abstract. The phenomenon of drop-out has important social aspects concerning the 20% of the European young people aging from 18 to 20. The Italian Education Board individuated and classified the causes of drop-out as “exogenous variables” and “endogenous variables”. This research deals with the phenomenon of drop-out and is related to the studies about affect for mathematics. We analyse the phenomenon of drop-out in high secondary school and particularly the role played by mathematics inside this phenomenon. An endogenous cause of drop-out, we call it discomfort in mathematics, arises from our surveys; its elimination might reduce more than the 50% the critical number of the drop-out variables.