Educational Poverty as a Challenge for the future: Concepts and criteria for combating non-material child deprivation in Italy

Created by Save the Children Italia in 2014 and later introduced internationally by the same organization, the term "educational poverty" has been employed to promote prevention projects and enforcement actions against non-material child poverty. The aim of this paper is to retrace the syntagma’s origins and development and to discuss critically its pedagogical meaning. Though originated from the fields of economy and social sciences, this idea in fact refers to dimensions that are uniquely relevant to the world of education. Some issues are here outlined to define the spectrum of different "educational poverties" and possible ways of preventing and countering them.