The term schooling, in sociological terms, indicates "the level of diffusion and institutionalization of school attendance" limited to a particular youth population. From this point of view, the percentages in which schooling is expressed are usually subject to regional, national or international comparisons. The collected data are then also subject to evaluations in the political field in order to outline the intervention arrangements and the most appropriate measures to address the specific difficulties in the various contexts and to guide the education and training processes.

It is possible to distinguish this concept from that of literacy. To this end, it can be noted that while the latter can also take place in places other than the school, schooling does not end with literacy. In addition, while schooling is for young people almost always, literacy can often be targeted as adults. Lastly, schooling is mainly about behaviors, but literacy mainly has cognitive goals.

In the field of pedagogy, some authors advocate an extension of the semantic scope of the term, including education. See for example. the following text: "So schooling like teaching to write, read, and account is good in my opinion if it is intended not to create containers where you enter a very precise number of notions, depending on what is provided by the programs ministries but a schooling that also becomes education. " Notemodify wikitesto Voices correlateemodify wikitesto

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