Comment on Simone Sarti, 'A Different Perspective to Investigate Social Inequalities : the Relationship between Height and Education in Italy'

This paper comments on Simone Sarti's study of the relationship between height and education in twentieth-century Italy. Sarti used information on the heights of men and women to explore the relationship between social status and years of schooling. The current paper focuses on three key aspects of this work. It begins by exploring the relationship between height and social class, and asks how this might have changed over the course of the period. It then examines Sarti's contribution to our understanding of the anthropometric history of Italy during the twentieth century. The third section discusses the impact of changes in Italian education policy on the question of educational equality. The paper concludes by offering some additional suggestions for further work in this field.