Minori stranieri non accompagnati a scuola. Se l'improbabile diventa possibile

[Autom. eng. transl.] Why deal with unaccompanied foreign minors (MSNA) at school? Despite being a numerically small group and neglected by public and scientific debate, MSNA pose significant challenges to European education systems, in a continent that shows an ambivalent approach towards young people and migrants, oscillating between closures and openings, discrimination and guarantee of equal opportunities. The volume aims to fill some knowledge gaps on this topic, reworking the results that emerged from the study on MSNA and access to education carried out by the ISMU ETS Foundation on behalf of the Ministry of Education. Through quantitative and qualitative methods, the national framework on the presence of MSNA in the school-training system and on the practices of integration between schools and territories is reconstructed, without forgetting the perspective of the minors themselves. What emerges is a snapshot of the complex experience of these minors and the plurality of their learning paths: although access to school is an infrequent event in their trajectories and, for this reason, statistically unlikely, the research offers empirical evidence on unaccompanied minors who arrive at school, with unexpected but undoubtedly possible paths. Looking at those who do not give up their education, exercising their agency in sometimes segregated contexts, where adequate support is lacking and the institutional framework is fragmented and not always protective, can improve the understanding of educational inequalities, offering a contribution, not only for specialists and professionals, but more generally for the analysis and intervention on key issues of education in contemporary democratic societies.