Presentation Schedule
Educational Guidance for Unaccompanied Minors: Contrasting Challenges Depending on the Country of Resettlement. A Cross Analysis Between Switzerland and France (105213)
Session Chair: Marsha Montano
Tuesday, 16 June 2026 10:50
Session: Session 1
Room: Room 112 (1F)
Presentation Type:Oral Presentation
Unaccompanied minors in France, or unaccompanied asylum seekers in Switzerland, are migrants under the age of eighteen who have left their country of origin without a legal guardian, either by law or custom. Switzerland, like France, is a signatory to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, which stipulates that every child has the right to education (UN, 1989). However, the conditions for implementing this right vary from country to country: in both France and Switzerland, schooling is compulsory until the age of 16, with compulsory education until the age of 18 in France, which is not the case in all Swiss cantons. Furthermore, research in both countries consistently shows that these young people are steered towards short, vocational training programs to obtain a residence permit upon reaching the age of majority. Therefore, how is the legislation concerning schooling applied by education professionals (teachers, school administration…) and how these young people experienced this process? The aim is to document the implementation of immigration legislation when these young people, aged 16 to 18, leave the support program to join a mainstream educational track. Drawing on semi-structured and focus group interviews, analyzed through Street-Level Bureaucracy Theory (Lipsky, 2010), the study shows how education professionals interpret or bypass legislation on migrant schooling. This interdisciplinary work, bridging law and educational sciences, highlights the impact of everyday practices on educational pathways. Finally, they reveal the discrepancies between formal law and the reality experienced by these young people.
Authors:
Manon Tallant, University of Geneva, Switzerland
About the Presenter(s)
Manon Tallant is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.
Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/manon-tallant/
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