Unaccompanied minors: illuminating transcultural support practices for the benefit of pedagogical intervention and teacher training

In Québec as in France, young people who meet the administrative definition of unaccompanied minors (UAMs) are foreign minors without a legal representative in the host/settlement country. Their backgrounds and the reasons for their departure are heterogeneous (Étiemble, 2010), and in Québec, little research has focused on their lived realities, particularly concerning how schools that receive them treat their experiences. As part of an exploratory project conducted in France (Audet et al., 2024) with professionals working with UMAs as part of a transcultural reception system, three stories of practice (Desgagné, 2005) were collected. A thematic analysis by mixed coding (Mucchielli, 2009) of these stories of practice allowed us to identify five central dimensions that can benefit the process of supporting and guiding UAMs. We then discuss how these documented practices can inform the initial training and continuing education of teachers in their relationships/interventions with UMA.