NEETs are young people between the ages of 15 and 29 who are not in employment, education or training. These are young people who, despite having completed a course of study, have not been able to access the labour market. Some have dropped out of training, deciding not to engage in any activity. Others for contingent reasons (geographical mobility, maternity, illness, family problems or needs) cannot study or work.

This means that NEETs are not excluded from the traditional formal channels of building and accumulating human capital.

What are the factors that produce the exclusion of young Italians from the education and work system? How and why does this disconnection happen? How do NEETs fit into the broader picture of youth hardship?

What strategies, measures and services exist in the areas concerned (Southern Italian Regions) to facilitate the transition from school to work? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these tools? Are they consistent with the goal of socializing at work? What measures and processes should be implemented to prevent slippage into the NEET status and/or to encourage the reactivation of young NEETs?

Starting from these questions, this paper aims to map the phenomenon in question, starting from a review of the literature in order to identify strengths and weaknesses regarding policies and services for the transition school-work and socializing at work.

In this way, a picture of the main educational lines and measures adopted to promote qualification and schooling is given, with particular attention to the Campania Region.

Kepler is one of a hundred-sixty-nine initiatives funded by Con i Bambini in the first two calls for proposals implementing the Fund to combat the child educational poverty (Financial Law 2016). The first call directly addressed the aim of preventing early school leaving, whereas the second one—which financed Kepler—drew greater attention to intermediate outcomes: social, emotional, and cognitive competences to support “a harmonic personal growth and to prevent phenomena of educational poverty” (Con i Bambini, 2022).

The quasi-experimental evaluation of the Kepler afterschool lab spurred by a dialogical reasoning involving researchers and educators on how to represent the educational process and measure those outcomes which may mediate school achievements—and the risk of early school leaving. We started considering the failure stories that the students who have turned to the lab experienced in the context of their classroom—often reinforced in their families and neighborhoods—and provided repeated feedback of measurements to the praxis of reflective circularity between the lab pedagogical perspective (Freire 2002, 2008, 2021; Hooks 2023) and its everyday practice.

The Kepler lab was conceived as a field of forces among fields of forces (Lewin, 1972). Its pedagogical stance was that of enabling adolescents attending the middle school with poor results—most of them from an immigrant background—to discover the untested feasibility of their school life (Freire, 2021). In small groups, participants experienced novel interactions with instructors and peers, working on their conditions of inequality of learning opportunity (Cohen, 1999; Cohen & Lotan, 2014; Hooks, 2020). Activities were designed to build up a self-image which was positive in terms of learning capability and social relations with peers and adults (Freire, 2002, 2008, 2017; Scuola di Barbiana, 1967). Group members were able to experience the possibility of learning and being aware of their learning process not just for its instructional dimension but also in terms of individual and collective empowerment (Zimmerman, 1999) and emancipation (Biesta, 2022). By linking the individual psychological functioning (goals, life experiences, outcomes, and expectations) to the intersubjective dimension of the group, the lab enabled its members to take on a possible and verifiable scenario of school success—reappraising their self-image in relation to teachers, peers, and parents (Rappaport, 1987).

Twice a year, we administered motivational, relational, and behavioral self-report measures to the participants (treated) and to a large group of peers attending the same schools, in Treviso. Post-hoc, we matched controls to the treated group via a propensity score. Compared to the matched controls, the treated show a change in motivational orientation towards school (Lepper, Corpus, & Iyengar, 2005) and improved self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 2006). The multidimensionality of the effects seems to be captured by several indicators tapping on intercorrelated and self-reinforcing instructional and affective dimensions (Alivernini et al., 2017, 2018; Capuano et al., 2016). Eventually, the flow experience in the lab (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014; Martin & Jackson, 2008)—together with the degree of social isolation with classmates (Alivernini & Manganelli, 2016)—predicts the flow experience in the classroom.

School failure and early school leaving continue to represent, in Italy as in the rest of the world, a very widespread problem that affects thousands of boys and girls. The number of students who complete the compulsory cycle of studies is much higher nowadays, however, the knowledge they gain is so fragile and superficial that they tend to forget it shortly after they have completed their lower secondary education, thus creating the phenomenon known as "functional illiteracy" or “implicit dispersion”. Since 1989, in Turin the "Provaci ancora Sam" (PAS) project has been dealing with these problems in primary, lower secondary schools and CPIA (Provincial Centers for Adult Education) attended by young adults, especially with migratory backgrounds.
Over time, the activities of the PAS have transformed and diversified: the "Prevenzione primaria" project is active in primary and lower secondary schools, and involves the cooperation of social educators and teachers with the whole group of students. Educational activities continue even after the end of school within the associations from which the educators come.
The "Tutela integrata" activities are instead aimed at young people under 15 who have not obtained a lower secondary school school diploma. Also in this case, they are managed by teachers and educators, but they take place not at school, but in 4 territorial centers distributed throughout the Turin area.
The “progetto CPIA” takes place in 3 schools for adults and is aimed at dropout students who have left the school circuit and do not have a license, and above all foreign minors who do not speak the Italian language, often unaccompanied, some of whom are barely or not at all literate already in the country. of origin, others who need to match the qualification acquired before migration.
The common aim of all the activities of the PAS is to prevent any form of ghettoisation by working on the class as a whole, and by investing in innovative and workshop-based teaching as well as promoting a welcoming and motivating atmosphere both in and outside of school. Such teaching is centered on the inter-professional work of social educators and teachers, with the aim of not only encouraging students to attend school, but also of nurturing their desire to do well.

The city of Catania faces an urgent challenge related to school dropout, with a rate of 25%, the highest in the country. This critical phenomenon is closely linked to juvenile delinquency, highlighting the need for targeted interventions. To address this issue, the "Metropolitan Observatory for the Prevention and Contrast of Educational Poverty, School Dropout, and Juvenile Deviance" was established in 2021, coordinated by the Prefect of Catania. The observatory not only analyzes the issue at hand but also intervenes with concrete actions to support minors and their families.

The analysis revealed that school dropout is particularly entrenched in peripheral neighborhoods and areas within the historic center that represent "new internal peripheries" of the city. This involves a significant number of children and adolescents, positioning Catania at the national forefront in proportion to its population. The institutions forming the observatory emphasize the concrete risk that this phenomenon fuels the informal labor market and serves as a recruitment pool for criminal organizations.

The observatory operates through effective synergy among various stakeholders, including the Juvenile Court, Public Prosecutor's Office, Law Enforcement, School Superintendent's Office, Municipal and ASP Social Services, University of Catania, Diocese of Catania, as well as social and economic actors. Thanks to this collaboration, many minors have been reintegrated into the educational system.

Within the observatory, three working groups have been established. The first involves institutions, unions, parish entities, and the third sector to analyze the context of educational poverty. The second group focuses on the socio-cultural, economic, and territorial vulnerabilities of neighborhoods, aiming to implement urban regeneration projects. It has developed a digital mapping of the city, creating an index of social fragility. The third group primarily involves law enforcement and juvenile and ordinary magistracy on the issues of deviance and urban security.

The data from these groups guide initiatives for preventing juvenile deviance in collaboration with schools. In September 2023, the observatory was recognized by the Ministry of the Interior as one of the five good practices implemented within a Prefecture in Italy.

Through a cultural and educational campaign, the observatory promotes awareness of the essential role of compulsory education. The creation of a synergistic network among institutions constitutes a virtuous communicative circuit that, along with tested practices, establishes an absolute precedent. The University of Catania actively engages in this context, acknowledging its social responsibility and providing a replicable model for other Italian realities.