Identità e orientamento. La svolta nella dimensione progettuale dalla giovinezza all’adultità

Identity and guidance. The turning point in the project dimension from youth to adulthood. The essay thoroughly examines the themes of identity building and the process of self-guidance, a particular area of research's being reserved for the turning points from youth to adulthood. The rooted bonds between identity and guidance are sought. From the definition of guidance as an essentially educational process, O. Rossi Cassottana probes the theories of ‘vocational development’ and Career Education. Another clarification as to definitions concerns the continuity of the educational-guidance process, re-emphasized by unambiguous ministerial documents and apt experimental projects. The pedagogical concept of continuity is delved into more deeply: consequentiality to the preceding status is required but this does not mean a lack of specificity. The ultimate purpose of this research, which gauges the peculiarities of what guidance entails in each and every level of school, is to favour such endeavours in the given school in question, notwithstanding all due caution and consideration of activities outside school. Adequate teacher training taken as a premise, the study places to the fore the superceding of that hiatus condition between “what is and what must be” in the necessary supplying of guidance on the school's part, and on the part of the various educational establishments, in a movement towards personological self-projecting.