Career Counseling in Italy: from placement to vocational realization

Although between the wars some pioneer career counseling services already existed in Italy, it was only after the second world war that specific services were started, initially only sporadically and subsequently in a more generalized way all over the country. In the 1960s and 1970s, vocational guidance took on particular importance in schools, also in consideration of the reform then underway in high school and university. After those years of intense activity, the next two decades witnessed a decreased interest in vocational guidance issues. Since the end of the 1990s, however, there has been a revival of vocational guidance also thanks to two reforms that took place at that time -one involving the educational system and the other the labor market- which attempted to respond to the new challenges and competitions that globalization created -and is still creating- to economies all over the world. The biggest challenges are connected to increasing the professionalism of the sector operators but do not have the requisites required by the SIO (Italian Society of Vocational Guidance, established in 2004) and to fostering research. The career service providers that do not have specific training in the field are still the majority and they often work with individuals at great risk (persons with disability, with socio-economic difficulties, immigrants). As regards research, vocational guidance psychology is definitely weaker than other fields of psychological research and seems to suffer from an inferiority complex: it seems neither to benefit fully from contributions and stimuli that may come from experimental, social, developmental and educational psychology nor to put itself forward as a promising and autonomous new sector of investigation and intervention. The new frontiers of vocational guidance in Italy are represented by the emphasis placed on prevention also in the field of career counseling, especially by involving significant others like parents and teachers.