Daniele Morciano

Formal and Informal Learning in the Workplace: A Research Review.

The radical economic, social and cultural changes experienced by the labour market within recent decades have helped to highlight the central role played by the learning process in individual career development and organizational success. In such fast-moving working contexts, skills and competencies rapidly become outdated and need to be continuously implemented and empowered as a strategic factor for global competitiveness. Traditional models of learning both inside and outside of the workplace have become unable to explain the complexity of such a process, weaving between and overlapping formal and informal components. Starting with this premise, the aim of the present paper was to analyse the role of knowledge and experience as important learning frames, which allow the acquisition and development of competencies in the workplace. A human resource development perspective was adopted, aimed at reconciling both the organizational and individual stances implied in the process. The methodology of achieving this was to review the most recent literature on workplace learning, with a special focus on its formal and informal dimensions.

How communities can react to crisis: Social capital as a source of empowerment and well-being

Within the post-modern scenario, largely characterized by a sense of diffused social uncertainty and dominated by the ghost of a wide spreading economical and social crisis, social capital, solidarity and social responsibility might represent concrete and efficacious tools to cope with the implications of such cultural drift. The present paper aims at arguing such position by accounting for a repertoire of “good practices” experienced in the south of Italy, which have been read with theoretical and methodological lenses borrowed from social community psychology as well as sociology. The discussion will take into account two case studies (Diffused Guest House and Urban Laboratories) which are both representative in terms of social participation as well as in terms of social capital enhancement. Indeed, all the accounted experiences have shown how the construction of solid and open communities could concretely contribute to enhance social capital as well as to contrast with the diffusion of narrow and conflicting ghetto-communities based on marginality and social uncertainty, which are source for self-segregation, social fragmentation and increasing powerlessness.

A theory-based evaluation to improve youth participation in progress: A case study of a youth policy in Italy

ABSTRACT A theory-based evaluation of an in-progress program for the development of new youth centers the South of Italy is presented in this article. The study investigated if and to what extent the program was working to increase youth participation. Data were collected through document analysis of the program, in-depth interviews and a survey with the managers of the youth centers. Consistent with some previous study, results suggested that some program mechanisms related to cultural openings, obligations and opportunities of participation had been effective in the activation of youth participation. Some contextual factors behind such mechanisms were also taken into account. Then, the study confirmed the need to further develop forms of youth work able to mediate between the regulatory pressures expressed by public institutions and the claims of autonomy and participation manifested by youth.

Critical Youth Work for Youth-Driven Innovation: A Theoretical Framework

A theoretical framework is presented which conceptualizes how youth work can empower or lead to youth-led innovation. Attention is given to critical youth work, its ability to uncover social inequality mechanisms and to support social emancipation of young people. A comprehensive definition of innovation opens reflection both with respect to the business or technological sphere and to the participatory and cultural domains. The sociological perspective helps to highlight the role of the youth worker as a mediator between the young peoples’ claims for change and the adults’ defense of social stability. The psychoanalysis aspect of the framework offers a theoretical lens to investigate the intra-psychic experiences set in motion when youth work plays a role of intergenerational mediation. Finally, social pedagogy suggests effective educational relationships among young people and youth workers when they strive for generating change.