Serafina Pastore

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 In such fast-moving working contexts, skills and competencies rapidly become outdated and need to be continuously implemented and empowered as a strategic factor for global competitiveness.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.

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.

Teaching as Dance. An Ethnographic Pathway for studies on Teaching

Contextualise, identify, and describe the characteristics of the teacher’s professional practice is not easy. Recent researches on work and the influence of the concept of practice have contributed to the budding of studies aimed to explain aspects of the work and to clarify its features compared to the knowledge and know-how. In the Practice Theory perspective, and considering the work as a performance, this article reports the results of a field study. The present paper draws attention to a particular category of analysis, the dance that not only emphasizes the role of the body and of movement, instead proposes a reading of the work as a practical and situated activity.