Lavoro significativo, vite soddisfacenti Meaningful work, fulfilling lives: Career guidance has a role to play

Abstract

English Abstract

This paper focuses on work education in schools, and explores how it can be conceptualised so that it contributes to the flourishing and wellbeing of students in a democracy. It first provides an overview of the recent developments in ‘career learning’ worldwide, noting the increasing importance that it has been given as a contributor to enhanced competitivity in knowledge-based economies. The paper notes that the centrality of work in the curriculum is justified: despite major societal and technological transformations presaging a ‘post-work’ world, ‘meaningful work’ maintains its importance as a source of fulfilment and wellbeing, and the hallmark of a flourishing life. Much of the work that is available in neoliberal economies, however, is increasingly the cause of distress, hardship, exploitation and even abuse. A case is made for an authentic career education that helps students understand the nature of meaningful work, to aspire to it, and to decode the causes that frustrate access to it. It is argued that, as with all truly educational enterprises, authentic work education should provide the intellectual tools and encourage the moral resolve to imagine more socially just and fulfilling ways of living together, and to gain a measure of individual and collective control over the forces that shape lives.