Reflexivity and self-development of competencies as key drivers in individuals' learning and career paths: Cases from Italy

Abstract

The article is aimed at analysing the qualitative interviews (in the form of short life stories) carried out within the Learning and Career Paths (LCP) project in Italy. Theories, such as those of reflexivity, agency, self-construction, competencies, and transformation put forward by relevant authors in the sociological and educational field, are used as a conceptual framework to review a limited but significant number of individual experiences. In particular, Archer's model of reflexive types helps in going through the conducts of interviewed subjects (which were 21 in total), guided by reflexive stances. Such behaviours are very individual-specific, but they are all converging towards a more or less successful self-identity construction that allows an employment status, as well as kinds of satisfaction and social recognition. Such a construction seems reinforced in the different cases by an active, intentional, self-development of competencies whose specific, practice-based components are underpinned by fundamental cognitive, social and emotional components (according to Boyatzis' scheme), continuously nurtured by formal and experiential learning. The research outcomes illustrated in the article mainly regard the subjective, 'agentic', sides of individual behaviours. They are intended as having some relevance for new development hypotheses in the field of lifelong career guidance (LLCG), whose policies and practices should be increasingly focused on the specificities of individual trajectories.