Rosangela Lodigiani

In Southern European countries, the long-lasting economic crisis has worsened the already difficult school-to-work transition among new generations, as highlighted by the increasing number of NEETs. The process of work socialisation itself has weakened and young people have been pushed to take on the burden and develop a sort of «auto-socialisation»...

In recent years, in many of the European countries, welfare state has undergone a deep reform process. If during the modernity it was devoted to allocate monetary funds for passive protection (passive welfare state), now it promotes the development of both personalized services and individual resources to enable individual to face risks of exclusion, unemployment, poverty, illness, etc. by himself (active welfare state). The aim of this paper is to investigate the pillars of this new approach, starting from the analysis of activation policies and the consequences that these policies produce upon life chances of the subject in need. Particularly this paper tries to investigate the role that, among activation policies, education and training play in lifelong learning perspective. Education, training and generally each form of learning are considered as grant for employability, empowerment and activation of subjects, and thus as a form of social protection. The aim of this paper is to point out both the ambivalence of this approach and the importance of consider as purpose to widen its aim from employability bat capability.