Conference Program

This paper offers a theoretically grounded and critically informed socio-pedagogical analysis of the Community Educational Pact “School, University, Territory: for Quality Guidance”, promoted at the University of Trapani within a broader research programme on territorial governance and integrated educational policies. The study is framed within the paradigm of lifelong guidance understood both as a social right and as a strategic educational infrastructure aimed at mitigating structural inequalities. It rests on the assumption that guidance is not an ancillary service but a constitutive mechanism shaping educational trajectories, mediating school-to-work transitions, and influencing access to social participation and life chances.

In response to the institutional fragmentation that characterizes the Italian educational and welfare system—where schools, universities, active labour market policies, and local authorities often operate through parallel and weakly coordinated governance logics—the Trapani Pact is conceptualized as a multi-level integrative dispositif. It formalizes a structured network connecting schools, higher education institutions, territorial authorities, and socio-economic actors, with the objective of constructing a territorially embedded guidance ecosystem capable of supporting students and young adults throughout the educational lifecycle and across key transitional phases.

The Pact involves all 23 upper secondary schools in the area and 26 territorial institutions, including the Prefecture, municipalities, the Diocese, the Provincial Health Authority, the Regional School Office, the Department of Education and Vocational Training of the Sicilian Region, law enforcement agencies, judicial bodies, and Sicindustria. Given the breadth of its inter-institutional network and the systemic ambition of its objectives, the initiative represents a distinctive case within the national context. It functions as an integrated educational governance arrangement oriented toward the coordinated and co-designed provision of services, resources, and opportunities for students.

Findings emerging from the case indicate that, when embedded in a collaborative and territorially anchored framework, guidance can evolve from an episodic and primarily informational activity into a continuous process of empowerment. This transformation is grounded in the development of career management competences, the critical interpretation of educational and occupational opportunity structures, and the strengthening of territorially situated social capital. Within this framework, the Pact operates as a collaborative governance instrument integrating school-based, transitional, and employment-oriented guidance, thereby overcoming sectoral fragmentation and fostering institutional co-responsibility.

Based on a qualitative analysis of foundational documents, implemented actions, and preliminary empirical evidence from the ongoing research, the paper identifies both enabling factors and structural constraints of the model. It also reflects on its transferability and its capacity to address educational and occupational inequalities in a socio-economically fragile territorial context.

The contribution concludes by advancing a theoretical reflection on lifelong guidance as an integrated public policy domain, engaging capability- and rights-based approaches, and proposing the Community Educational Pact as a laboratory of institutional innovation oriented toward social justice and the democratization of educational and professional opportunities.