DESIGNING ONE'S FUTURE: CAREER GUIDANCE, LIFE DESIGN, AND FUTURE-PLANNING COMPETENCE AMONG ITALIAN STUDENTS

This study adopts an integrated theoretical-empirical perspective to investigate the educational value of future-oriented competences through the administration of the Designing My Future questionnaire [1] to a sample of 561 Italian upper-secondary students. The quantitative analysis focuses on three latent pedagogical dimensions - optimism towards the future, planning, and sense of agency - conceptualised as core learning outcomes of career education and guidance within formal educational settings. The study is grounded in contemporary pedagogical interpretations of career counselling informed by the Life Design paradigm [2] and in the capability approach [3], here adopted as a normative and pedagogical framework for designing inclusive, learner-centred, and equity-oriented educational interventions. The findings reveal predominantly medium-to-high levels of future planning competence (M = 82.35, SD = 13.25 on a 24-120 scale), strong internal consistency (α = .893), and pedagogically meaningful differences across gender and educational tracks, highlighting the role of educational contexts in shaping students’ future-oriented learning dispositions. The discussion emphasises the implications for the pedagogical design of career-guidance curricula, understood as educational pathways fostering agency, reflexivity, and intentional life planning. Keywords: Agency, career education, Designing my future, Italian secondary school, Life Design, optimism, students, vocational identity.