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The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively influenced the psychological well-being of people around the world; university students have experienced feelings of fear of the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the intolerance of uncertainty, and a worsened quality of life, related to the reduction of social contacts. Scholars all around the world widely suggest the need to take care of this issue, proposing solutions to support students' adjustment in the post-pandemic period. The literature on positive psychology and the life design approach has identified multiple psychological resources, the character strengths, that can sustain people's life satisfaction and well-being in changing contexts, including their university experience. We proposed an online group career counseling intervention for 30 Italian university students (experimental group) to promote university students' psychological resources and mitigate the long-term negative implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on life satisfaction. The other 30 students formed the control group. We found that the students engaged in the online group career counseling intervention evidenced, at the post-test, higher levels than the pre-test of (a) resilience, (b) subjective risk intelligence, (c) career adaptability, (d) self-efficacy, (e) optimism, (f) hope, (g) life satisfaction, and lower levels than the pre-test of (h) fears of COVID-19 pandemic. No differences at Time 1 and Time 2 were found in the control group. Implications for future research and practice will be discussed.

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BACKGROUND: The present study investigates the significance of work inclusion in people with a disability and then aims to examine colleagues' attitudes. Considering Stone and Colella's model, we analyzed the colleagues' attitudes and variables related to the disability, such as type of disability and type of presentation of colleagues with disability, and colleague's characteristics, such as gender, educational level, and experience in work with people with disability. METHOD: We randomly assigned two hundred eighty-six employees to a standard condition (hypothetical colleagues with a disability presented by the impairments labels) or favorable condition (hypothetical colleagues with a disability presented by their past work experiences). RESULTS: The type of disability and its presentation influence colleagues' attitudes. Besides employees' gender, educational level and experience in work with people with a disability influences the attitudes toward them. CONCLUSIONS: Implications for practice were discussed.

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Promoting social and school inclusion of children with disabilities has been associated with their health-related quality of life. This study aimed to analyze the connection between parents and children's attitudes toward disabilities as one factor contributing to the inclusion and well-being of individuals with disabilities. Three types of disabilities-i.e., attitudes toward a child with a sensory disability (hearing), a child with an intellectual disability (Down syndrome), and a child with problems with aggressiveness and angry outbursts (behavioral problems)-were examined. A sample of 598 White Italian elementary school students (303 boys and 295 girls) aged 6 to 11 years 33tudes toward students with disabilities, rather than each parent's attitude, contributed to a better understanding of the child's attitudes toward students with disabilities. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

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This study aimed to examine the effect of cognitive priming linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, through state anxiety and personal need for structure, on teachers' tendency toward sustainability and teachers' tendency toward a conservative socio-economic vision. We involved a sample of 984 Italian teachers, and by manipulating the saliency of the COVID-19 pandemic, we found that the saliency of the COVID-19 pandemic positively impacted state anxiety and that state anxiety impacted teachers' tendency toward sustainability both directly and indirectly through the mediational role of the personal need for structure. Finally, we found that state anxiety only indirectly through the personal need for structure impacted teachers' tendency toward a conservative socio-economic vision.

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The study was set up as a first exploration of the predictive role of human service professionals' (i.e., teachers and healthcare professionals) psychological capital (PC) in their perception of work experiences and some core aspects of their own work, such as their efficacy to instill positive resources in their clients, the positive representation of their work and of the results that they can obtain, and positive beliefs about their career growth. Three hundred and eight Northern Italian human service professionals were involved, of which 163 were elementary school teachers of inclusive classrooms and 145 were healthcare professionals in day and residential centers. The regression analyses which were carried out-controlling for age, gender, years of work experience and the typology of the human service jobs-confirmed the predictive role of PC in the efficacy to instill positive resources in one's clients, the positive representation of the work and of the results that can be obtained, and positive beliefs about career growth. These results have important implications for practice, and they emphasize that specific interventions aimed at promoting human service professionals' PC may positively impact the effectiveness of their actions for the adaptation and psychosocial development of their clients.

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INTRODUCTION: Having a clear understanding of the concept of globalization can be particularly relevant for adolescents to comprehend how the world functions and to reflect on the way their personal and professional identity and career future might be affected by globalization. Thus, this mixed design study aimed at examining Northeastern Italian adolescents' thinking about globalization and at exploring the potential role of education (the type of school) in conceptualizing globalization. METHODS: A total of 163 Italian adolescents (42.3% boys and 57.5% girls) aged 16-19 years, attending a scientific lyceum or a commercial, technological, or professional high school participated in the study. Participants were invited to explain the concept of globalization. Their answers were analyzed using a thematic analysis procedure. RESULTS: & Conclusions:. The analyses revealed adolescents' limited and inaccurate understandings of globalization, with almost exclusive emphasis on the positive aspects of globalization, and without a critical understanding of its consequences. Moreover, no differences related to their educational experience (the type of school they attended) or socio-economic status emerged when reporting their understanding of globalization. The results suggested the relevance of a training process for the promotion of critical thinking, especially in the field of career guidance.

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Based on the life design paradigm and career construction adaptation model and on recent directions from the perspective of sustainable and inclusive career guidance, the study aimed at examining the relationship between career adaptability, the tendency to consider systemic challenges to attain sustainable development, and state personal and social hope and their role on the tendency to invest in higher education. The analyses carried out involving 416 Italian high school students found that career adaptability and the tendency to consider systemic challenges in order to attain sustainable development were directly and indirectly, through state personal and social hope, related to the tendency to invest in higher education. The results obtained allowed to provide new contributions to extend results previously described by the life design approach in career development issues and provided useful suggestions for preventive career interventions.

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The paper describes an innovative methodological approach to Public Engagement already tested by the Authors in the healthcare context. We propose to apply our methodology to social innovation projects, focusing on gender perspective when promoting enhancements in health-community. Methodology mixes Psychosocial Participatory Research, Service-Design and "Human-Centered" approach, promoting an interdisciplinary, technological, and sustainable process. The final aim is to find viable solutions to real problems through the engagement of a community of experts and citizens in a three-step process. Awareness-raising actions: to increase people's knowledge-group understanding of the subject and to stimulate reflection. Activities: Gender-Cafés, Ethnographic-Observations and Narrative-Interviews. Activation actions: group interventions in which initial stimuli are collected and processed into proposals for services and tools aimed at targeted groups. Activities: Barcamps, Generative Labs. Participation actions: multidisciplinary teams realize prototypes and elaborate concrete solutions (tools, services) addressing crucial gender issues. Activities: Hackathon, Service-Design-Labs.

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The present study aimed to extend understanding about the relationship between career adaptability, courage, and life satisfaction in a sample of Italian adolescents. It was hypothesized that courage partially mediated the relationship between career adaptability and life satisfaction. Specifically, 1202 Italian high school students with an age from 14 to 20 years (M = 16.87; SD = 1.47), of which 600 (49.9%) boys and 602 (50.1%) girls, were involved. Using a multigroup approach across gender, it was found that courage partially mediated the relationship between career adaptability and life satisfaction in boys and girls. Results suggested the relevance of career interventions to promote career adaptability and courage for strengthening life satisfaction in adolescence.

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The study is aimed at providing the development and initial validation of the Design My Future (DMF), which may be administered in career counseling and research activities to assess adolescents' future orientation and resilience. Two studies with two independent samples of Italian adolescents were conducted to examine psychometric requisites of DMF. Specifically, in the first study, after developing items and examined the content validity, the factorial structure, reliability and discriminant validity of the DMF were tested. In the second study, the measurement invariance across gender, conducing a sequence of nested CFA models, was evaluated. Results showed good psychometric support for the instrument with Italian adolescents.

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Although sexuality plays a major role in the socialization of people, few studies have examined the sexual behaviors of individuals with developmental disabilities. Because of this, we decided to investigate sexuality in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Down's syndrome (Ds) and to compare them with typically developing adolescents, by surveying their parents. Specifically, it was hypothesized that young people with ASD would display lower levels over five domains: social behavior, privacy, sex education, sexual behavior, and parental concerns, than peers with Ds and typically developing young people. In addition, we sought to verify developmental trends in five domains with age for each group. Overall, 269 parents participated; 94 parents of typically developing adolescents, 93 parents of adolescents diagnosed with Ds, and 82 parents of adolescents diagnosed with ASD. Participants were surveyed with a Sexual Behavior Scale developed by Stokes and Kaur [] that assesses parents' reports of their child's: social behavior, privacy awareness, sex education, sexual behavior and parental concerns about the child's behaviors. It was found that three groups were significantly different on all five domains, adolescents with ASD reportedly displaying lower levels than other groups. Moreover, there was a significant improvement in knowledge of privacy and parental concerns with age for adolescents with ASD and a decline in sex education for adolescents with Ds. The results obtained emphasize the need to train adolescents with developmental disability, and especially for adolescents with ASD through sex education programs.

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The present work examines how a group of Italian parents and their adolescent children view work, study, and leisure in order to check for possible relations between the ideas of parents and their children's. A total of 160 adolescents and 160 parents were recruited. Semi-structured interviews that assessed the participants' concepts about work, study, and leisure were conducted. The analyses carried out demonstrate that there are connections between the parents' and adolescents' perceptions regarding work, study, and leisure. The results confirm the importance of considering both constructs and the parents' perspectives on them, and of involving parents in their children vocational guidance actions.

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Over the last decade, occupational changes have the rapidly changing job market has begun to demand that people more actively construct their professional lives and acquire career adaptability. The aim of the present study was to develop a specific, new instrument, "Career and Work Adaptability", to assess degree of adaptability in adolescents planning their futures. We conducted three studies, the first of which aimed to formulate the instrument's items and to verify its factor structure; the second study confirmed the instrument's multidimensional structure and evaluated its discriminant validity; the third study was conducted to verify the factorial structure's across-gender invariance and to evaluate its stability over time. Our results showed that the instrument is an effective and multidimensional instrument for accurately measuring career adaptability. Specifically, it can serve as a useful vocational guidance tool in analyzing adolescents' career adaptability.

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