The Boundary Crossing Laboratory for the mobilization of competence between school and work experience

Abstract

One of the major problems for youngsters in Europe and Italy is to find a job after having got a high school degree. In line with the objectives of the European Agenda for 2020, this research deals with transfer and mobilization of competence between school and work experience.
Moreover, it tackles the student’s competence of sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, as well as his/her learning to learn abilities, thus improving his/her employability. To help high school students to rebuilt his/her competencies in new contexts (from school to work experience and vice versa), this research aims at realizing two Boundary Crossing Laboratories in Italy and Australia according to Engestrom’s methodology.
The theoretical framework is the Cultural Historical Activity Theory
(CHAT), which sees the cognition as distributed in the system of artifacts, rules, division of labor and community. On one hand, those Laboratories will foster the creation of boundary objects (either material or conceptual), thus connecting competence between school and work.
On the other hand, they will enhance the learning to learn abilities
through the reflexion on one’s experiences and competences. The will also bring about processes of activation of one’s sense of initiative through agency. Eventually, the two different settings of implementation will permit a prospective vision on the process of transfer of competence, thus finding those elements that qualify competence especially at the boundary between school and work experience