Empowering Adolescents for Sustainable and Inclusive Careers: A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of a Life Design-Based...

Adolescents must plan their educational and occupational futures in a context shaped by globalization, social inequalities, and environmental crises. Although career guidance increasingly emphasizes sustainable and inclusive development, empirical interventions integrating social justice, sustainability, and critical consciousness within established career frameworks remain limited. Drawing on the life design paradigm and the psychology of working theory, this study evaluates a school-based career intervention aimed at enhancing career adaptability, perceptions of decent work, and critical consciousness among adolescents.

Using a quasi-experimental design, participants were 266 Italian 12th-grade students (Mage = 17.20 years, SD = 0.50; 77 males, 189 females) attending public high schools in northern Italy. Classes were assigned to an intervention group (n = 145) or a no-treatment control group (n = 121). The intervention consisted of 5 weekly 2-h didactic units delivered during school hours and focused on globalization, technology, inclusion, sustainability, and future career planning. Measures were collected at pre-test and post-test for both groups, with a 6-month follow-up for the intervention group. Data were analyzed using linear mixed models.

Compared with controls, students in the intervention group showed greater improvements in career adaptability (concern, curiosity, and collaboration), more future-oriented perceptions of decent work, higher critical consciousness, and increased career decisiveness and internality. Improvements were sustained at 6-month follow-up.

Findings support the efficacy of a life design-based career intervention integrating sustainability and social justice, highlighting the potential of career education to foster agency and critical awareness for inclusive and sustainable career development.