Abstract

To what extent are students from Social Sciences and Humanities Faculties prepared for their transition to the workplace? Can they be seen as competitive human resources in the western job market, which is now affected by graduates’ unemployment? Of course, the answers vary from context to context. This seminar addresses national contexts where the unemployment rate is high in both absolute and comparative terms (SSH vs. STEM graduates), and where the SSH teaching-learning environment suffers from both drop-outs and lacks in practice-based activities. Such description matches Italy, but can also fit other nations. Didactic Tutoring is designed as a compulsory set of activities aimed at stimulating SSH students’ self-awareness and motivation, and at developing their professional expertise. The presented proposal is hitherto theoretical, but meant to become applied. Empirical evidence on the level of self-awareness of students is being collected through a qualitative case-study analysis, conducted in both an Italian SSH Faculty and here in the Faculty of Education in Cambridge.

Profile Daniela Sideri is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Siena, about to move to the University of Chieti, Italy. She is a sociological researcher whose interests are focused on the agents and process of socialization and on higher education in social sciences and humanities, including topics that vary from employability and professional identity to project-based learning and self-awareness. In 2008 she earned a diploma in Political Sciences from the Luiss University of Rome, Italy. After spending her last semester at CUNY , she earned her doctoral degree in Text Sciences from the University of Siena in 2012, with a thesis on semiotic content analysis and the educational functions of literature. She is a visiting scholar in the Faculty with Professor Jan Vermunt as her host.