This paper presents the design and implementation of PNRR OrientaUnito (Ricchiardi & Lattanzi, 2023; Ricchiardi et al. 2023), a large-scale school-based career guidance project developed by the University of Turin in 2022 and implemented in upper secondary schools across the Piedmont region of Italy. The project was conceived in response to growing evidence that adolescents’ capacity to imagine, narrate, and plan their futures is increasingly challenged by economic instability (Deloitte, 2025), rapid transformations of the labor market (Sowa et al., 2025), and pervasive social and environmental uncertainties (Hickman et al., 2021). In such a context, traditional information-oriented guidance approaches, largely focused on educational and occupational choices, may prove insufficient to support young people’s processes of meaning-making, identity development, and self-directed future construction.

Grounded in contemporary career development theories that emphasize narrative reflexivity (Savickas et al., 2009) and identity construction as a dynamic and relational process (Guichard, 2009), PNRR OrientaUnito was designed as a comprehensive guidance framework aimed at creating reflective, dialogical, and expressive spaces within school contexts. These spaces are intended to enable students to explore values, aspirations, fears, and representations of both personal and collective futures, integrating cognitive, emotional, and symbolic dimensions of career development.

The project is coordinated by a multidisciplinary team of experts in the socio-psycho-pedagogical field responsible for the design, annual experimentation, and iterative redesign of guidance interventions targeting students in the third, fourth, and fifth years of upper secondary education. Within this overarching framework, multiple 15-hour guidance pathways are implemented, differentiated by students’ age, school track (academic, technical, and vocational), intensity and setting of delivery as well as by methodological approach. While some pathways adopt a mixed guidance model combining narrative and informational components, others are explicitly grounded in narrative and expressive methodologies.

This paper focuses in particular on two fully narrative-based pathways - Photovoice for career guidance (Smeda, et al., 2014) and Rap for career guidance (McElroy, 2023) - which employ evocative and creative languages to support students in articulating personal meanings related to education, work, and life trajectories. These pathways, aimed only at third year students, use tools such as photography, visual storytelling, and rap music to foster reflexivity and collective dialogue around future imaginaries. To examine the outcomes of these narrative interventions, the paper adopts a mixed approach that integrates quantitative measures of career guidance competencies with qualitative analysis of student-produced materials, including photographs, images, and rap lyrics. The study argues that narrative-based career guidance can play a crucial role in supporting young people’s future planning by addressing not only decision-making skills, but also the emotional, symbolic, and imaginative dimensions of career construction. By combining quantitative and qualitative evidence, the paper contributes to ongoing debates on the role of creative and narrative approaches within school-based guidance systems.

The study employs a mixed research design combining quantitative assessment and qualitative analysis to evaluate the outcomes of the Photovoice and Rap guidance pathways implemented within the PNRR OrientaUnito project. This methodological choice is consistent with the project’s constructivist and narrative theoretical framework (Patton & McMahon, 2006), which conceptualizes career development as a process involving both measurable competencies and subjective meaning-making. In both guidance pathways, activities were designed to stimulate reflection on future scenarios, personal values, perceived constraints, and aspirations through the use of narrative, visual, and musical tools. Particular attention was given to creating a safe and participatory group climate that could support personal expression and collective reflection. The paper adresses three main research questions: 1) Do guidance interventions have a statistically significant impact on the development of students’ career management (or orientation) competencies? 2) What is the effectiveness (Cohen’s d) of the different pathways, differentiated by tools and methodologies, in developing these competencies? 3) How is the future represented in the analyzed rap songs and images? Quantitative data were collected using a self-assessment scale measuring career guidance competencies, developed by the research team in 2024. The instrument assesses multiple dimensions, including self-knowledge, decision-making, perceived agency, and optimism toward the future. The scale (36 items) was administered before and after participation in the workshops, and descriptive statistics as well as inferential analyses were conducted to examine changes over time and to identify areas of statistically significant improvement. Qualitative data were drawn from materials produced by students during the guidance activities, including photographs, visual compositions, written texts, and rap songs. These materials were analysed thematically (Clarke & Brown, 2016) to identifying recurring patterns in students’ representations of the future, perceived challenges, fears, hopes, and orientations toward education and work. The coding process was iterative, moving from initial open coding to the construction of broader thematic categories that captured shared meanings across groups. The integration of quantitative and qualitative data enabled triangulation of findings and offered a more nuanced understanding of the interventions’ impact. Rather than focusing on long-term outcomes, which were beyond the scope of the present study, the analysis concentrates on immediate changes in students’ perceptions, narratives, and expressive representations related to future planning and career construction.

The findings discussed in this paper suggest that narrative-based career guidance interventions can make a meaningful contribution to supporting adolescents’ future planning in contexts characterized by uncertainty, instability, and rapid social change. The PNRR OrientaUnito project, and in particular its two fully narrative-based pathways, demonstrates that creating reflective and expressive spaces within school-based guidance can enhance students’ self-awareness, helping them to identify, articulate, and critically reflect on the multiple personal, relational, social, and contextual factors that shape and influence their educational and career decision-making processes. Quantitative results indicate measurable improvements in key career guidance competencies, while qualitative analyses reveal the richness and ambivalence of students’ representations of their futures and of the future more broadly. Students’ creative outputs highlight how fears, anxieties, and hopes coexist, underscoring the need for guidance practices capable of engaging with complexity rather than attempting to neutralize uncertainty through purely informational approaches. From a theoretical perspective, the study provides empirical support for career construction and narrative models that conceptualize guidance as a process of identity development and meaning-making. From a practical standpoint, it emphasizes the value of integrating creative and expressive methodologies in school guidance programs, particularly during critical educational transitions. The paper concludes by arguing that the capacity to imagine and narrate the future should be recognized as a central developmental task in adolescence. Investing in narrative-based guidance interventions can strengthen the educational role of career guidance and contribute to more inclusive, human-centered guidance systems capable of responding to contemporary social and educational challenges.

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