Competences
(Key, transversal, profile, acknowledgement)

Barbara De Angelis e Raffaella Leproni
Roma Tre University

Competences are generally defined as the conditions allowing for the complex integration of knowledge, skills and capabilities achieved at the end of processes of personal and professional development. They are a set of forms of knowledge, potentialities, features and intrinsic attitudes representing a resource of “knowing how to do that is a manifest expression of knowing how to be” (Carlotto, 2018, translation mine).
From a business perspective, the term competences often overlaps with and/or supplements the terms skills and capabilities, therefore, it is linked to the demonstrable quality of performance.
Capability refers to the condition that allows individuals to acquire skills and learn to perform tasks suited to their potential – a condition that may be achieved but not yet fully enacted. The term also indicates the set of resources a person has, together with his or her ability to use them (Sen, 1999/2000).
Skill, on the other hand, is a type of work, task or activity that requires specific training and knowledge, and also, vice versa, the set of knowledge and competences that allows the person to demonstrate his or her ability to carry out a job (Chianese, 2011). Therefore, skill can be understood as a competence which is effective in a specific context, put into practice to produce a performance and/or achieve a goal. The term transferable competences – translated in Italian as “competenze transferibili” –refers to skills that cut across different areas and disciplines, transferable to and expendable in different professional contexts. It is used alongside the term life competences – “competenze per la vita” in Italian – referring to cross-cutting and adaptive skills (also called “key competences”) that develop from early childhood to adulthood as part of lifelong learning.
The Council of Europe has identified employability, social inclusion, sustainable lifestyle and active citizenship as the key competences for lifelong learning (for more details see Recommendation of 22 May 2018), competences which help individuals lead fruitful lives in a knowledge society as they may be applied in a range of contexts and in different combinations. Critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, communication and negotiation skills, analytical skills, creativity and intercultural skills are the underlying elements of all key competences; they form a kind of bridge between lifelong learning and vocational specialization and are so crucial in this role that, according to the World Economic Forum, labor market demand is increasingly focused on transferable competences with a strong educational and pedagogical character.
Along these lines, individuals can use a competence assessment process (Lévyleboyer, 1993) to analyze their strengths in relation to the development of their specific life project. Competence assessment has neither evaluative nor quantitative connotations: it is a mainly self-evaluative tool providing guidance, considered a possible aid for making conscious decisions in the construction of a person’s professional development and future (Canevaro, 2008). In situations of marginality linked to fragility and hardship, even temporary situations or those caused by different factors, initiatives aimed at providing guidance, intended as a training and employability-enhancement strategy, may bolster individual emotional resources and launch a process of empowerment that helps people avoid and/or cope with the risk of social exclusion.
This is why any pathway to social inclusion should provide for an individually tailored intervention action plan that involves providing different services based on the needs and requirements of each person. In the case of young people not engaged in educational, training or work (NEETs), the guidance/training relationship is an opportunity to strengthen and expand the range of individuals’ choices.
It is this multifaceted meaning of competences that lies at the center of the RE-SERVES project’s Inclusion of young people research action.

Selected references

Carlotto, G. (2018). SOFT SKILLS. Con-vincere con le competenze trasversali e raggiungere i propri obiettivi. FrancoAngeli.

Chianese, G. (2011). Il piano di sviluppo individuale. Analisi e valutazione di competenze. FrancoAngeli.

Lévyleboyer C. (1993). Le Bilan de compétences. Les éditions d’organisation.

Canevaro, A. (Cur.). (2008). Monografia. Il Bilancio di Competenze per persone con svantaggio. L’Integrazione Scolastica e Sociale. Vol. 7, n. 5.

Sen, A. (2000). Lo sviluppo è libertà. Perché non c’è crescita senza democrazia. (G. Rigamonti, Trad. it.). Mondadori. (Originariamente pubblicato nel 1999)