Employability and non traditional students: a meta-analysis –

Today's times are characterized by recursive, discontinuous and fragmented working socialization processes (Lodigiani, 2010). Faced with this complexity, a leading role can be played by guidance services in the university context, in response to the demands of so many young people who are disillusioned and discouraged to the point of not being able to imagine a job already during the university course ( Grimaldi, Porcelli, Rossi, 2014). Even more complex is the encounter between the world of work and university students and non - traditional graduates. It is therefore necessary to carry out orientation pathways in the university context aimed at promoting the employability of non-traditional university students.Purpose: In the light of this scenario, we chose to make a first meta-analysis of the scientific literature over the last ten years concerning the declination of the employability construct within Higher Education and its operationalization in the vocational guidance courses for Non-traditional University students.Methodology.It was chosen to carry out a qualitative analysis of the scientific literature on the topic, using the Nvivo software (Richards, 1999) with the aim of exploring the corpus of selected scientific materials systematically. This qualitative analysis carried out in the perspective of Grounded Theory (Glaser, Strauss, 1967) allowed to formulate categories of analysis to reach a heart categoryConclusionsFrom the first meta-analysis emerges that the concept of employability is conceptualized in multiple ways and as such multiplicity is reflected in the different orientation paths to employability addressed to non-traditional university students in different countries, from a cross-cultural point of view.