Paraphrasing the title of a famous novel (Love in the Time of Cholera) by Gabriel Garcia Márquez, this issue of the journal intends to reflect on one of the most problematic aspects of contemporary society: that is, that of the renunciation of planning for the future, crushed on a present that one cannot even live fully and consciously, because it is voraciously engulfed by a speed that is an end in itself.
In a 2008 publication, Bauman depicts the time of modernity as a set of scattered dots that do not indicate any future trajectory but invite one to live moment by moment, not allowing projects, desires, dreams to be realized but "occasions" to be consumed according to a logic that motivates only to enjoy the ephemeral possibility of the now, living in the dimension of the momentary as a form of protection from the anguish of a life without prospects. Defuturization is the child of the culture of the ephemeral, and the privileged victims are especially the young to whom, instead, the dimension of the future should belong - almost constitutively. Young people are the future: their personal future but also that of the society to which they belong and which must be able and able to redesign itself together with them and through them. Stagnation in an "omnipresent present," more suffered than experienced, magnifies the most deleterious aspects of a generalized crisis, material and immaterial, with which contemporary society is usually identified: we speak of an economic, financial, political, social crisis, but also of a crisis of values and education, grasping of the term only its negative meaning (which, moreover, seems to have taken over only in the second half of the twentieth century) as opposed to the positive meaning of transformation, change, therefore also of evolution and emancipation.

In a text remained unpublished until 2002 (and now published in a book of Augustus Scocchera, The method of the child and the formation of man, published by Opera Nazionale Montessori), Maria Montessori writes: “The child makes progress: this is the truth! And as when, invisible, hidden in the womb, comes to earth with a force that no one can hold, so child progresses and born in suffering humanity. Well, we must help this birth, which must ensure the survival and renewal of civilization [...]. We must create the Child Party with coordination of science and education”. This number wants to reflect on the Montessori suggestions for analyze the social, political and educational childhood, because children are still innocent victims of ethnic, political, economic and social conflicts. The basics of Maria Montessori pedagogy – freedom, independence, peace, democracy, equality – can be reread and reinterpreted to propose new ideas, to rethink humanity from childhood.

Since when University was founded, in 1088 – Alma Mater Studiorum in Bologna – it has been the most important promoter of the development of a territory and its citizens.
Indeed, University was the centre of dissemination of knowledge and promotion of research. In this sense, University has always represented a 'laboratory of critic construction of minds', aimed at disseminating, producing and putting new knowledge at the service of emancipatory development of societies, cultures and communities.
In present-day society, not surprisingly defined 'society of knowledge', the role of Universities has become much more challenging, as according to the E.U. latest advices (Commissione delle Comunità Europee, Il ruolo delle Università nell'Europa della conoscenza, Bruxelles, 5/2/2003).
In addition to its traditional missions – education and research – University, nowadays, has got a third mission, referred to lifelong education and learning. This third mission, following the latest Academic reforms (n. 509/1999 and n. 540/2010), has materialized in the increasing number of adult students, involving new challenges for University.
Neverthless, the question we raise through the present Call for papers is the following: what are the positive or negative consequences determined by curricular and organizational reforms which in a few years have deeply transformed University? May the situation of uncertainty, or proper crisis, variously lived by Italian Athenaeums – and particularly academic community – be considered as constructive (growth crisis) or does it risk to swamp University, by impoverishing the functions and the role it has had over the centuries? How the latest changes occurred (Degree courses, evaluation of educational paths, teachers' recruitment system, test about didactics and research quality) have modified the nature of our universities?

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Researches, reflections and training practices of last decades have contributed to radically redefine the theory-practice of lifelong guidance, in the multiplicity of its places and experiences. In this sense, talking about guidance in the nowadays society of permanent change implies the need to highlight its complex and systemic nature, both in terms of theoretical legitimacy and in terms of concrete action. This is in order to better characterize identities, powers, functions and methods. Guidance - and people involved at both theoretical and practical levels – is supposed to "support" individuals in the continuous transitions they are asked to face in every age of life, transforming risk situations into personal growth and to private, professional and social opportunities.

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