(2007) The transition from higher education into work: Tales of cohesion and fragmentation, Education + Training 49 (7): 516585. 1.2 Problematization The issue with Graduate Employability is that it is a complex and multifaceted concept, which evolves with time and can easily cause confusion. It will further show that while common trends are evident across national context, the HElabour market relationship is also subject to national variability. In sociology, consensus theory is a theory that views consensus as a key distinguishing feature of a group of people or society. This is perhaps reflected in the increasing amount of new, modern and niche forms of graduate employment, including graduate sales mangers, marketing and PR officers, and IT executives. A common theme has been state-led attempts to increasingly tighten the relationship and attune HE more closely to the economy, which itself is set within wider discourse around economic change. Hall, P.A. Over time, however, this traditional link between HE and the labour market has been ruptured. This insight, combined with a growing consensus that government should try to stabilize employment, has led to much Employability is a concept that has attracted greater interest in the past two decades as Higher Education (HE) looks to ensure that its output is valued by a range of stakeholders, not least Central . This is then linked to research that has examined the way in which students and graduates are managing the transition into the labour market. The problem has been largely attributable to universities focusing too rigidly on academically orientated provision and pedagogy, and not enough on applied learning and functional skills. 2003). Compelling evidence on employers approaches to managing graduate talent (Brown and Hesketh, 2004) exposes this situation quite starkly. Consequently, they will have to embark upon increasingly uncertain employment futures, continually having to respond to the changing demands of internal and external labour markets. The employability and labour market returns of graduates also appears to have a strong international dimension to it, given that different national economies regulate the relationship between HE and labour market entry differently (Teichler, 2007). A consensus theory is one which believes that the institutions of society are working together to maintain social cohesion and stability. Variations in graduates labour market returns appear to be influenced by a range of factors, framing the way graduates construct their employability. Morley ( 2001 ) nevertheless states that . Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2002) Individualization, London: Sage. The purpose of this article is to show that the way employability is typically defined in official statements is seriously flawed because it ignores what will be called the 'duality of employability'. . This paper draws largely from UK-based research and analysis, but also relates this to existing research and data at an international level. A range of other research has also exposed the variability within and between graduates in different national contexts (Edvardsson Stiwne and Alves, 2010; Puhakka et al., 2010). In effect, market rules dominate. Kelsall, R.K., Poole, A. and Kuhn, A. Even those students with strong intrinsic orientations around extra-curricula activities are aware of the need to translate these into marketable, value-added skills. It appears that students and graduates reflect upon their relationship with the labour market and what they might need to achieve their goals. Research on the more subjective, identity-based aspects of graduate employability also shows that graduates dispositions tend to derive from wider aspects of their educational and cultural biographies, and that these exercise some substantial influence on their propensities towards future employment. Similar to the Bowman et al. Players are adept at responding to such competition, embarking upon strategies that will enable them to acquire and present the types of employability narratives that employers demand. Ball, S.J. 1.2 THE CLASSICAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT The purpose of G.T. <>stream Perhaps more positively, there is evidence that employers place value on a wider range of softer skills, including graduates values, social awareness and generic intellectuality dispositions that can be nurtured within HE and further developed in the workplace (Hinchliffe and Jolly, 2011). Article Department for Education Skills (DFES). The role of employers and employer organisations in facilitating this, as well as graduates learning and professional development, may therefore be paramount. These negotiations continue well into graduates working lives, as they continue to strive towards establishing credible work identities. Bridgstock, R. (2009) The graduate attributes weve overlooked: Enhancing graduate employability through career management skills, Higher Education Research and Development 28 (1): 3144. Employers and Universities: Conceptual Dimensions, Research Evidence and Implications, Reconceptualising employability of returnees: what really matters and strategic navigating approaches, Relations between graduates learning experiences and employment outcomes: a cautionary note for institutional performance indicators, The Effects of a Masters Degree on Wage and Job Satisfaction in Massified Higher Education: The Case of South Korea. The paper explores some of the conceptual notions that have informed understandings of graduate employability, and argues for a broader understanding of employability than that offered by policymakers. The consensus theory emphasizes that the social order is through the shared norms, and belief systems of people. Scott, P. (2005) Universities and the knowledge economy, Minerva 43 (3): 297309. A consensus theory approach sees sport as a source of collective harmony, a way of binding people together in a shared experience. Elias, P. and Purcell, K. (2004) The Earnings of Graduates in Their Early Careers: Researching Graduates Seven Years on. %PDF-1.7 develop the ideas in his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). While in the main graduates command higher wages and are able to access wider labour market opportunities, the picture is a complex and variable one and reflects marked differences among graduates in their labour market returns and experiences. explains that employability influences three theories: Talcott Parson's Consensus Theory that is linked to norms and shared beliefs of the society; Conflict theory of Karl Marx, who elaborated how the finite resources of the world drive towards eternal conflict; and Human Capital Theory of Becker which is Furthermore, this relationship was marked by a relatively stable flow of highly qualified young people into well-paid and rewarding employment. The underlying assumption of this view is that the The relationship between HE and the labour market has traditionally been a closely corresponding one, although in sometimes loose and intangible ways (Brennan et al., 1996; Johnston, 2003). Collins, R. (2000) Comparative and Historical Patterns of Education, in M. Hallinan (ed.) Increasingly, individual graduates are no longer constrained by the old corporate structures that may have traditionally limited their occupational agility. The neo-Weberian theorising of Collins (2000) has been influential here, particularly in examining the ways in which dominant social groups attempt to monopolise access to desired economic goods, including the best jobs. and Soskice, D.W. (2001) Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, Oxford: Oxford University Press. The simultaneous decoupling and tightening in the HElabour market relationship therefore appears to have affected the regulation of graduates into specific labour market positions and their transitions more generally. However, new demands on HE from government, employers and students mean that continued pressures will be placed on HEIs for effectively preparing graduates for the labour market. With increased individual expenditure, HE has literally become an investment and, as such, students may look to it for raising their absolute level of employability. The problem of managing one's future employability is therefore seen largely as being up to the individual graduate. 9n=#Ql\(~_e!Ul=>MyHv'Ez'uH7w2'ffP"M*5Lh?}s$k9Zw}*7-ni{?7d Research Paper 1, University of West England & Warwick University, Warwick Institute for Employment Research. Warhurst, C. (2008) The knowledge economy, skills and government labour market intervention, Policy Studies 29 (1): 7186. Keynesian economics is an economic theory of total spending in the economy and its effects on output and inflation . The functionalism perspective is a paradigm influenced by American sociology from roughly the 1930s to the 1960s, although its origins lay in the work of the French sociologist Emile Durkheim, writing at the end of the 19th century. Taylor, J. and Pick, D. (2008) The work orientations of Australian university students, Journal of Education and Work 21 (5): 405421. This is likely to be carried through into the labour market and further mediated by graduates ongoing experiences and interactions post-university. Fugate and Kinicki (2008, p.9) describe career identity as "one's self-definition in the career context."Chope and Johnson (2008, p. 47) define career identity in a more scientific manner where they state that "career identity reflects the degree to which individuals define themselves in terms of a particular organisation, job, profession, or industry". In the United Kingdom, for example, state commitment to public financing of HE has declined; although paradoxically, state continues to exert pressures on the system to enhance its outputs, quality and overall market responsiveness (DFE, 2010). Questions continued to be posed over the specific role of HE in regulating skilled labour, and the overall matching of the supply of graduates leaving HE to their actual economic demand and utility (Bowers-Brown and Harvey, 2004). Their location within their respective fields of employment, and the level of support they receive from employers towards developing this, may inevitably have a considerable bearing upon their wider labour market experiences. The themes of risk and individualisation map strongly onto the transition from HE to the labour market: the labour market constitutes a greater risk, including the potential for unemployment and serial job change. Moreover, this is likely to shape their orientations towards the labour market, potentially affecting their overall trajectories and outcomes. Morley (2001) however states that employability . This also extends to subject areas where there has been a traditionally closer link between the curricula content and specific job areas (Wilton, 2008; Rae, 2007). Increasingly, graduates employability needs to be embodied through their so-called personal capital, entailing the integration of academic abilities with personal, interpersonal and behavioural attributes. Continued training and lifelong learning is one way of staying fit in a job market context with shifting and ever-increasing employer demands. 2023 Springer Nature Switzerland AG. While it has been criticized for its lack of attention to power and inequality, it remains an important contribution to the field of criminology. The different orientations students are developing appear to be derived from emerging identities and self-perceptions as future employees, as well as from wider biographical dimensions of the student. Future research directions on graduate employability will need to explore the way in which graduates employability and career progression is managed both by graduates and employers during the early stages of their careers. Prior to this, Harvey ( 2001 ) has defined employability in assorted ways from single and institutional positions. The increasingly flexible and skills-rich nature of contemporary employment means that the highly educated are empowered in an economy demanding the creativity and abstract knowledge of those who have graduated from HE. Employability depends on your knowledge, skills and attitudes, how you use those assets, and how you present them to employers. The most discernable changes in HE have been its gradual massification over the past three decades and, in more recent times, the move towards greater individual expenditure towards HE in the form of student fees. They found that a much higher proportion of female graduates work within public sector employment compared with males who attained more private sector and IT-based employment. The challenge, it seems, is for graduates to become adept at reading these signals and reframing both their expectations and behaviours. known as "Graduate Employability" (Harvey 2003; Yorke 2006). It is also considered as both a product (a set of skills that enable) and as a . These concerns may further feed into students approaches to HE more generally, increasingly characterised by more instrumental, consumer-driven and acquisitive learning approaches (Naidoo and Jamieson, 2005). Further research has also pointed to experiences of graduate underemployment (Mason, 2002; Chevalier and Lindley, 2009).This research has revealed that a growing proportion of graduates are undertaking forms of employment that are not commensurate to their level of education and skills. Keynes' theory of employment is a demand-deficient theory. Handbook of the Sociology of Education, New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. Overall, consensus theory is a useful perspective for understanding the role of crime in society and the ways in which it serves as a means of defining and enforcing social norms and values. The theory of employability can be difficult to identify; there can be many factors that contribute to the idea of being employable. Less positively, their research exposed gender disparities gap in both pay and the types of occupations graduates work within. Marginson, S. (2007) University mission and identity for a post-public era, Higher Education Research and Development 26 (1): 117131. Purpose. Research done over the past decade has highlighted the increasing pressures anticipated and experienced by graduates seeking well-paid and graduate-level forms of employment. How employable a graduate is, or perceives themselves to be, is derived largely from their self-perception of themselves as a future employee and the types of work-related dispositions they are developing. Purpose. Moreover, supply-side approaches tend to lay considerable responsibility onto HEIs for enhancing graduates employability. Holmes, L. (2001) Graduate employability: The graduate identity approach, Quality in Higher Education 7 (1): 111119. For much of the past decade, governments have shown a commitment towards increasing the supply of graduates entering the economy, based on the technocratic principle that economic changes necessitates a more highly educated and flexible workforce (DFES, 2003) This rationale is largely predicated on increased economic demand for higher qualified individuals resulting from occupational changes, and whereby the majority of new job growth areas are at graduate level. Moreover, there is evidence of national variations between graduates from different countries, contingent on the modes of capitalism within different countries. Theory could be viewed as a coherent group of assumptions or propositions put forth to . X@vFuyfDdf(^vIm%h>IX, OIDq8 - What has perhaps been characteristic of more recent policy discourses has been the strong emphasis on harnessing HE's activities to meet changing economic demands. Both policymakers and employers have looked to exert a stronger influence on the HE agenda, particularly around its formal provisions, in order to ensure that graduates leaving HE are fit-for-purpose (Teichler, 1999, 2007; Harvey, 2000). The decline of the established graduate career trajectory has somewhat disrupted the traditional link between HE, graduate credentials and occupational rewards (Ainley, 1994; Brown and Hesketh, 2004). It was not uncommon for students participating, for example, in voluntary or community work to couch these activities in terms of developing teamworking and potential leadership skills. Roberts, K. (2009) Opportunity structures then and now, Journal of Education and Work 22 (5): 355368. Employability is a promise to employees that they will hold the accomplishments to happen new occupations rapidly if their occupations end out of the blue ( Baruch, 2001 ) . The theory of employability can be hard to place ; there can be many factors that contribute to the thought of being employable. If the occupational structure does not become sufficiently upgraded to accommodate the continued supply of graduates, then mismatches between graduates level of education and the demands of their jobs may ensue. Employment relations is the study of the regulation of the employment relationship between employer and employee, both collectively and individually, and the determination . While they were aware of potential structural barriers relating to the potentially classed and gendered nature of labour markets, many of these young people saw the need to take proactive measures to negotiate theses challenges. Southampton Education School, University of Southampton, Building 32, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK, You can also search for this author in These concerns seem to be percolating down to graduates perceptions and strategies for adapting to the new positional competition. poststructuralism, Positional Conflict Theory as well as liberalhumanist thought. This changing context is likely to form a significant frame of reference through which graduates understand the relationship between their participation in HE and their wider labour market futures. Moreau, M.P. Graduate employability is clearly a problem that goes far wider than formal participation in HE, and is heavily bound up in the coordination, regulation and management of graduate employment through the course of graduate working lives. Individuals therefore need to proactively manage these risks (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002). (2010) Overqualifcation, job satisfaction, and increasing dispersion in the returns to graduate education, Oxford Economic Papers 62 (4): 740763. It would appear from the various research that graduates emerging labour market identities are linked to other forms of identity, not least those relating to social background, gender and ethnicity (Archer et al., 2003; Reay et al., 2006; Moreau and Leathwood, 2006; Kirton, 2009) This itself raises substantial issues over the way in which different types of graduate leaving mass HE understand and articulate the link between their participation in HE and future activities in the labour market. The changing HEeconomy dynamic feeds into a range of further significant issues, not least those relating to equity and access in the labour market. While at one level the correspondence between HE and the labour market has become blurred by these various structural changes, there has also been something of a tightening of the relationship.
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