(2003) The shape of research in the field of higher education and graduate employment: Some issues, Studies in Higher Education 28 (4): 413426. Conflict theory in sociology. Research Paper 1, University of West England & Warwick University, Warwick Institute for Employment Research. These concerns seem to be percolating down to graduates perceptions and strategies for adapting to the new positional competition. For other students, careers were far more tangential to their personal goals and lifestyles, and were not something they were prepared to make strong levels of personal and emotional investment towards. The problem of graduates employability remains a continuing policy priority for higher education (HE) policymakers in many advanced western economies. (2007) The transition from higher education into work: Tales of cohesion and fragmentation, Education + Training 49 (7): 516585. Purpose. Dominant discourses on graduates employability have tended to centre on the economic role of graduates and the capacity of HE to equip them for the labour market. 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. This is further raising concerns around the distribution and equity of graduates economic opportunities, as well as the traditional role of HE credentials in facilitating access to desired forms of employment (Scott, 2005). They construct their individual employability in a relative and subjective manner. Moreover, in the context of flexible and competitive globalisation, the highly educated may find themselves forming part of an increasingly disenfranchised new middle class, continually at the mercy of agile, cost-driven flows in skilled labour, and in competition with contemporaries from newly emerging economies. The problem of graduate employability and skills may not so much centre on deficits on the part of graduates, but a graduate over-supply that employers find challenging to manage. Power, S. and Whitty, G. (2006) Graduating and Graduations Within the Middle Class: The Legacy of an Elite Higher Education, Cardiff: Cardiff University, School of Social Sciences. Greenbank, P. (2007) Higher education and the graduate labour market: The Class Factor, Tertiary Education and Management 13 (4): 365376. Moreau, M.P. Structural Functionalism/ Consensus Theory. Barrie, S. (2006) Understanding what we mean by generic attributes of graduates, Higher Education 51 (2): 215241. . This is likely to be carried through into the labour market and further mediated by graduates ongoing experiences and interactions post-university. Nabi, G., Holden, R. and Walmsley, A. Research has continually highlighted engrained employer biases towards particular graduates, ordinarily those in possession of traditional cultural and academic currencies and from more prestigious HEIs (Harvey et al., 1997; Hesketh, 2000). Department for Business Innovation and Skills (DIUS). Problematising the notion of graduate skill is beyond the scope of this paper, and has been discussed extensively elsewhere (Holmes, 2001; Hinchliffe and Jolly, 2011).Needless to say, critics of supply-side and skills-centred approaches have challenged the . 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). This contrasts with more flexible liberal economies such as the United Kingdom, United States and Australia, characterised by more intensive competition, deregulation and lower employment tenure. This paper reviews some of the key empirical and conceptual themes in the area of graduate employability over the past decade in order to make sense of graduate employability as a policy issue. Brown, P., Lauder, H. and Ashton, D.N. This was a model developed by Lorraine Dacre Pool and Peter Sewell in 2007 which identifies five essential elements that aid employability: Career Development Learning: the knowledge, skills and experience to help people manage and develop their careers. In countries where training routes are less demarcated (for instance those with mass HE systems), these differences are less pronounced. Tomlinson, M. (2008) The degree is not enough: Students perceptions of the role of higher education credentials for graduate work and employability, British Journal of Sociology of Education 29 (1): 4961. Little, B. and Archer, L. (2010) Less time to study, less well prepared for work, yet satisfied with higher education: A UK perspective on links between higher education and the labour market, Journal of Education and Work 23 (3): 275296. 6 0 obj Variations in graduates labour market returns appear to be influenced by a range of factors, framing the way graduates construct their employability. The underlying assumption of this view is that the The purpose of this paper is to adopt the perspective of personal construct theory to conceptualise employability. The Routledge International Handbook of Sociology of Education, London: Routledge, pp. 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. Wolf, A. Moreover, in such contexts, there is greater potential for displacement between levels of education and occupational position; in turn, graduates may also perceive a potential mismatch between their qualifications and their returns in the job market. Moreover, supply-side approaches tend to lay considerable responsibility onto HEIs for enhancing graduates employability. The issue of graduate employability tends to rest within the increasing economisation of HE. Research by both Furlong and Cartmel (2005) and Power and Whitty (2006) shows strong evidence of socio-economic influences on graduate returns, with graduates relative HE experiences often mediating the link between their origins and their destinations. Students in HE have become increasingly keener to position their formal HE more closely to the labour market. In flexible labour markets, such as the United Kingdom this remains high. Moreover, they will be more productive, have higher earning potential and be able to access a range of labour market goods including better working conditions, higher status and more fulfilling work. Rae, D. (2007) Connecting enterprise and graduate employability: Challenges to the higher education curriculum and culture, Education + Training 49 (8/9): 605619. The extent to which future work forms a significant part of their future life goals is likely to determine how they approach the labour market, as well as their own future employability. Moreover, there is evidence of national variations between graduates from different countries, contingent on the modes of capitalism within different countries. Historically, the majority of employability research and practice pertained to vocational rehabilitation or to the attractiveness and selection of job candidates. (1996) Higher Education and Work, London: Jessica Kingsley. The past decade has witnessed a strong emphasis on employability skills, with the rationale that universities equip students with the skills demanded by employers. Article These two theories are usually spoken of as in opposition based on their arguments. . Department for Education (DFE). Eurostat. (employment, marriage, children) that strengthen social bonds -Population Heterogeneity Stability in criminal offending is due to an anti-social characteristic (e., low self-control) that reverberates . 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. Employability is a key concept in higher education. Little (2001) suggests, that it is a multi-dimensional concept, and there is a need to distinguish between the factors relevant to the job and preparation for work. (2010) Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education (The Browne Review), London: HMSO. Keynes' theory of employment is a demand-deficient theory. Value consensus assumes that the norms and values of society are generally agreed and that social life is based on co-operation rather than conflict. For graduates, the challenge is being able to package their employability in the form of a dynamic narrative that captures their wider achievements, and which conveys the appropriate personal and social credentials desired by employers. research investigating employability from the employers' perspective has been qualitative in nature. Maria Eliophotou Menon, Eleftheria Argyropoulou & Andreas Stylianou, Ly Thi Tran, Nga Thi Hang Ngo, Tien Thi Hanh Ho, David Walters, David Zarifa & Brittany Etmanski, Jason L. Brown, Sara J. 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". Report to HEFCE by the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information. Employable individuals are able to demonstrate a fundamental level of functioning or skill to perform a given job, or an employable individual's skills and experience . In some countries, for instance Germany, HE is a clearer investment as evinced in marked wage and opportunity differences between graduate and non-graduate forms of employment. One particular consequence of a massified, differentiated HE is therefore likely to be increased discrimination between different types of graduates. This research highlighted that some had developed stronger identities and forms of identification with the labour market and specific future pathways. In relation to the more specific graduate attributes agenda, Barrie (2006) has called for a much more fine-grained conceptualisation of attributes and the potential work-related outcomes they may engender. Skills formally taught and acquired during university do not necessarily translate into skills utilised in graduate employment. Brown and Hesketh's (2004) research has clearly shown the competitive pressures experienced by graduates in pursuit of tough-entry and sought-after employment, and some of the measures they take to meet the anticipated recruitment criteria of employers. Graduates clearly follow different employment pathways and embark upon a multifarious range of career routes, all leading to different experiences and outcomes. As Teichler (1999) points out, the increasing alignment of universities to the labour market in part reflects continued pressures to develop forms of innovation that will add value to the economy, be that through research or graduates. Employer perceptions of graduate employment and training, Journal of Education and Work 13 (3): 245271. This tends to manifest itself in the form of positional conflict and competition between different groups of graduates competing for highly sought-after forms of employment (Brown and Hesketh, 2004). Summary. Policymakers continue to emphasise the importance of employability skills in order for graduates to be fully equipped in meeting the challenges of an increasingly flexible labour market (DIUS, 2008). Consensus theory is a social theory that holds a particular political or economic system as a fair system, and that social change should take place within the social institutions provided by it .Consensus theory contrasts sharply with conflict theory, which holds that social change is only achieved through conflict.. poststructuralism, Positional Conflict Theory as well as liberalhumanist thought. 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. 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. Moreau and Leathwood reported strong tendencies for graduates to attribute their labour market outcomes and success towards personal attributes and qualities as much as the structure of available opportunities. A range of key factors seem to determine graduates access to different returns in the labour market that are linked to the specific profile of the graduate. Teichler, U. Morley, L. and Aynsley, S. (2007) Employers, quality and standards in higher education: Shared values and vocabularies or elitism and inequalities? Higher Education Quarterly 61 (3): 229249. The strengths of consensus theory are that it is a more objective approach and that it is easier to achieve agreement. Graduates in different occupations were shown to be drawing upon particular graduate skill-sets, be that occupation-specific expertise, managerial decision-making skills, and interactive, communication-based competences. High Educ Policy 25, 407431 (2012). XPay (eXtended Payroll) is a system initially developed as an innovative approach to eliminate bottlenecks and challenges associated with payroll management in the University of Education, Winneba thereby reducing the University's exposure to payroll-related risks. 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. Taylor, J. and Pick, D. (2008) The work orientations of Australian university students, Journal of Education and Work 21 (5): 405421. Policy responses have tended to be supply-side focused, emphasising the role of HEIs for better equipping graduates for the challenges of the labour market. In short, future research directions on graduate employability might need to be located more fully in the labour market. Perhaps one consensus uniting discussion on the effects of labour market change is that the new knowledge-based economy entails significant challenges for individuals, including those who are well educated. Various analysis of graduate returns (Brown and Hesketh, 2004; Green and Zhu, 2010) have highlighted the significant disparities that exist among graduates; in particular, some marked differences between the highest graduate earners and the rest. Brennan, J., Kogan, M. and Teichler, U. Advancement in technological innovation requires the application of technical skills and knowledge; thus, attracting and retaining talented knowledge workers have become crucial for incumbent firms . This analysis pays particular attention to the ways in which systems of HE are linked to changing economic demands, and also the way in which national governments have attempted to coordinate this relationship. These theorists believe that the society and its equilibrium are based on the consensus or agreement of people. Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. (2010) Education and the employability of graduates: Will Bologna make a difference? European Educational Research Journal 9 (1): 3244. This may have a strong bearing upon how both graduates and employers socially construct the problem of graduate employability. 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. Johnston, B. 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 appears that the wider educational profile of the graduate is likely to have a significant bearing on their future labour market outcomes. Kelsall, R.K., Poole, A. and Kuhn, A. Strangleman, T. (2007) The nostalgia for the permanence of work? Clarke, M. (2008) Understanding and managing employability in changing career contexts, Journal of European Industrial Training 32 (4): 258284. Such changes have coincided with what has typically been seen as a shift towards a more flexible, post-industrialised knowledge-driven economy that places increasing demands on the workforce and necessitates new forms of work-related skills (Hassard et al., 2008). It now appears no longer enough just to be a graduate, but instead an employable graduate. Over time, however, this traditional link between HE and the labour market has been ruptured. A further policy response towards graduate employability has been around the enhancement of graduates skills, following the influential Dearing Report (1997). This review has highlighted how this shifting dynamic has reshaped the nature of graduates transitions into the labour market, as well as the ways in which they begin to make sense of and align themselves towards future labour market demands. Keynesian economics is an economic theory of total spending in the economy and its effects on output and inflation . <>stream 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 study explores differences in the implicit employability theories of those involved in developing employability (educators) and those selecting and recruiting higher education (HE) students and graduates (employers). In effect, market rules dominate. Warhurst, C. (2008) The knowledge economy, skills and government labour market intervention, Policy Studies 29 (1): 7186. Individuals therefore need to proactively manage these risks (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002). Google Scholar. Traditionally, linkages between the knowledge and skills produced through universities and those necessitated by employers have tended to be quite flexible and open-ended. Longitudinal research on graduates transitions to the labour market (Holden and Hamblett, 2007; Nabi et al., 2010) also illustrates that graduates initial experiences of the labour market can confirm or disrupt emerging work-related identities. Scott, P. (2005) Universities and the knowledge economy, Minerva 43 (3): 297309. Research in the field also points to increasing awareness among graduates around the challenges of future employability. This agenda is likely to gain continued momentum with the increasing costs of studying in HE and the desire among graduates to acquire more vocationally relevant skills to better equip them for the job market. Purists, believing that their employability is largely constitutive of their meritocratic achievements, still largely equate their employability with traditional hard currencies, and are therefore not so adept at responding to signals from employers. While consensus theory emphasizes cooperation and shared values, conflict theory emphasizes power dynamics and ongoing struggles for social change. Little ( 2001 ) suggests, that it is a multi-dimensional construct, and there is a demand to separate between the factors relevant to the occupation and readying for work. Marginson, S. (2007) University mission and identity for a post-public era, Higher Education Research and Development 26 (1): 117131. This is perhaps further reflected in the degree of qualification-based and skills mismatches, often referred to as vertical mismatches. At one level, there has been an optimistic vision of the economy as being fluid and knowledge-intensive (Leadbetter, 2000), readily absorbing the skills and intellectual capital that graduates possess. Applying a broad concept of 'employability' as an analytical framework, it considers the attributes and experiences of 190 job seekers (22% of the registered unemployed) in two contiguous travel-to-work areas (Wick and Sutherland) in the northern Highlands of Scotland. A more specific set of issues have arisen concerning the types of individuals organisations want to recruit, and the extent to which HEIs can serve to produce them. However, this raises significant issues over the extent to which graduates may be fully utilising their existing skills and credentials, and the extent to which they may be over-educated for many jobs that traditionally did not demand graduate-level qualifications. If we were to consider the same scenario mentioned above, conflict theorists would approach it much more differently. . Brooks, R. and Everett, G. (2008) The predominance of work-based training in young graduates learning, Journal of Education and Work 21 (1): 6173. In sociological debates, consensus theory has been seen as in opposition to conflict theory. 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. At another level, changes in the HE and labour market relationship map on to wider debates on the changing nature of employment more generally, and the effects this may have on the highly qualified. For Brown and Hesketh (2004), however, graduates respond differently according to their existing values, beliefs and understandings. 's (2005) research showed similar patterns among UK Masters students who, as delayed entrants to the labour market and investors in further human capital, possess a range of different approaches to their future career progression. (2000) Recruiting a graduate elite? Moreover, individual graduates may need to reflexively align themselves to the new challenges of labour market, from which they can make appropriate decisions around their future career development and their general life courses. Puhakka, A., Rautopuro, J. and Tuominen, V. (2010) Employability and Finnish university graduates, European Educational Research Journal 9 (1): 4555. 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