Part of this might be seen as a function of the upgrading of traditional of non-graduate jobs to accord with the increased supply of graduates, even though many of these jobs do not necessitate a degree. 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. European-wide secondary data also confirms such patterns, as reflected in variable cross-national graduate returns (Eurostat, 2009). 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). Compelling evidence on employers approaches to managing graduate talent (Brown and Hesketh, 2004) exposes this situation quite starkly. While consensus theory emphasizes cooperation and shared values, conflict theory emphasizes power dynamics and ongoing struggles for social change. (2007) The transition from higher education into work: Tales of cohesion and fragmentation, Education + Training 49 (7): 516585. The theory of post war consensus has been used by political historians and political scientists to explain and understand British political developments in the era between 1945 and 1979. (2004) The Mismangement of Talent: Employability and Jobs in the Knowledge-Based Economy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Conversely, traditional middle-class graduates are more able to add value to their credentials and more adept at exploiting their pre-existing levels of cultural capital, social contacts and connections (Ball, 2003; Power and Whitty, 2006). Critically inclined commentators have also gone as far as to argue that the skills agenda is somewhat token and that skills built into formal HE curricula are a poor relation to the real and embodied depositions that traditional academic, middle-class graduates have acquired through their education and wider lifestyles (Ainley, 1994). 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). Knight, P. and Yorke, M. (2004) Learning, Curriculum and Employability in Higher Education, London: Routledge Falmer. Brennan, J. and Tang, W. (2008) The Employment of UK Graduates: A Comparison with Europe, London: The Open University. (2005) Empowering participants or corroding learning: Towards a research agenda on the impact of student consumerism in higher education, Journal of Education Policy 20 (3): 267281. 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. According to Keynes, the volume of employment in a country depends on the level of effective demand of the people for goods and services. (2010) Higher Education Funding for Academic Years 200910 and 201011 Including New Student Entrants, Bristol: HEFCE. (2008) Graduate development in European employment: Issues and contradictions, Education and Training 50 (5): 379390. 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. 1.2 THE CLASSICAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT The purpose of G.T. Discussing graduates patterns of work-related learning, Brooks and Everett (2008) argue that for many graduates this learning was work-related and driven by the need to secure a particular job and progress within one's current position (Brooks and Everett, 2008, 71). Various stakeholders involved in HE be they policymakers, employers and paying students all appear to be demanding clear and tangible outcomes in response to increasing economic stakes. Southampton Education School, University of Southampton, Building 32, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK, You can also search for this author in Purpose. (2008) Higher Education at Work High Skills: High Value, London: HMSO. (2010) Education and the employability of graduates: Will Bologna make a difference? European Educational Research Journal 9 (1): 3244. 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. Ainley, P. (1994) Degrees of Difference, London: Lawrence Washart. The review has also highlighted the contested terrain around which debates on graduates employability and its development take place. 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. Cardiff School of Social Sciences Working Paper 118. 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. (2007) Round and round the houses: The Leitch review of skills, Local Economy 22 (2): 111117. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative, Over 10 million scientific documents at your fingertips, Not logged in 2023 Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The consensus theory of employment and the conflict theory of employment present contradictory implications about highly skilled workers' opportunity cost for pursuing entrepreneurial activities in the knowledge economy. Consensus theories have a philosophical tradition dating . Hesketh, A.J. The article identified the employability skills that are of great importance to employers, based on the results of employer surveys, and sought to match those skills with small-group teaching activities. 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. Theory could be viewed as a coherent group of assumptions or propositions put forth to . 6 0 obj consensus and industrial peace. 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). Furthermore, this relationship was marked by a relatively stable flow of highly qualified young people into well-paid and rewarding employment. Over time, however, this traditional link between HE and the labour market has been ruptured. (2009) Processes of middle-class reproduction in a graduate employment scheme, Journal of Education and Work 22 (1): 3553. 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. Hansen, H. (2011) Rethinking certification theory and the educational development of the United States and Germany, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 29: 3155. One has been a tightening grip over universities activities from government and employers, under the wider goal of enhancing their outputs and the potential quality of future human resources. In the United Kingdom, as in other countries, clear differences have been reported on the class-cultural and academic profiles of graduates from different HEIs, along with different rates of graduate return (Archer et al., 2003; Furlong and Cartmel, 2005; Power and Whitty, 2006). . 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. Reay, D., Ball, S.J. The key to accessing desired forms of employment is achieving a positional advantage over other graduates with similar academic and class-cultural profiles. 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. Department for Business Innovation and Skills (DIUS). Edvardsson Stiwne, E. and Alves, M.G. 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. 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. In the more flexible UK market, it is more about flexibly adapting one's existing educational profile and credentials to a more competitive and open labour market context. Perhaps significantly, their research shows that graduates occupy a broad range of jobs and occupations, some of which are more closely matched to the archetype of the traditional graduate profession. These two theories are usually spoken of as in opposition based on their arguments. Furthermore, HEIs have increasingly become wedded to a range of internal and external market forces, with their activities becoming more attuned to the demands of both employers and the new student consumer (Naidoo and Jamieson, 2005; Marginson, 2007). These theorists believe that the society and its equilibrium are based on the consensus or agreement of people. Bowers-Brown, T. and Harvey, L. (2004) Are there too many graduates in the UK? Industry and Higher Education 18 (4): 243254. The consensus theory of employability states that enhancing graduates' employability and advancing their careers requires improving their human capital, specifically their skill development . 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. Brennan, J., Kogan, M. and Teichler, U. the focus of many studies but it's difficult to find consensus due to different learning models and approaches considered. It draws upon various studies to highlight the different labour market perceptions, experiences and outcomes of graduates in the United Kingdom and other national contexts. - 91.200.32.231. At the same time, the seeming consensus regarding employability as an outcome with reference to employment or employment rates belies the complexity that surrounds the concept in the wider literature. 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). The consensus theory is based o n the propositions that technological innovation is the driving force of so cial change. This may be largely due to the fact that employers have been reasonably responsive to generic academic profiles, providing that graduates fulfil various other technical and job-specific demands. and David, M. (2006) Degree of Choice: Class, Gender and Race in Higher Education, Stoke: Trentham Books. Skills and attributes approaches often require a stronger location in the changing nature and context of career development in more precarious labour markets, and to be more firmly built upon efficacious ways of sustaining employability narratives. This may have a strong bearing upon how both graduates and employers socially construct the problem of graduate employability. Such strategies typically involve the accruement of additional forms of credentials and capitals that can be converted into economic gain. Much of this is likely to rest on graduates overall staying power, self-efficacy and tolerance to potentially destabilising experiences, be that as entrepreneurs, managers or researchers. Thus, a significant feature of research over the past decade has been the ways in which these changes have entered the collective and personal consciousnesses of students and graduates leaving HE. That graduates employability is intimately related to personal identities and frames of reference reflects the socially constructed nature of employability more generally: it entails a negotiated ordering between the graduate and the wider social and economic structures through which they are navigating. Again, graduates respond to the challenges of increasing flexibility, individualisation and positional competition in different ways. Graduate employability and skills development are also significant determinants for future career success. Warhurst, C. (2008) The knowledge economy, skills and government labour market intervention, Policy Studies 29 (1): 7186. In some parts of Europe, graduates frame their employability more around the extent to which they can fulfil the specific occupational criteria based on specialist training and knowledge. Furthermore, as Bridgstock (2009) has highlighted, generic skills discourses often fail to engage with more germane understandings of the actual career-salient skills graduates genuinely need to navigate through early career stages. The New Right argues that liberal left politicians and welfare policies have undermined the . Accordingly, there has been considerable government faith in the role of HE in meeting new economic imperatives. 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. According to Benson, Morgan and Fillipaios (2013) social skills and inherent personality traits are deemed as more important than technical skills or a This has been driven mainly by a number of key structural changes both to higher education institutions (HEIs) and in the nature of the economy. Thus, graduates successful integration in the labour market may rest less on the skills they possess before entering it, and more on the extent to which these are utilised and enriched through their actual participation in work settings. This insight, combined with a growing consensus that government should try to stabilize employment, has led to much . What more recent research on the transitions from HE to work has further shown is that the way students and graduates approach the labour market and both understand and manage their employability is also highly subjective (Holmes, 2001; Bowman et al., 2005; Tomlinson, 2007). Employment relations is the study of the regulation of the employment relationship between employer and employee, both collectively and individually, and the determination . The social cognitive career theory (SCTT), based on Bandura's (2002) General social cognitive theory, suggests that self-perceived employability affects an individual's career interest and behavior, and that self-perceived employability is a determinant of an individual's ability to find a job (lvarez-Gonzlez et al., 2017). 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. Graduate employability has seen more sweeping emphasis and concerns in national and global job markets, due to the ever-rising number of unemployed people, which has increased even more due to . volume25,pages 407431 (2012)Cite this article. 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. For some graduates, HE continues to be a clear route towards traditional middle-class employment and lifestyle; yet for others it may amount to little more than an opportunity cost. Savage, M. (2003) A new class paradigm? British Journal of Sociology of Education 24 (4): 535541. Consensus Theory. The global move towards mass HE is resulting in a much wider body of graduates in arguably a crowded graduate labour market. What the more recent evidence now suggests is that graduates success and overall efficacy in the job market is likely to rest on the extent to which they can establish positive identities and modes of being that allow them to act in meaningful and productive ways. This will largely shape how graduates perceive the linkage between their higher educational qualification and their future returns. Using Bourdieusian concepts of capital and field to outline the changing dynamic between HE and the labour market, Kupfer (2011) highlights the continued preponderance of structural and cultural inequalities through the existence of layered HE and labour market structures, operating in differentiated fields of power and resources. Prior to this, Harvey ( 2001 ) has defined employability in assorted ways from single and institutional positions. There is no shortage of evidence about what employers expect and demand from graduates, although the extent to which their rhetoric is matched with genuine commitment to both facilitating and further developing graduates existing skills is more questionable. Hammer, Peter McIlveen, Soo Jeung Lee, Seungjung Kim & Jisun Jung, Higher Education Policy A further policy response towards graduate employability has been around the enhancement of graduates skills, following the influential Dearing Report (1997). More positive accounts of graduates labour market outcomes tend to support the notion of HE as a positive investment that leads to favourable returns. Report to HEFCE by the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information. (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 . However, there are concerns that the shift towards mass HE and, more recently, more whole-scale market-driven reforms may be intensifying class-cultural divisions in both access to specific forms of HE experience and subsequent economic outcomes in the labour market (Reay et al., 2006; Strathdee, 2011). Research Paper 1, University of West England & Warwick University, Warwick Institute for Employment Research. Morley (2001) however states that employability is not just about . This paper aims to place the issue of graduate employability in the context of the shifting inter-relationship between HE and the labour market, and the changing regulation of graduate employment. 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). Chevalier, A. and Lindley, J. They also include the professional skills that enable you to be successful in the workplace. Purpose. Despite the limitations, the model is adopted to evaluate the role of education stakeholders in the Nigerian HE. The more recent policy in the United Kingdom towards raising fee levels has coincided with an economic downturn, generating concerns over the value and returns of a university degree. Similar to the Bowman et al. In sociology, consensus theory is a theory that views consensus as a key distinguishing feature of a group of people or society. Thetable below has been compiled by a range of UK-based companies (see company details at the end of this guide), and it lists the Top 10 Employability Skills which they look for in potential employees - that means you! While investment in HE may result in favourable outcomes for some graduates, this is clearly not the case across the board. express the aim not to focus on the 'superiority of a single theory in understanding employability' (p. 897), . (2000) Recruiting a graduate elite? (2009) The Bologna Process in Higher Education in Europe: Key Indicators on the Social Dimension and Mobility, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. In a similar vein, Greenbank (2007) also reported concerns among working-class graduates of perceived deficiencies in the cultural and social capital needed to access specific types of jobs. Smart, S., Hutchings, M., Maylor, U., Mendick, H. and Menter, I. 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. Ideally, graduates would be able to possess both the hard currencies in the form of traditional academic qualifications together with soft currencies in the form of cultural and interpersonal qualities. Handbook of the Sociology of Education, New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 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. Consensus Vs. Even those students with strong intrinsic orientations around extra-curricula activities are aware of the need to translate these into marketable, value-added skills. While it has been criticized for its lack of attention to power and inequality, it remains an important contribution to the field of criminology. This is likely to result in significant inequalities between social groups, disadvantaging in particular those from lower socio-economic groups. Morley ( 2001 ) however states that employability is not just about with similar Academic and class-cultural profiles 24! A growing consensus that government should try to stabilize employment, has led to.. Different ways viewed as a key distinguishing feature of a group of or... Evaluate the role of HE in meeting New economic imperatives arguably a crowded graduate labour.. Between social groups, disadvantaging in particular those from lower socio-economic groups rewarding employment propositions that technological is. 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( 4 ): 111117 government faith in the role of HE in meeting New economic imperatives in... 24 ( 4 ): 243254 for Business Innovation and skills ( DIUS ) the society and equilibrium... Research Paper 1, University of West England & Warwick University, Warwick Institute employment! This relationship was marked by a relatively stable flow of highly qualified young people into well-paid and rewarding.!
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