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. 2003). The end of work and its commentators, The Sociological Review 55 (1): 81103. In all cases, as these researchers illustrate, narrow checklists of skills appear to play little part in informing employers recruitment decisions, nor in determining graduates employment outcomes. 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. Moreover, this is likely to shape their orientations towards the labour market, potentially affecting their overall trajectories and outcomes. Structural Functionalism/ Consensus Theory. Clarke, M. (2008) Understanding and managing employability in changing career contexts, Journal of European Industrial Training 32 (4): 258284. 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. 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. They construct their individual employability in a relative and subjective manner. What such research has shown is that the wider cultural features of graduates frame their self-perceptions, and which can then be reinforced through their interactions within the wider employment context. 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". Hodkinson, P. and Sparkes, A.C. (1997) Careership: A sociological theory of career decision-making, British Journal of Sociology of Education 18 (1): 2944. This may further entail experiencing adverse labour market experiences such as unemployment and underemployment. This is most associated with functionalism. 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. This shows that graduates lived experience of the labour market, and their attempt to establish a career platform, entails a dynamic interaction between the individual graduate and the environment they operate within. 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. (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. volume25,pages 407431 (2012)Cite this article. 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. Personal characteristics, habits, and attitudes influence how you interact with others. Consensus theories have a philosophical tradition dating . Consensus theories posit that laws are created using group rational to determine what behaviors are deviant and/or criminal to protect society from harm. They see society like a human body, where key institutions work like the body's organs to keep the society/body healthy and well.Social health means the same as social order, and is guaranteed when nearly everyone accepts the general moral values of their society. (2003) and Reay et al. Yet at a time when stakes within the labour market have risen, graduates are likely to demand that this link becomes a more tangible one. Boden, R. and Nedeva, M. (2010) Employing discourse: Universities and graduate employability, Journal of Education Policy 25 (1): 3754. Taken-for-granted assumptions about a job for life, if ever they existed, appear to have given away to genuine concerns over the anticipated need to be employable. Hammer, Peter McIlveen, Soo Jeung Lee, Seungjung Kim & Jisun Jung, Higher Education Policy (2000) Recruiting a graduate elite? The traditional human and cultural capital that employers have always demanded now constitutes only part of graduates employability narratives. This paper will increase the understandings of graduate employability through interpreting its meaning and whose responsibility . Johnston, B. 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. 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). For graduates, the inflation of HE qualifications has resulted in a gradual downturn in their value: UK graduates are aware of competing in relative terms for sought-after jobs, and with increasing employer demands. A further policy response towards graduate employability has been around the enhancement of graduates skills, following the influential Dearing Report (1997). Teichler, U. Reay, D., Ball, S.J. 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. Elias, P. and Purcell, K. (2004) The Earnings of Graduates in Their Early Careers: Researching Graduates Seven Years on. Morley ( 2001 ) nevertheless states that . Bowers-Brown, T. and Harvey, L. (2004) Are there too many graduates in the UK? Industry and Higher Education 18 (4): 243254. Over time, however, this traditional link between HE and the labour market has been ruptured. This tends to be mediated by a range of contextual variables in the labour market, not least graduates relations with significant others in the field and the specific dynamics inhered in different forms of employment. Strangleman, T. (2007) The nostalgia for the permanence of work? 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 Department for Business Innovation and Skills (DIUS). (2004) The Mismangement of Talent: Employability and Jobs in the Knowledge-Based Economy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 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. As such, these identities and dispositions are likely to shape graduates action frames, including their decisions to embark upon various career routes. 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. According to Keynes, the volume of employment in a country depends on the level of effective demand of the people for goods and services. conventional / consensus perspective that places . The problem of managing one's future employability is therefore seen largely as being up to the individual graduate. the consensus and the conflict theory on graduate employability . However, these three inter-linkages have become increasingly problematic, not least through continued challenges to the value and legitimacy of professional knowledge and the credentials that have traditionally formed its bedrock (Young, 2009). High Educ Policy 25, 407431 (2012). (2003) Higher Education and Social Class: Issues of Exclusion and Inclusion, London: Routledge. and Leathwood, C. (2006) Graduates employment and discourse of employability: A critical analysis, Journal of Education and Work 18 (4): 305324. Consensus theory, on the other hand, looks at how individuals interact and how this can lead to agreement. The theory of employability can be difficult to identify; there can be many factors that contribute to the idea of being employable. The perspective gained much currency in the mid 20th century in the works of Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons, for whom . While investment in HE may result in favourable outcomes for some graduates, this is clearly not the case across the board. Moreover, this may well influence the ways in which they understand and attempt to manage their future employability. (2010) Higher Education Funding for Academic Years 200910 and 201011 Including New Student Entrants, Bristol: HEFCE. develop the ideas in his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). 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. Smart et al. 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. The inter-relationship between HE and the labour market has been considerably reshaped over time. Similar to the Bowman et al. 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 . Knight, P. and Yorke, M. (2004) Learning, Curriculum and Employability in Higher Education, London: Routledge Falmer. Variations in graduates labour market returns appear to be influenced by a range of factors, framing the way graduates construct their employability. Handbook of the Sociology of Education, New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. Such notions of economic change tend to be allied to human capital conceptualisations of education and economic growth (Becker, 1993). Driven largely by sets of identities and dispositions, graduates relationship with the labour market is both a personal and active one. The theory of employability can be hard to place ; there can be many factors that contribute to the thought of being employable. The New Right argument is that a range of government policies, most notably those associated with the welfare state, undermined the key institutions that create the value consensus and ensure social solidarity. 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. What this research has shown is that graduates anticipate the labour market to engender high risks and uncertainties (Moreau and Leathwood, 2006; Tomlinson, 2007) and are managing their expectations accordingly. Kupfer, A. For Brown and Hesketh (2004), however, graduates respond differently according to their existing values, beliefs and understandings. Consensus v. conflict perspectives -Consensus Theory In general, this theory states that laws reflect general agreement in society. 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. 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. This is perhaps further reflected in the degree of qualification-based and skills mismatches, often referred to as vertical mismatches. 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. Some graduates early experience may be empowering and confirm existing dispositions towards career development; for others, their experiences may confirm ambivalent attitudes and reinforce their sense of dislocation. 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. These theorists believe that the society and its equilibrium are based on the consensus or agreement of people. 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. Talcott Parsons, for whom frames, including their decisions to embark upon various career routes can. Are there too many graduates in their Early Careers: Researching graduates Seven Years on the inter-relationship HE... 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