These two theories are usually spoken of as in opposition based on their arguments. 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). Becker, G. (1993) Human Capital: Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education (3rd edn), Chicago: Chicago University Press. (2003) The Future of Higher Education, London: HMSO. These concerns have been given renewed focus in the current climate of wider labour market uncertainty. Again, graduates respond to the challenges of increasing flexibility, individualisation and positional competition in different ways. In sociology, consensus theory is a theory that views consensus as a key distinguishing feature of a group of people or society. 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. 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. Learning and employability are clearly supportive constructs but this relationship appears to be under represented and lacks clarity. (1972) Graduates: The Sociology of an Elite, London: Methuen. Such notions of economic change tend to be allied to human capital conceptualisations of education and economic growth (Becker, 1993). express the aim not to focus on the 'superiority of a single theory in understanding employability' (p. 897), . Southampton Education School, University of Southampton, Building 32, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK, You can also search for this author in (2004) The Mismangement of Talent: Employability and Jobs in the Knowledge-Based Economy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. This is particularly evident among the bottom-earning graduates who, as Green and Zhu show, do not necessarily attain better longer-term earnings than non-graduates. 2003). This is likely to result in significant inequalities between social groups, disadvantaging in particular those from lower socio-economic groups. Employability is a product consisting of a specific set of skills, such as soft, hard, technical, and transferable. A consensus theory is one which believes that the institutions of society are working together to maintain social cohesion and stability. Conflict theory in sociology. 2.2.2 Consensus Theory of Employability The consensus view of employability is rooted in a particular world-view which resonates with many of the core tenets of neo-liberalism. Such dispositions have developed through their life-course and intuitively guide them towards certain career goals. The subjective mediation of graduates employability is likely to have a significant role in how they align themselves and their expectations to the labour market. 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 . 2003) and attempts to seek integrate them by formulating a model of explanatory form together with the existing empirical literature. Overall, it was shown that UK graduates tend to take more flexible and less predictable routes to their destined employment, with far less in the way of horizontal substitution between their degree studies and target employment. '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. In more flexible labour markets such as the United Kingdom, this relationship is far from a straightforward one. 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. This has coincided with the movement towards more flexible labour markets, the overall contraction of management forms of employment, an increasing intensification in global competition for skilled labour and increased state-driven attempts to maximise the outputs of the university system (Harvey, 2000; Brown and Lauder, 2009). Smetherham, C. (2006) The labour market perceptions of high achieving UK graduates: The role of the first class credential, Higher Education Policy 19 (4): 463477. 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. 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). Savage, M. (2003) A new class paradigm? British Journal of Sociology of Education 24 (4): 535541. The past decade in the United Kingdom has therefore seen a strong focus on employability skills, including communication, teamworking, ICT and self-management being built into formal curricula. Universities have typically been charged with failing to instil in graduates the appropriate skills and dispositions that enable them to add value to the labour market. This is further likely to be mediated by national labour market structures in different national settings that differentially regulate the position and status of graduates in the economy. The paper then explores research on graduates labour market returns and outcomes, and the way they are positioned in the labour market, again highlighting the national variability to graduates labour market outcomes. Ainley, P. (1994) Degrees of Difference, London: Lawrence Washart. ISSN 2039-9340 (print) ISSN 2039-2117 (online) Return to Article Details Graduate Employability Skills: Differences between the Private and the Public Sector in South Africa Download Download PDF Graduate Employability Skills: Differences between the Private and the Public Sector in South Africa Download Download PDF 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. Historically, the majority of employability research and practice pertained to vocational rehabilitation or to the attractiveness and selection of job candidates. Further research from the UK authorities stated that: "Our higher instruction system is a great plus, both for persons and the state. Brown, P. and Hesketh, A.J. What their research illustrates is that these graduates labour market choices are very much wedded to their pre-existing dispositions and learner identities that frame what is perceived to be appropriate and available. Chapter 2 is to refute the Classical theory of employment and unemployment on both empirical and logical grounds. 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). Yet the position of graduates in the economy remains contested and open to a range of competing interpretations. Englewood Cliffs . These negotiations continue well into graduates working lives, as they continue to strive towards establishing credible work identities. The perspective gained much currency in the mid 20th century in the works of Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons, for whom . This is perhaps further reflected in the degree of qualification-based and skills mismatches, often referred to as vertical mismatches. Moreover, this is likely to shape their orientations towards the labour market, potentially affecting their overall trajectories and outcomes. Kirton, G. (2009) Career plans and aspirations of recent black and minority ethnic business graduates, Work, Employment and Society 23 (1): 1229. 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. This means that Keynes visualized employment/unemployment from the demand side of the model. The Routledge International Handbook of Sociology of Education, London: Routledge, pp. 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. 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. Employability also encompasses significant equity issues. A consensus theory approach sees sport as a source of collective harmony, a way of binding people together in a shared experience. (2006) showed that students choices towards studying at particular HEIs are likely to reflect subsequent choices. Employability is a key concept in higher education. In light of HE expansion and the declining value of degree-level qualifications, the ever-anxious middle classes have to embark upon new strategies to achieve positional advantages for securing sought-after employment. The shift to wards a knowledge econo my where k nowledge workers Theory could be viewed as a coherent group of assumptions or propositions put forth to . 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". Throughout, the paper explores some of the dominant conceptual themes informing discussion and research on graduate employability, in particular human capital, skills, social reproduction, positional conflict and identity. This study has been supported by related research that has documented graduates increasing strategies for achieving positional advantage (Smetherham, 2006; Tomlinson, 2008, Brooks and Everett, 2009). Perhaps increasingly central to the changing dynamic between HE and the labour market has been the issue of graduate employability. editors. Individuals therefore need to proactively manage these risks (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002). For such students, future careers were potentially a significant source of personal meaning, providing a platform from which they could find fulfilment, self-expression and a credible adult identity. 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. Eurostat. 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