Reducing the system/structure down to the graduate labour market, there are parallels between Archer's work and consensus theory (Brown et al. 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. Eurostat. Consensus v. conflict perspectives -Consensus Theory In general, this theory states that laws reflect general agreement in society. 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). (2003) The shape of research in the field of higher education and graduate employment: Some issues, Studies in Higher Education 28 (4): 413426. Edvardsson Stiwne, E. and Alves, M.G. Furthermore, this relationship was marked by a relatively stable flow of highly qualified young people into well-paid and rewarding employment. Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). If we were to consider the same scenario mentioned above, conflict theorists would approach it much more differently. These concerns seem to be percolating down to graduates perceptions and strategies for adapting to the new positional competition. The review has also highlighted the contested terrain around which debates on graduates employability and its development take place. In addition, the human development theory and the human capital theory come to the forefront whenever employability is considered. This is most associated with functionalism. As such, these identities and dispositions are likely to shape graduates action frames, including their decisions to embark upon various career routes. In contrast to conflict theories, consensus theories are those that see people in society as having shared interests and society functioning on the basis of there being broad consensus on its norms and values. This article attempts to provide a conceptual framework on employability skills of business graduates based on in-depth reviews. 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. For Brown and Hesketh (2004), however, graduates respond differently according to their existing values, beliefs and understandings. They are (i) Business graduates require specific employability skills; (2) Curricular changes enhance . research investigating employability from the employers' perspective has been qualitative in nature. Nabi, G., Holden, R. and Walmsley, A. Continued training and lifelong learning is one way of staying fit in a job market context with shifting and ever-increasing employer demands. starkly illustrate, there is growing evidence that old-style scientific management principles are being adapted to the new digital era in the form of a Digital Taylorism. The theory rests on the assumption that Conservative governments in this time period made an accommodation with the social democratic policy . (2010) Education and the employability of graduates: Will Bologna make a difference? European Educational Research Journal 9 (1): 3244. Non-traditional graduates or new recruits to the middle classes may be less skilled at reading the changing demands of employers (Savage, 2003; Reay et al., 2006). (2003) Class Strategies and the Education Market: The Middle Classes and Social Advantage, London: Routledge. 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. 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. Brennan, J., Kogan, M. and Teichler, U. . This insight, combined with a growing consensus that government should try to stabilize employment, has led to much Keynes's theory suggested that increases in government spending, tax cuts, and monetary expansion could be used to counteract depressions. This means that Keynes visualized employment/unemployment from the demand side of the model. 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. The underlying assumption of this view is that the 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. Bowman et al. Warhurst, C. (2008) The knowledge economy, skills and government labour market intervention, Policy Studies 29 (1): 7186. The problem of graduates employability remains a continuing policy priority for higher education (HE) policymakers in many advanced western economies. Moreover, supply-side approaches tend to lay considerable responsibility onto HEIs for enhancing graduates employability. The expansion of HE and changing economic demands is seen to engender new forms of social conflict and class-related tensions in the pursuit for rewarding and well-paid employment. 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. 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 . The research by Archer et al. Graduate employability and skills development are also significant determinants for future career success. Hammer, Peter McIlveen, Soo Jeung Lee, Seungjung Kim & Jisun Jung, Higher Education Policy 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. Article This will help further elucidate the ways in which graduates employability is played out within the specific context of their working lives, including the various modes of professional development and work-related learning that they are engaged in and the formation of their career profiles. Hinchliffe, G. and Jolly, A. This has tended to challenge some of the traditional ways of understanding graduates and their position in the labour market, not least classical theories of cultural reproduction. Taylor, J. and Pick, D. (2008) The work orientations of Australian university students, Journal of Education and Work 21 (5): 405421. This clearly implies that graduates expect their employability management to be an ongoing project throughout different stages of their careers. Hall, P.A. The research by Brennan and Tang shows that graduates in continental Europe were more likely to perceive a closer matching between their HE and work experience; in effect, their HE had had a more direct bearing on their future employment and had set them up more specifically for particular jobs. Tomlinson, M. (2007) Graduate employability and student attitudes and orientations to the labour market, Journal of Education and Work 20 (4): 285304. '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. There is much continued debate over the way in which HE can contribute to graduates overall employment outcomes or, more sharply, their outputs and value-added in the labour market. The perspective gained much currency in the mid 20th century in the works of Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons, for whom . Consensus Theory The consensus theory is based on the propositions that technological innovation is the driving . In short, future research directions on graduate employability might need to be located more fully in the labour market. Graduates appear to be valued on a range of broad skills, dispositions and performance-based activities that can be culturally mediated, both in the recruitment process and through the specific contexts of their early working lives. Career choices tend to be made within specific action frames, or what they refer to as horizons for actions. 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 may have a strong bearing upon how both graduates and employers socially construct the problem of graduate employability. Driven largely by sets of identities and dispositions, graduates relationship with the labour market is both a personal and active one. (2008) Managing in the New Economy: Restructuring White-Collar Work in the USA, UK and Japan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. and Soskice, D.W. (2001) Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Introduction. Hansen, H. (2011) Rethinking certification theory and the educational development of the United States and Germany, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 29: 3155. Purpose. This research showed the increasing importance graduates attributed to extra-curricula activities in light of concerns around the declining value of formal degrees qualifications. The theory of employability refers to the concept that an individual's ability to secure and maintain employment is not solely dependent on their technical skills and job-specific knowledge, but also on a set of broader personal attributes and characteristics. 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. 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. 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. 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. This research highlighted that some had developed stronger identities and forms of identification with the labour market and specific future pathways. Students in HE have become increasingly keener to position their formal HE more closely to the labour market. Skills formally taught and acquired during university do not necessarily translate into skills utilised in graduate employment. Wolf, A. Smart et al. 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. A consensus theory approach sees sport as a source of collective harmony, a way of binding people together in a shared experience. This paper will increase the understandings of graduate employability through interpreting its meaning and whose responsibility . Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative, Over 10 million scientific documents at your fingertips, Not logged in High Educ Policy 25, 407431 (2012). The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of some of the dominant empirical and conceptual themes in the area of graduate employment and employability over the past decade. Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2002) Individualization, London: Sage. The theory of employability can be difficult to identify; there can be many factors that contribute to the idea of being employable. This is perhaps further reflected in the degree of qualification-based and skills mismatches, often referred to as vertical mismatches. In effect, individuals can no longer rely on their existing educational and labour market profiles for shaping their longer-term career progression. The purpose of this study is to explain the growth and popularity of consensus theory in present day sociology. In effect, market rules dominate. Far from neutralising such pre-existing choices, these students university experiences often confirmed their existing class-cultural profiles, informing their ongoing student and graduate identities and feeding into their subsequent labour market orientations. It further draws upon research that has explored the ways in which students and graduates construct their employability and begin to manage the transition from HE to work. 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). 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). There are many different lists of cardinal accomplishments . There have been some concerted attacks from industry concerning mismatches in the skills possessed by graduates and those demanded by employers (see Archer and Davison, 2008). While consensus theory emphasizes cooperation and shared values, conflict theory emphasizes power dynamics and ongoing struggles for social change. Teichler, U. Much of the graduate employability focus has been on supply-side responses towards enhancing graduates skills for the labour market. Employability is a product consisting of a specific set of skills, such as soft, hard, technical, and transferable. Archer, W. and Davison, J. 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. Much of this is driven by a concern to stand apart from the wider graduate crowd and to add value to their existing graduate credentials. These concerns have been given renewed focus in the current climate of wider labour market uncertainty. In sociological debates, consensus theory has been seen as in opposition to conflict theory. It seeks to explore shortcomings in the current employment of the concept of consensus, and in so doing to explain the continued relevance of conflict theory for sociological research. Such dispositions have developed through their life-course and intuitively guide them towards certain career goals. Similar to Holmes (2001) work, such research illustrates that graduates career progression rests on the extent to which they can achieve affirmed and legitimated identities within their working lives. The Routledge International Handbook of Sociology of Education, London: Routledge, pp. However, other research on the graduate labour market points to a variable picture with significant variations between different types of graduates. (2003) The Future of Higher Education, London: HMSO. Report to HEFCE by the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information. 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 . 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. 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. Consensus theories generally see crime as unusual, dysfunctional and believe something has 'gone wrong' for the people who commit crime. Brennan, J. and Tang, W. (2008) The Employment of UK Graduates: A Comparison with Europe, London: The Open University. 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. 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). One is the pre-existing level of social and cultural capital that these graduates possess, which opens up greater opportunities. (2009) Processes of middle-class reproduction in a graduate employment scheme, Journal of Education and Work 22 (1): 3553. Structural functionalists believe that society tends towards equilibrium and social order. Individual employability is defined as alumnus being able . (2003) Higher Education and Social Class: Issues of Exclusion and Inclusion, London: Routledge. (2011) Towards a theoretical framework for the comparative understanding of globalisation, higher education, the labour market and inequality, Journal of Education and Work 24 (1): 185207. If we were to consider the same scenario mentioned above, conflict theory emphasizes and... Reflect general agreement in society this paper Will increase the understandings of graduate.. Assumption that Conservative governments in this time period made an accommodation with the labour market and specific future pathways from... In consensus theory of employability, individuals can no longer rely on their existing Educational and labour is!, beliefs and understandings J., Kogan, M. and Teichler,.. 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