Gerbrand Tholen

What we know and what we need to know about graduate skills

The expansion of higher education has led to more graduates in the UK labour market. Despite government expectations, this expansion has not boosted national economic competitiveness. This article argues that current understanding of the impact of graduates’ skills is limited by methodological and conceptual narrowness in current research and that a broader research agenda is required. This agenda needs to cover not just the supply but also the demand, development and deployment of graduates’ skills and, as a consequence, distinguish between ‘graduate skills’ acquired in higher education and the ‘skills of graduates’ formed prior to, in and parallel to higher education.

What can research into graduate employability tell us about agency and structure

Traditionally theorists who have written about agency and structure have eschewed empirical research. This article uses the findings of an empirical study into graduate employability to inform the sociological debate on how they relate to each other. The study examined how Dutch and British final-year students approach the labour market right before they graduate. The study revealed that the labour market and education structures are mirrored in how students understand and act within the labour market. It also showed that the interplay between agency and structure is mediated by an intersubjective framework shared by other students. The article argues that previous theoretical views on employability have failed to understand this and suggests how to improve our understanding of agency and structure.

Credentials, talent and cultural capital: a comparative study of educational elites in England and France

This article examines student accounts of credentials, talent and academic success, against a backdrop of the enduring liberal ideal of an education-based meritocracy. The article also examines Bourdieu’s account of academic qualifications as the dominant source of institutionalised cultural capital, and concludes that it does not adequately account for comparative differences in the social structure of competition and ideological shifts in class (re)production in different national contexts. This analysis is based on an empirical investigation of elite students at Oxford University and Sciences Po in Paris. We investigated how they understand the competition for a livelihood and whether they see themselves as more ‘talented’ than students from non-elite universities. This investigation revealed important similarities and differences between British and French students that have significant sociological implications for the (re)production and legitimation of educational and labour market inequalities.

The Social Construction of Competition for Graduate Jobs: A Comparison between Great Britain and the Netherlands

This article examines how Dutch and British students socially construct the positional competition for jobs within their educational and labour market contexts. The findings illustrate two contrasting approaches to employability. The competition for jobs as understood by the Dutch students is based on absolute performance, an unclear relationship between skills and the labour market, and the development of human capital in areas of experiences, skills and abilities. For the British students it is based on relative performance, ranking of candidates and the importance of signals. The study also shows that these principles are aligned to national labour market and educational contexts. These results highlight the importance of the institutional context in how the positional competition for graduate jobs is played out.

Symbolic Closure: Towards a Renewed Sociological Perspective on the Relationship between Higher Education, Credentials and the Graduate Labour Market:

This article explores how our understanding of the graduate labour market can be improved by re-assessing some of the insights of the conflictual tradition within sociology. In particular, its theorising of ‘social closure’ and the use of educational credentials within the labour market remain highly relevant. Yet these ideas need to be modified to better deal with the current social, economic and educational contexts. This article extends the social closure literature to deal with some of the changes within the graduate labour market by turning to Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas on symbolic violence. I will argue that ‘symbolic closure’, the reliance on exclusion through categorisation and classification, becomes of greater importance in a graduate labour market that no longer offers any clarity about what graduate skills, jobs and rewards constitute and signify.

Giving something back? Sentiments of privilege and social responsibility among elite graduates from Britain and France

This article explores the complex relationship between transnational elites and civil society through examining the contrasting orientations of two cohorts of ‘elite graduates’ from Paris and Oxford. Both cohorts believe their privileged status has been earned through hard work and ability. But they are also aware that they have benefited from advantages not available to all. Perhaps because of this, they express the need to ‘give something back’. However, the means through which they seek to discharge their social responsibilities are very different. While the Oxford graduates seek to ‘give something back’ through volunteering and third sector engagement, the Paris graduates will ‘give something back’ through public service. The article discusses how the contrasting relationship between the state, civil society and the education system in these two countries may shape dispositions, and speculates on the extent to which these elite recruits’ commitment to ‘give something back’ will make a difference.

The limits of higher education institutions as sites of work skill development, the cases of software engineers, laboratory scientists, financial analysts and press officers

ABSTRACT Where do workers with Higher Education (HE) degrees develop their work skills? Although few would expect these to be developed in HE exclusively, there exists an assumption that the core skills of those working in graduate occupations are predominantly formed at HE. This article examines how within four graduate occupations, employers and workers assess the extent HE is thought to develop the skills and knowledge used within the work process. It draws on occupational case studies on the work of laboratory-based scientists, software engineers, financial analysts and press officers, using interview data with workers, employers and stakeholders. The study shows that structural barriers prevent HE to take a significant part in work skill and knowledge development, but also that HE is not necessarily heavily relied upon for skill formation. More precaution is required when linking the skill demands for graduate work with the skills that are developed or associated at university.

Higher Education and the Myths of Graduate Employability

Graduate employability remains high on the political agenda. Currently, a strong policy drive to reform Higher Education aims to improve graduate employability and reduce social inequalities. As a result, employability skills are becoming part of the formal curriculum in many universities. This chapter examines whether the increased reliance on universities to deliver graduate employability is consistent with current labour market realities. We argue that the graduate labour market is increasingly congested as well as suffers from persistent inequalities in class, gender and ethnicity. Improving student employability skills within Higher Education will not solve these deep-rooted social problems.

The Changing Opportunities of Professionalization for Graduate Occupations

In recent times, rapidly changing occupational contexts have altered professional trajectories. While sociologists have emphasized that abstract knowledge acquired in higher education is an important characteristic of professionalism, it is not clear whether the expansion of higher education has affected the possibility of individuals and groups to monopolize their university credentials. In this article I argue that the emergence of new graduate occupations and the growth of a university-educated labour force have made occupational closure in the professions more difficult. The changing relationship between education, skills, jobs and credentials limits possibilities for the creation and maintenance of professionalization trajectories as a professional status and a professional knowledge base becomes harder to achieve. Due to the decreasing opportunities of using formal educational credentials to achieve professional closure, aspiring occupations will have to rely more on what is called ‘symbolic closure’.

The Representation of the Graduate Labour Market: Media and Political Discourses

This chapter outlines the representation of the graduate labour market in media and political discourses. It shows that the UK media has a strong normative stance towards the graduate labour market, assuming that the graduate labour market should be able to provide young people with successful futures. The chapter also shows through three political debates that there is a similar idealised version of the graduate labour market on display. The representation of graduate worker is aligned with different political projects that rely on a performative discourse that positions university-educated workers as a central force in improving social justice and economic prosperity.