This is further raising concerns around the distribution and equity of graduates economic opportunities, as well as the traditional role of HE credentials in facilitating access to desired forms of employment (Scott, 2005). Accordingly, there has been considerable government faith in the role of HE in meeting new economic imperatives. 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 . Graduates are perceived as potential key players in the drive towards enhancing value-added products and services in an economy demanding stronger skill-sets and advanced technical knowledge. Reay, D., Ball, S.J. Value consensus assumes that the norms and values of society are generally agreed and that social life is based on co-operation rather than conflict. Graduate employment rate is often used to assess the quality of university provision, despite that employability and employment are two different concepts. Moreover, in such contexts, there is greater potential for displacement between levels of education and occupational position; in turn, graduates may also perceive a potential mismatch between their qualifications and their returns in the job market. Needless to say, critics of supply-side and skills-centred approaches have challenged the somewhat simplistic, descriptive and under-contextualised accounts of graduate skills. The Varieties of Capitalism approach developed by Hall and Soskice (2001) may be useful here in explaining the different ways in which different national economies coordinate the relationship between their education systems and human resource strategies. 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. 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. Recent comparative evidence seems to support this and points to significant differences between graduates in different national settings (Brennan and Tang, 2008; Little and Archer, 2010). Nabi, G., Holden, R. and Walmsley, A. Even those students with strong intrinsic orientations around extra-curricula activities are aware of the need to translate these into marketable, value-added skills. This is likely to be carried through into the labour market and further mediated by graduates ongoing experiences and interactions post-university. 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. Arthur, M. and Sullivan, S.E. 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. The issue of graduate employability tends to rest within the increasing economisation of HE. 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. This is then linked to research that has examined the way in which students and graduates are managing the transition into the labour market. 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. Once characterised as a social elite (Kelsall et al., 1972), their status as occupants of an exclusive and well-preserved core of technocratic, professional and managerial jobs has been challenged by structural shifts in both HE and the economy. This was a model developed by Lorraine Dacre Pool and Peter Sewell in 2007 which identifies five essential elements that aid employability: Career Development Learning: the knowledge, skills and experience to help people manage and develop their careers. 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. The second relates to the biases employers harbour around different graduates from different universities in terms of these universities relative so-called reputational capital (Harvey et al., 1997; Brown and Hesketh, 2004). Present study overcomes this issue by introducing a framework that clearly 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. 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. These two theories are usually spoken of as in opposition based on their arguments. Marginson, S. (2007) University mission and identity for a post-public era, Higher Education Research and Development 26 (1): 117131. One particular consequence of a massified, differentiated HE is therefore likely to be increased discrimination between different types of graduates. Bridgstock, R. (2009) The graduate attributes weve overlooked: Enhancing graduate employability through career management skills, Higher Education Research and Development 28 (1): 3144. Skills formally taught and acquired during university do not necessarily translate into skills utilised in graduate employment. Green, F. and Zhu, Y. Chapter 2 is to refute the Classical theory of employment and unemployment on both empirical and logical grounds. However, conflict theorists view the . Cranmer, S. (2006) Enhancing graduate employability: Best intentions and mixed outcome, Studies in Higher Education 31 (2): 169184. 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. 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. Similar to the Bowman et al. Little, B. Book Again, there appears to be little uniformity in the way these graduates attempt to manage their employability, as this is often tied to a range of ongoing life circumstances and goals some of which might be more geared to the job market than others. Consensus theory is a social theory that holds a particular political or economic system as a fair system, and that social change should take place within the social institutions provided by it .Consensus theory contrasts sharply with conflict theory, which holds that social change is only achieved through conflict.. These theorists believe that the society and its equilibrium are based on the consensus or agreement of people. 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). Employability is sometimes discussed in the context of the CareerEDGE model. Rae, D. (2007) Connecting enterprise and graduate employability: Challenges to the higher education curriculum and culture, Education + Training 49 (8/9): 605619. The strengths of consensus theory are that it is a more objective approach and that it is easier to achieve agreement. (1996) Higher Education and Work, London: Jessica Kingsley. This tends to be reflected in the perception among graduates that, while graduating from HE facilitates access to desired employment, it also increasingly has a limited role (Tomlinson, 2007; Brooks and Everett, 2009; Little and Archer, 2010). Ainley, P. (1994) Degrees of Difference, London: Lawrence Washart. As Clarke (2008) illustrates, the employability discourse reflects the increasing onus on individual employees to continually build up their repositories of knowledge and skills in an era when their career progression is less anchored around single organisations and specific job types. Under consensus theory the absence of conflict is seen as the equilibrium . Elias and Purcell's (2004) research has reported positive overall labour market outcomes in graduates early career trajectories 7 years on from graduation: in the main graduates manage to secure paid employment and enjoy comparatively higher earning than non-graduates. Moreover, in terms of how governments and labour markets may attempt to coordinate and regulate the supply of graduates leaving systems of mass HE. Ball, S.J. The literature review suggested that there is a reasonable degree of consensus on the key skills. The New Right argues that liberal left politicians and welfare policies have undermined the . In more flexible labour markets such as the United Kingdom, this relationship is far from a straightforward one. This review has highlighted how this shifting dynamic has reshaped the nature of graduates transitions into the labour market, as well as the ways in which they begin to make sense of and align themselves towards future labour market demands. 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. 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). volume25,pages 407431 (2012)Cite this article. Fevre, R. (2007) Employment insecurity and social theory: The power of nightmares, Work, Employment and Society 21 (3): 517535. Wolf, A. 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. 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. (2003) The shape of research in the field of higher education and graduate employment: Some issues, Studies in Higher Education 28 (4): 413426. Research by Tomlinson (2007) has shown that some students on the point of transiting to employment are significantly more orientated towards the labour market than others. Employability depends on your knowledge, skills and attitudes, how you use those assets, and how you present them to employers. Consensus Theory. Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate the slides or the slide controller buttons at the end to navigate through each slide. (2007) Round and round the houses: The Leitch review of skills, Local Economy 22 (2): 111117. The review has also highlighted the contested terrain around which debates on graduates employability and its development take place. and Soskice, D.W. (2001) Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2003). Consensus theories include functionalism, strain theory and subcultural theory. The construction of personal employability does not stop at graduation: graduates appear aware of the need for continued lifelong learning and professional development throughout the different phases of their career progression. 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. Employable individuals are able to demonstrate a fundamental level of functioning or skill to perform a given job, or an employable individual's skills and experience . (2007) The transition from higher education into work: Tales of cohesion and fragmentation, Education + Training 49 (7): 516585. yLy;l_L&. 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. 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. Keynesian economics is an economic theory of total spending in the economy and its effects on output and inflation . These concerns have been given renewed focus in the current climate of wider labour market uncertainty. (2003) Higher Education and Social Class: Issues of Exclusion and Inclusion, London: Routledge. 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). On the other hand, less optimistic perspectives tend to portray contemporary employment as being both more intensive and precarious (Sennett, 2006). In the context of a knowledge economy, consensus theory advocates that knowledge, skills and innovation are the driving factors of our society. 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. Consensus theories have a philosophical tradition dating . Kelsall, R.K., Poole, A. and Kuhn, A. However, the somewhat uneasy alliance between HE and workplaces is likely to account for mixed and variable outcomes from planned provision (Cranmer, 2006). 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. Research has tended to reveal a mixed picture on graduates and their position in the labour market (Brown and Hesketh, 2004; Elias and Purcell, 2004; Green and Zhu, 2010). Conflict theory in sociology. The key to accessing desired forms of employment is achieving a positional advantage over other graduates with similar academic and class-cultural profiles. The consensus theory is based o n the propositions that technological innovation is the driving force of so cial change. Hammer, Peter McIlveen, Soo Jeung Lee, Seungjung Kim & Jisun Jung, Higher Education Policy (2006) showed that students choices towards studying at particular HEIs are likely to reflect subsequent choices. It also introduces 'positional conflict theory' as a way of (2009) Processes of middle-class reproduction in a graduate employment scheme, Journal of Education and Work 22 (1): 3553. Morley (2001) however states that employability . A Social Cognitive Theory. 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. Such changes have inevitably led to questions over HE's role in meeting the needs of both the wider labour market and graduates, concerns that have largely emanated from the corporate world (Morley and Aynsley, 2007; Boden and Nedeva, 2010). These negotiations continue well into graduates working lives, as they continue to strive towards establishing credible work identities. In sociological debates, consensus theory has been seen as in opposition to conflict theory. research investigating employability from the employers' perspective has been qualitative in nature. Hodkinson, P. and Sparkes, A.C. (1997) Careership: A sociological theory of career decision-making, British Journal of Sociology of Education 18 (1): 2944. However, while notions of graduate skills, competencies and attributes are used inter-changeably, they often convey different things to different people and definitions are not always likely to be shared among employers, university teachers and graduates themselves (Knight and Yorke, 2004; Barrie, 2006). Naidoo, R. and Jamieson, I. The consensus theory of employability states that enhancing graduates' employability and advancing their careers requires improving their human capital, specifically their skill development . This relates largely to the ways in which they approach the job market and begin to construct and manage their individual employability, mediated largely through the types of work-related dispositions and identities that they are developing. consensus and industrial peace. Labour market and further mediated by graduates ongoing experiences and interactions post-university of Difference, London: Jessica.... 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