The DOI matches its Crossref record; 39 of the 39 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Employing discourse: universities and graduate ‘employability’
Abstract
What constitutes graduate employability is discursively framed. In this paper we argue that whilst universities in the UK have long had an involvement in producing useful and productive citizens, the ongoing neoliberalisation of higher education has engendered a discursive shift in definitions of employability. Traditionally, universities regarded graduate employment as an aspect of institutions’ relationship with the labour market, and one where they enjoyed a significant degree of discretion. Now, employability is a performative function of universities, shaped and directed by the state, which is seeking to supplant labour markets. We argue that this has three profound implications. First, state intervention in labour markets adjusts power balances in favour of employers. Second, contrary to the legitimising rationale of enhancing social justice, pursuit of employability agendas may well be creating two tiers of universities – those that produce docile employees and those that produce employers/leaders. And third, employability discourses may be adversely affecting pedagogies and curricula, to the disbenefit of students, institutions, employers, social justice and civil society.
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Cites
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Cited by
Jackson, D., & Wilton, N. (2017) · Higher Education Research & Development · doi:10.1080/07294360.2016.1229270 · Cited by 263
Bridgstock, R., & Jackson, D. (2019) · Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management · doi:10.1080/1360080x.2019.1646378 · Cited by 146
Luo, Y., Weng, H., Yang, L., Ding, Z., & Wang, Q. (2023) · JMIR Formative Research · doi:10.2196/50413 · Cited by 28
Breaking the triple lock: Further education and transformative teaching and learning
Duckworth, V., & Smith, R. (2018) · Education + Training · doi:10.1108/et-05-2018-0111 · Cited by 27
University students’ digital world of work readiness in relation to their employability competency
Potgieter, I., Coetzee, M., & Ferreira, N. (2023) · Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education · doi:10.47408/jldhe.vi27.922 · Cited by 20
Metadata
- Authors
- Boden, R., & Nedeva, M.
- Venue
- Journal of Education Policy
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2010-01
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 37-54
- ISSN
- 0268-0939 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-5106
- OpenAlex
- W2086123924
- Cited by
- 462
- References
- 39
- FWCI
- 64.03
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
