consensus theory of employability

One particular consequence of a massified, differentiated HE is therefore likely to be increased discrimination between different types of graduates. 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 VuE*ce!\S&|3>}x`nbC_Y*o0HIS?vV7?& wociJZWM_ dBu\;QoU{=A*U[1?!q+ 5I3O)j`u_S ^bA0({{9O?-#$ 3? 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). Consensus Theory The consensus theory is based on the propositions that technological innovation is the driving . The extent to which future work forms a significant part of their future life goals is likely to determine how they approach the labour market, as well as their own future employability. 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. Department for Education (DFE). Google Scholar. In countries where training routes are less demarcated (for instance those with mass HE systems), these differences are less pronounced. 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). Indeed, there appears a need for further research on the overall management of graduate careers over the longer-term course of their careers. The expansion of HE, and the creation of new forms of HEIs and degree provision, has resulted in a more heterogeneous mix of graduates leaving universities (Scott, 2005). Thus, graduates who are confined to non-graduate occupations, or even new forms of employment that do not necessitate degree-level study, may find themselves struggling to achieve equitable returns. 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. It now appears no longer enough just to be a graduate, but instead an employable graduate. Examines employability through the lenses of consensus theory and conflict theory. 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). Advancement in technological innovation requires the application of technical skills and knowledge; thus, attracting and retaining talented knowledge workers have become crucial for incumbent firms . Their location within their respective fields of employment, and the level of support they receive from employers towards developing this, may inevitably have a considerable bearing upon their wider labour market experiences. Bowman, H., Colley, H. and Hodkinson, P. (2005) Employability and Career Progression of Fulltime UK Masters Students: Final Report for the Higher Education Careers Services Unit, Leeds: Lifelong Learning Institute. If individuals are able to capitalise upon their education and training, and adopt relatively flexible and proactive approaches to their working lives, then they will experience favourable labour market returns and conditions. 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. Roberts, K. (2009) Opportunity structures then and now, Journal of Education and Work 22 (5): 355368. The evidence suggests that some graduates assume the status of knowledge workers more than others, as reflected in the differential range of outcomes and opportunities they experience. Structural functionalists believe that society tends towards equilibrium and social order. 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). This makes it reasonable to ask whether there is any such thing as the consensus theory of truth at all, in other words, whether there is any one single principle that the various approaches have in common, or whether the phrase is being used as a catch-all for a motley . 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. Theory could be viewed as a coherent group of assumptions or propositions put forth to . In the United Kingdom, for example, state commitment to public financing of HE has declined; although paradoxically, state continues to exert pressures on the system to enhance its outputs, quality and overall market responsiveness (DFE, 2010). (2003) Class Strategies and the Education Market: The Middle Classes and Social Advantage, London: Routledge. Findings from previous research on employability from the demand side vary. Eurostat. Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). There has been perhaps an increasing government realisation that future job growth is likely to be halted for the immediate future, no longer warranting the programme of expansion intended by the previous government. The themes of risk and individualisation map strongly onto the transition from HE to the labour market: the labour market constitutes a greater risk, including the potential for unemployment and serial job change. Fevre, R. (2007) Employment insecurity and social theory: The power of nightmares, Work, Employment and Society 21 (3): 517535. Introduction The theory of employability can be difficult to identify; there can be many factors that contribute to the idea of being employable. 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. 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. yLy;l_L&. Less positively, their research exposed gender disparities gap in both pay and the types of occupations graduates work within. Dominant discourses on graduates employability have tended to centre on the economic role of graduates and the capacity of HE to equip them for the labour market. Tomlinson, M. (2007) Graduate employability and student attitudes and orientations to the labour market, Journal of Education and Work 20 (4): 285304. Needless to say, critics of supply-side and skills-centred approaches have challenged the somewhat simplistic, descriptive and under-contextualised accounts of graduate skills. 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. Research has continually highlighted engrained employer biases towards particular graduates, ordinarily those in possession of traditional cultural and academic currencies and from more prestigious HEIs (Harvey et al., 1997; Hesketh, 2000). In effect, market rules dominate. 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. Consensus Theory. Despite the limitations, the model is adopted to evaluate the role of education stakeholders in the Nigerian HE. Holmes, L. (2001) Graduate employability: The graduate identity approach, Quality in Higher Education 7 (1): 111119. 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. This paper aims to place the issue of graduate employability in the context of the shifting inter-relationship between HE and the labour market, and the changing regulation of graduate employment. Questions continued to be posed over the specific role of HE in regulating skilled labour, and the overall matching of the supply of graduates leaving HE to their actual economic demand and utility (Bowers-Brown and Harvey, 2004). Graduate Employability: A Review of Conceptual and Empirical Themes, Managing the link between higher education and the labour market: perceptions of graduates in Greece and Cyprus, Graduate employability as a professional proto-jurisdiction in higher education, Employability-related activities beyond the curriculum: how participation and impact vary across diverse student cohorts, Employability in context: graduate employabilityattributes expected by employers in regional Vietnam and implications for career guidance. Employability is a product consisting of a specific set of skills, such as soft, hard, technical, and transferable. 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. (2008) Managing in the New Economy: Restructuring White-Collar Work in the USA, UK and Japan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hammer, Peter McIlveen, Soo Jeung Lee, Seungjung Kim & Jisun Jung, Higher Education Policy Conversely, traditional middle-class graduates are more able to add value to their credentials and more adept at exploiting their pre-existing levels of cultural capital, social contacts and connections (Ball, 2003; Power and Whitty, 2006). The label consensus theory of truth is currently attached to a number of otherwise very diverse philosophical perspectives. the consensus and the conflict theory on graduate employability . Under consensus theory the absence of conflict is seen as the equilibrium . Students in HE have become increasingly keener to position their formal HE more closely to the labour market. The consensus theory emphasizes that the social order is through the shared norms, and belief systems of people. . 213240. Such graduates are therefore likely to shy away, or psychologically distance themselves, from what they perceive as particular cultural practices, values and protocols that are at odds with their existing ones. 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 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. While consensus theory emphasizes cooperation and shared values, conflict theory emphasizes power dynamics and ongoing struggles for social change. 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. Maria Eliophotou Menon, Eleftheria Argyropoulou & Andreas Stylianou, Ly Thi Tran, Nga Thi Hang Ngo, Tien Thi Hanh Ho, David Walters, David Zarifa & Brittany Etmanski, Jason L. Brown, Sara J. 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. Boden, R. and Nedeva, M. (2010) Employing discourse: Universities and graduate employability, Journal of Education Policy 25 (1): 3754. Sennett, R. (2006) The Culture of New Capitalism, Yale: Yale University Press. Is based on the propositions that technological innovation is the driving lenses of consensus theory emphasizes that social! Yale University Press the Culture of New Capitalism, Yale: Yale University Press Education Council. 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