Rethinking Graduate Employability in Context, 1st ed. 2023
Discourse, Policy and Practice

Coordinators: Siivonen Päivi, Isopahkala-Bouret Ulpukka, Tomlinson Michael, Korhonen Maija, Haltia Nina

Language: English
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Rethinking Graduate Employability in Context
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376 p. · 14.8x21 cm · Hardback
This open access book offers critical, multidisciplinary analyses on graduate employability. The book examines employability at the macro, meso and micro levels: higher education policy, the labour market, higher education institutions, organisations, individuals and social groups, in European, North American and Australian contexts. The contributors provide social and contextual analysis of graduate employability as a theoretical concept, a discourse and policy imperative and a social and discursive practice. The volume also introduces novel methodological perspectives to study the process of graduate employability. There is an urgent need for comprehensive and unified critical perspectives on graduate employability, as such analyses have so far been scarce and often isolated. Besides filling this gap in the literature, the book will also serve as essential reading on courses that focus on graduate careers and employability as well as higher education policy and practice.
1. Introduction: Rethinking graduate employability in context, Päivi Siivonen, Ulpukka Isopahkala-Bouret, Michael Tomlinson, Maija Korhonen and Nina Haltia

PART 1 Critical perspectives on the theory of employability

2. Graduate employability and its basis in possessive individualism, Leonard Holmes

3. Relative employability: Applying the insights of positional competition and conflict theories within the current higher education landscape, Ulpukka Isopahkala-Bouret and Gerbrand Tholen

4. Boosting employability through fostering an entrepreneurial mindset: Critical analysis of employability and entrepreneurship in EU policy documents, Hanna Laalo , Heikki Kinnari, Heikki Silvennoinen and Nina Haltia

5. The affective life of neoliberal employability discourse, Karen Handley and Jill Millar

6. Grounding employability in both agency and collective identity: an emancipatory agenda for higher education, Peter Kahn and Mariangela Lundgren-Resenterra 

PART 2 Employability and inequalities in graduate labour markets 

7. Are graduates working in graduate occupations? Insights from the Portuguese labour market, Fátima Suleman, Maria da Conceição Figueiredo and Rita Henriques Guimarães

8. Institutionalisation of employability capitals in employment markets, Yuzhuo Cai 

9. The vocational drift of French higher education and the employability of graduates, Claire Bonnard 

10. Re-framing employability as a problem of perceived opportunities: The case of internships in a U.S. college using the Student Perceptions of Employment Opportunities (SPEO) framework, Matthew T. Hora 

11. Working-Class Adult Students: Negotiating Inequalities in the Graduate Labour Market, Barbara Merrill & Scott Revers


PART 3 Graduate employability as a career and identity process 

12. Health as employability potential in business graduates' career imagination, Katri Komulainen and Maija Korhonen 

13. Finnish university students constructing their ideal employable identities – a case study of Top Performing Experts, Inka Hirvonen, Päivi Siivonen and Katri Komulainen

14. Strategies undertaken by international graduates to negotiate employability, Thanh Pham 

15. Employability as self-branding in job search games: A case of Finnish business graduates, Heli Mutanen, Maija Korhonen and Päivi Siivonen

16. Negotiating (employable) graduate identity – Small story approach in qualitative follow-up research, Päivi Siivonen, Maija Korhonen, Katri Komulainen, Heli Mutanen and Nina Haltia

17. Epilogue, Michael Tomlinson

Päivi Siivonen is Associate Professor in the Department of Education, University of Turku, Finland.

Ulpukka Isopahkala-Bouret is Professor in the Department of Education, University of Turku, Finland.

Michael Tomlinson is Professor in the Southampton Education School, University of Southampton, UK.

Maija Korhonen is University Lecturer at the Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Eastern Finland.

Nina Haltia isSenior Researcher in the Department of Education, University of Turku, Finland.

This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access

Introduces novel methodological perspectives to study the process of graduate employability

Examines employability at the macro, meso and micro levels and in international contexts

Provides social and contextual analysis as a theoretical concept, and discourse and policy imperative and practice