{"title":"‘If I wasn’t a project manager, I’d look at it differently’: the impact of formality and accountability on entrepreneurial action within educational outreach programmes","authors":"Michael Maher, Ecem Karlidag-Dennis","doi":"10.1080/13639080.2022.2036712","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2022.2036712","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This presented study explores the ongoing Uni Connect Programme run by the UK government to widen participation among underrepresented young people. The research focused on one specific local authority that delivers Uni Connect activities, gathering data from eight in-depth interviews (project manager N = 2, activity coordinators N = 6) and the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT). Analysis of the data was used to critically examine the practices of activity providers and activity coordinators involved in the local authorities Uni Connect initiative. The data was analysed using thematic analysis drawing from concepts of organisational flattening and the delegation of authority. The paper makes an original contribution by presenting a theoretical model that highlights organisational asymmetry in delivering educational outreach programmes when entrepreneurial activity designers are forced to operate within hierarchical systems. This is important to understand as systematic and impersonal issues within the organisation lead to poorer outcomes for students who require specific outreach, even when stakeholders recognise the needs.","PeriodicalId":47445,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education and Work","volume":"35 1","pages":"326 - 339"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44807696","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Developing policy aimed at 21st-century digital skills for the creative industries: an interview study with founders and managing directors","authors":"Ester van Laar, A. V. van Deursen, J. V. van Dijk","doi":"10.1080/13639080.2022.2036710","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2022.2036710","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The creative industry is a sector where digitisation inevitably changes work practices and the skill requirements are high. The rapid digitisation makes it imperative for workers to acquire digital skills beyond mere technical use. The aim of this study is twofold: (1) to offer a deeper analysis of the nature and level of 21st-century digital skills and (2) to explore the roles of both individual workers and organisations in skill development. In total, 24 interviews were conducted with founders and managing directors of creative organisations based in the Netherlands. The results show that they believe that workers’ technical skill levels are naturally high; while in fact, digital skills might require attention when content-related aspects are considered. The first priority in this case should be to raise awareness within an organisation’s management. Thereafter, intentional and structural efforts on the part of individual workers and organisations are needed to improve skill development practices in the workplace.","PeriodicalId":47445,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education and Work","volume":"35 1","pages":"195 - 209"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42779069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Setting out for new shores! An explorative analysis of agency in youth employment mobility","authors":"Jan Skrobanek, V. Vysotskaya","doi":"10.1080/13639080.2022.2036708","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2022.2036708","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Based on biographical interviews from an intra-European youth mobility study in Luxembourg and Norway the article aims to contribute to the debate on how to understand and account for complexities of agency in youth intra-European employment mobility. Critically reflecting and operationalising Emirbayer and Misches’s conceptualisation of agentic orientations in the field of intra-European employment mobility of young people, we a) explore the usefulness of researching agency from a relational perspective, we b) elaborate on how young mobile reflect their manoeuvring under perceived contingent moments and we c) augment our ken of the complex interlacement of habit, imagination and judgement with (contingent) employment mobility contexts and young people’s concrete employment mobility practices. Our results emphasise the importance of considering how differently agentic orientations interlace with contingent employment mobility contexts ranging from radical self-realisation, adaptive interplay of self-realisation and situational constraints and agentic orientations strongly bounded by situational constraints. In addition, the empirical analysis shows that some of the theoretical propositions of Emirbayer and Mische’s approach have to be revisited.","PeriodicalId":47445,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education and Work","volume":"35 1","pages":"108 - 123"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48670558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Skills nomenclature: what to expect from college versus university bachelor’s degrees","authors":"Stephanie Villers, J. Oberholzer","doi":"10.1080/13639080.2022.2036711","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2022.2036711","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Students invest time and money in post-secondary education to secure employment in their chosen field of study. In the past, choices were often constrained by the type of credential (college diploma or university bachelor’s degree). Albeit this decision criterion became blurred when colleges started offering bachelor’s degrees. Matriculating students now also decide which type of institution might best prepare them for their future employment. Students often look to course descriptions to select courses that can be reasonably expected to offer skills for career preparedness. But what happens when academia uses a different language to describe skills desired by employers? This study aims to understand whether colleges or universities offer a stronger lexical alignment between course descriptions and high-demand industry skills. It examines communication barriers arising from a potential linguistic misalignment of skills using a computer-assisted text-analysis tool to compare course curricula with online job postings. Findings support a general misalignment but show that course descriptions at colleges have a stronger linguistic overlap of skills demanded by industry. We discuss the implications of employing a dynamic technology-driven tool to improve the academic-industry alignment of skills nomenclature.","PeriodicalId":47445,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education and Work","volume":"35 1","pages":"210 - 226"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48959804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Structuring forms of transition from higher education to employment: bridging Bernstein and Bourdieu in understanding mismatch","authors":"S. Stavrou","doi":"10.1080/13639080.2022.2036709","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2022.2036709","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Ιn a policy context in which the harmonisation of HE curricula towards connection with the labour market is pursued, the article seeks to elucidate under-theorised and over-aggregated accounts of the role of the field of study in graduate employability and to investigate it from a new analytical angle to explain variations between fields. Using Bernstein’s theory of knowledge structures, the field of study is reconceptualised as an object in itself, shedding light on its internal relations and how these can shape graduates’ perceptions of and engagement in relevant employment. The study investigates variations within humanities and social sciences which are usually addressed by policy and scholarly research as a single category sector. The results reveal how different knowledge structures set heterogeneous conditions for graduate transitions, with explicit or implicit pathway-setting from education to work, through stronger or weaker specialisation of knowledge and identity, shaping introjected or projected identities. The study brings to light the crucial point of the intersection of a knowledge structure with a graduate’s social class by using Bourdieu’s theory. This shows how, in each field of study, specific forms of social inequality operate, affecting graduates’ transitions from HE to work in increasingly competitive and precarious labour markets.","PeriodicalId":47445,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education and Work","volume":"51 11","pages":"124 - 138"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41305513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘One internship, two internships, three internships … more!’: exploring the culture of the multiple internship economy","authors":"M. Wolfgram, Vivien Ahrens","doi":"10.1080/13639080.2022.2036713","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2022.2036713","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Internships are increasingly promoted as a high impact practice to improve students’ post-graduation employment outcomes, and educators often encourage students to participate in multiple internships. Yet, there is a lack of research on the sociocultural contexts associated with multiple internship participation. We present findings about the culture of multiple internship participation – drawing on focus groups and one-year follow-up interviews with students at five colleges in the United States, along with interviews with their educators and an analysis of online documents about multiple internship participation. The evidence documents a particular culture of the multiple internship economy, representing multiple internships as a linear, progressive, goal-oriented cultural project to accumulate a marketable self; also described by anthropologists as a neoliberal conception of the self. This cultural conception of a marketable neoliberal self is comprised of signs – such as narratives of multiple internships – that provide evidence of skills and experiences, of persevering through obstacles, and of ‘hustle’ and a ‘do what it takes’ attitude, which can be deployed to navigate competitive gatekeeping encounters such as employment interviews. Based on these findings, we develop a sociocultural theory of multiple internship participation as a project of neoliberal gatekeeping navigation.","PeriodicalId":47445,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education and Work","volume":"35 1","pages":"139 - 153"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59950027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Shien Chue, R. Säljö, Yew-Jin Lee, Ethan Loke-Wee Pang
{"title":"Spills and thrills: internship challenges for learning in epistemic spaces","authors":"Shien Chue, R. Säljö, Yew-Jin Lee, Ethan Loke-Wee Pang","doi":"10.1080/13639080.2021.2018410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2021.2018410","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT We examine the challenges and emergent nature of learning during undergraduate internships. Much scholarly inquiry on the latter focuses on internship experiences within traditional professional domains such as medicine, teacher education, and other fields. There is less knowledge about undergraduate interns entering more fluid and recent work sectors such as Public Relations and Communication. In this study, a sociomaterial perspective guided the interest in the situated and emergent nature of learning as an intern in such tool-saturated environments. Specifically, we examined how interns learn to participate in such activities, and how they encounter and appropriate sociomaterial resources used for coordinating and performing work practices. Using a case study method, we examined internship experiences of penultimate undergraduates in communication studies (N = 38). From semi-structured interviews, strategies such as scaffolding, networking and negotiating with colleagues, and technological tools as contingent means for coping with workplace challenges were reported during the initial stage of their internship. By making visible knowledge strategies undergraduates interns employ for learning at the workplace, we call to attention the role of and access to technologies, significant others, and workplace culture in the development of professional learning in such dynamic professional settings.","PeriodicalId":47445,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education and Work","volume":"35 1","pages":"167 - 180"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49582155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Person-centred qualifications: vocational education and training for the aged care and disability services sectors in Australia","authors":"M. Leahy","doi":"10.1080/13639080.2021.2018409","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2021.2018409","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In Australia and elsewhere, aged care and disability services are being transformed by the introduction of person-centred approaches. This radical reform to prioritise the dignity and needs of the people receiving care or support is an urgent matter of justice. Person-centred approaches are also transforming the organisation and conditions of employment for direct care workers, which has implications for the vocational education and training (VET) qualifications designed as preparation for their jobs. COVID-19 has highlighted problems with casualised employment and inadequate training, revealing the terrible impact on the elderly and people with disabilities. The broader context is a shift to market-based approaches to service delivery, with the increasing commodification of care, support services and VET. Drawing on a study of Australian VET qualifications for aged care and disability services, this article identifies limitations with dominant transactional forms of VET and the foundational ideas that underpin them. It argues that the introduction of transactional qualifications to prepare workers for poorly designed transactional jobs has a severe human cost.","PeriodicalId":47445,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education and Work","volume":"35 1","pages":"181 - 194"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47740173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Career insecurity and burnout complaints of young Dutch workers","authors":"R.J.J. Wielers, L. Hummel, Peter H. van der Meer","doi":"10.1080/13639080.2021.2018412","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2021.2018412","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Burnout complaints among young workers in The Netherlands are high and increasing. Our research question is whether and how the high burn-out complaints of young workers in the Netherlands are associated with the employment relationships in the flexible labour market. We argue that especially an insecure career perspective contributes to burn-out complaints. Young workers in career jobs feel more insecure and this is a main reason why they have greater burnout complaints. We use the Netherlands Working Conditions Survey 2018 to test this argument. The analyses show that young workers in career jobs feel relatively insecure about their jobs and report a considerable higher level of burn-out complaints than student workers. Especially the workers in flexible career jobs suffer from insecurity and burnout complaints.","PeriodicalId":47445,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education and Work","volume":"35 1","pages":"227 - 240"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45866286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vicent Borràs, Albert Trinidad, Nuria Alcaraz, Sara Moreno-Colom
{"title":"The role of territory in the employability of young people","authors":"Vicent Borràs, Albert Trinidad, Nuria Alcaraz, Sara Moreno-Colom","doi":"10.1080/13639080.2021.2018411","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2021.2018411","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The objective of this article is to analyse how the territory operates in the employability of young people who have failed or dropped out of school. As a starting hypothesis, we propose that the local traditions and the productive model linked to the territory condition the training and work expectations of the young population. A case study conducted within the framework of the AJOVE project ‘Millorant l’ocupació de la joventut al territori’ funded by the Observatori Català de la Joventut is presented. The methodological strategy followed is qualitative, so we could compare the training and labour trajectories of three production models linked to different territories, specifically industry, services, and agriculture. The results indicate, on the one hand, common aspects shared by young people, regardless of place of residence, according to their training experience, family status, and gender. On the other hand, the territory is important in the construction of expectations that underlie the decisions made about school and work.","PeriodicalId":47445,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education and Work","volume":"35 1","pages":"154 - 166"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48268409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}