Creative Contexts: work placement subjectivities for the creative industries

Abstract

This article examines reflections on work placement experiences generated for the Creative Contexts website by higher education students. The article outlines the aims of Creative Contexts to generate and share placement experiences and stories. The article analyses the reflections films available on the website, and reveals a continuum of agency in which students’ contributions generally foreground the individual at the expense of the structural. The analysis reveals that whilst Creative Contexts can help foreground the subjective dimensions of employability, the students’ focus on individual dispositions and attributes does little to question industry and placement norms and structural challenges.

Keywords:

• higher education
• work placements
• creative industries
• reflection
• subjectivity
• employability

Notes

1. See www.creativecontexts.org.