A Bourdieusian approach to understanding employability: becoming a ‘fish in water’

Abstract

It is assumed in the current policy environment that higher education should lead to graduate employability, although understandings of employability are generally limited. In this paper, we discuss issues relating to graduate employability with reference to a case study of an information technology (IT) student progressing to a graduate role in the IT industry. Our analysis uses Bourdieu’s ‘thinking tools’, habitus, field and capital, to discuss the importance to graduate employability of individual positions and dispositions, workplace culture and organisation, and the social contacts developed as part of undergraduate life. We argue that employability needs to be understood in relational terms. In particular, the value of skills and knowledge depends on the work and workplace to which a graduate progresses. Similarly, employable graduates need a ‘feel for the game’.

Keywords:

• learning in life and work transitions
• higher education
• learning in the professions
• workplace learning
• vocational education and training

Acknowledgement

We acknowledge with thanks the contribution made by Neil Lent who undertook the fieldwork for our project.

Notes

1. The ‘Big 8’ were: Arthur Anderson & Co.; Arthur Young & Co.; Coopers & Lybrand; Ernst & Ernst; Deloitte, Haskins & Sells; Peat, Marwick, Mitchell (became KPMG in 1986); Price Waterhouse & Co.; and Touche Ross & Co. The mergers in 1989 of Ernst & Ernst with Arthur Young, and Deloitte, Haskins & Sells with Touche Ross & Co left the ‘Big 6’. In 1998 Coopers & Lybrand merger with Price Waterhouse made a ‘Big 5’, while the demise of Arthur Anderson in the wake of the Enron scandal left today’s ‘Big 4’. However, the consultancy arm of Arthur Anderson survives as Accenture.