Where there’s a WIL, there’s a way: upwardly mobile young men pursuing non-formal WIL opportunities to enhance employability

ABSTRACT

Historically, males from low socio-economic backgrounds have been a difficult demographic for educators to reach and engage. Despite efforts to widen participation in Australia, males who would be considered ‘first-in-family’, remain severely underrepresented in higher education. For those who do attend, they often encounter significant barriers and are at a higher risk of attrition. Experiences with employment can be a determiner of their success at university both in terms of informing or reaffirming their prospects for future employment. While recent policies in Australia have sought to integrate working-integrated learning (WIL) into university studies, these are not available to all students thus opportunities to develop skills and attributes through WIL remains a fragmented picture. As a result, we are witnessing many young people who are concerned about their future employability seeking out non-formal WIL opportunities to bolster their CVs. This paper explores the motivations of first-in-family males to pursue non-formal WIL opportunities and the effects these endeavours had upon their aspirations.

KEYWORDS:

• Work-integrated learning (WIL)
• employability
• aspirations
• first-in-family males
• case study

Introduction

Australia’s higher education sector has made widening participation a priority, ushering in new forms of recruitment as well as new pathways for students from non-traditional backgrounds. Simultaneously, in order to enhance the higher education experience, it has adopted approaches which explicitly focus on improving student employability and work readiness. Work-integrated learning (WIL) has received significant attention nationally and, while still in its infancy, appears to have an important role to play in the future of higher education. While there is significant diversity to WIL initiatives it is, essentially, where university students engage with industry or community partners as part of their formal learning in gain important experience and bolster their employability (see Kay et al. 2018). Research suggests that WIL has numerous benefits in terms of career development (Arsenis and Flores 2021; Smith et al. 2009) as well as an important role to play in enriching the learning experience of students from different equity groups (Universities Australia 2019).

We know students from non-traditional backgrounds require higher levels of support, including financial assistance and greater academic support, mentoring and counselling services, in order to succeed (O’Shea, May, and Delahunty 2017; Stahl, McDonald, and Young 2021; Stahl 2022). As they often come from backgrounds with limited social and professional capital¹ they may also require learning experiences which could lead to a clearer knowledge of what university can offer them in terms of enhancing their employability as they consider their future career prospects. Interestingly, the study of WIL has engaged very little with the social justice implications and how WIL experiences may have specific benefits for those from working-class (and working-poor) backgrounds enhancing not only their experience at university but bolstering their possibly fragile aspirations. Our approach to understanding WIL is informed by human capital theory where we recognise experiences with WIL are constrained by resources, time and adequate return on investment.

Many first-in-family students are aware of their disadvantage (Stahl, McDonald, and Loeser 2020; Stahl 2021; Stahl and McDonald 2022). As Bottero (2009) writes, ‘With the rise of knowledge-based and consumer-oriented economies, access to educational credentials has become increasingly vital to maintaining or improving social position, and education is an asset, much like property or income’ (10). Education remains an incredibly important social mobility resource, but research continues to document how students do not simply rely on their credentials. Shuker (2014) emphasises how students’ self-market themselves and engage in a ‘process of creating professional projections of an ideal self, which constitute a technology of career progression for the individual and are associated with some form of exchange’ (228). As students engage in self-marketing strategies with the aim of bolstering their CVs, they may often pursue non-formal WIL opportunities to enhance their employability despite these opportunities not being formally recognised by the university. Therefore, we would argue, it is important to consider how both formal and non-formal access to WIL has the potential to be an important social mobility resource.

Previous research on boys’ post−16 aspirations in post-industrial regional Australia has captured how young men mobilise and invest in different types of knowledge, style, and practices employing various ‘strategies’ when considering their post-school options. This research highlights the role of class where it was often the middle-class boys who possessed the ‘aerial vision’ that allowed them to not only navigate the school system successfully but position themselves advantageously through their schooling (Kenway and Hickey-Moody 2011, 153; see also Kenway, Kraack, and Hickey-Moody 2006). Clearly, access to forms of cultural capital do contribute significantly to how student proceed through their education, how they come to understand the employment game and how they self-market themselves accordingly.

First-in-family males, often from low-socio-economic backgrounds, remain severely underrepresented in higher education internationally. As Harper (2004) notes, there is a ‘paucity of research regarding masculine variability’ with men from non-traditional backgrounds who attend university (94). We know very little about what influences their motivations, what support structures they draw upon and how they access what is on offer at university in order to ensure their success. While there are many barriers which contribute to the struggle of non-traditional males at university (see Stahl, McDonald, and Young 2021, 2021; Archer, Pratt, and Phillips 2001), one of the most notable is the university setting itself. As Bowman et al. (2018) note, ‘To many young men, the thought of a college experience with many hours sitting in a classroom or a quiet study carrel is not compelling’ (17) and this assertion, arguably, has implications for how the university experience could be improved.

The article draws on six case studies from a larger research project (n = 42) examining young men who grew up on the margins of society and how they transitioned to higher education (Stahl 2021; Stahl, McDonald, and Young 2021; Stahl 2022). We focus not on the formal WIL experience but instead on how these young men were able to proactively access non-formal WIL experiences with the intention of enhancing their future employability. Their pursuit of non-formal or ‘do-it-yourself’ WIL experiences (not recognised by the university as part of their degrees) demonstrates an understanding that a degree will not be enough to be competitive in the labour market. Therefore, this research contributes to scholarship regarding the determination of first-in-family students to seek out opportunities to ensure better futures for themselves. Our analysis works from the assumption that the transition to university requires young people from non-traditional backgrounds to reflect on their own positionality and how, in pursuing an unconventional path, involves a significant investment in pursuing opportunities to mitigate the risk of unemployment upon completion of the degree. Furthermore, these non-formal WIL experiences appeared to inform both their aspirations and their confidence (see Arsenis and Flores 2021) and we believe this provides some insight into how higher education could become more appealing for young working-class men who have historically been hard to reach.

Work integrated learning (WIL)

Stemming from 2015 National Strategy on Work Integrated Learning in University Education (Universities Australia 2019), many universities in Australia have made a commitment to work-integrated learning (WIL) as a way to build links with industry partners and to increase the employability of their graduates. WIL integrates industry and community engagement into student learning and assessment as part of degree studies (Jackson 2019; Jackson, Shan, and Meek 2021) and ‘can be workplace-based (internships/practicums/placements) or virtual/campus-based (industry-based projects/consultancies/simulations/research projects)’ (Jackson and Tomlinson 2021, 2).

The impetus concerning WIL has been linked to political debates regarding how to best produce more employable ‘work-ready graduates’. A study in Australia revealed that most universities − 83.3% – agreed that WIL programmes remain an important part of the students’ learning process (Stanley and Jia 2019). A national study by the Australian Collaborative Education Network Limited (ACEN) of more than 50,000 Australian graduates shows that student participation in WIL increases their chances of obtaining graduate-level jobs. Research has indicated that employers have higher demands for employees with professional skills which can be drawn upon to respond to fast-changing markets (Carnevale and Smith 2013), and these skills became the most significant factor in their recruitment decisions (Australian Industry Group 2009).

However, the implementation of effective WIL programmes is anything but straight-forward where Bowen (2020) asserts ‘Teaching employability skills based on interpersonal communications and interactions that facilitate world readiness is complicated’ (412, italics in the original). Several universities have expressed their commitment to WIL in terms of quotas; for example, Victoria University claims that eventually at least 25% of learning in 100% of courses will be work placement or community experience; Griffith University has committed to a work-integrated learning component for at least 70% of their courses (Universities Australia 2008). Although there are various commitments to WIL, the implementation remains fragmented and, therefore, these opportunities often remain difficult to access (Lloyd et al. 2019). For example, research by Stanley and Jia (2019) document that 33% of universities did not provide WIL programmes for their students because they lacked the resources or struggled to implement the programme due to workload or time constraints. As WIL programmes rely on partnership organisations, there can also be difficulties in cultivating and maintaining these relationships, leading to limited placement opportunities. Relatedly, WIL opportunities differ significantly between institutions, with some done for credit, some paid and unpaid, various placement lengths and different forms of assessment. However, despite these variations in the implementation of WIL, research continues to suggest such opportunities have significant positive impacts on the self-efficacy and confidence of students to make job applications (Edwards, Ruth Brooks, and Kay 2014) while enhancing their real-world application of skills as well as their professional awareness (Aprile and Knight 2020).

WIL and the production of self

Neoliberal policies promote the active, self-reliant individual, epitomised in the figure of the ‘enterprising self’ (Rose 1996). As neoliberalism continues to position ‘individual students as “consumers” of, and equal players in, the free market of HE’ there remain many instances where individuals ‘come to understand themselves as responsible for the production of a self’ (Burke 2007, 414). To varying extents, young people come to know these dominant neoliberal discourses and draw on them as they negotiate their educational and employment futures (Keddie 2016). Or, as Phoenix asserts: ‘Neoliberalism is … about continually changing the self, making informed choices, engaging in competition, and taking the chances offered by the market and the government to consume and take advantage of the provisions of lifelong learning and so forth’ (Phoenix 2004, 229). As Stahl and McDonald (2019) have argued previously, neoliberalism’s insistence on continued self-improvement and competitiveness suits a middle-class self which is adept at understanding what counts while it assembles and deploys resources accordingly. Within neoliberal times, the discursive construction of the self is not fixed, but rather constantly made and re-made as people are rendered ‘active entrepreneurs of the self’ (Davies and Bansel 2007, 252). As active agents navigating identity risks, Brown (2013) argues there is increased performativity where the daily goal is to ‘“achieve” a competitive advantage … in the competition for credentials, jobs or income’ (687) and where ‘learning equals earning’ (685).

The research presented in this article seeks to bring together different fields of scholarship – WIL, widening participation, working-class masculinities and the neoliberal expectation regarding the entrepreneurial self. We recognise WIL can often be idealistic and experiences with WIL – whether formal or informal – are often constrained by resources and time. This case study of working-class (and working-poor) young men is informed by a foundational underpinning of working-class masculinities where scholarship has consistently highlighted that how viable employment is for the construction of working-class men’s identities (Heron 2006; Stahl 2021) and, more specifically, what occurs when this employability is not present (McDowell 2012; Simmons, Connelly, and Thompson 2020) or reimagined in a post-industrial landscape (Bottero 2009). Historically, critical studies of men and masculinities continues to highlight how:

… industrialized, capitalist societies, definitions of masculinity are bound up with definitions of work. Whether it is in terms of physical strength or mechanical expertise, or in terms of ambition and competitiveness, the qualities needed/by the successful worker are closely related to those of the successful man. (Tolson 1977, 12–13)

Therefore, it seems almost surprising that there has not been more attention to the role WIL (whether formal or non-formal) can play to enhance the university experience for young men from working-class (and working-poor) backgrounds. Though, we do acknowledge within recent studies of WIL, there has been some attention to the gendering of WIL experiences (Bowen 2020; Arsenis and Flores 2021; Chopra et al. 2020).

This article focuses on how males from marginalised backgrounds position themselves advantageously to achieve what Brown (2013) calls ‘a competitive advantage’ (687) in what could be considered non-formal WIL opportunities which directly complimented their study at university. In striving for advantage, we highlight certain limitations they encountered in terms of time and resources which may impact their return on their investment. While these could be considered merely part-time jobs and/or volunteer activities, the data suggests these experiences are fulfilling, working to solidify their post-university aspirations.

Methods

The First-in-Family Males Project explored the transition of first-in-family young men (n = 42) from secondary school into university or employment over a three-year period, documenting their shifting aspirations around work and learning (Stahl 2021; Stahl, McDonald, and Young 2021; Stahl 2022). Participants were recruited from two urban low socio-economic areas, one from a smaller Australian city and one from a notably larger Australian city. Using recorded data across school sites in areas of severe socio-economic disadvantage, we worked closely with secondary school leadership teams to identify potential first-in-family males within Year 12 cohorts. All of the participants attended secondary schools where the majority of student did not progress to university. After an initial set of interviews, follow-up interviews were then conducted every six months for the two following years regardless of whether the participants stayed at university or embarked on different pathways.

Where possible, throughout the research, we actively worked to reduce power inequalities between ourselves and the participants with the aim of a collaborative and mutually constituting relationship between researcher and subject. Specifically, we considered the research relationship as ‘mutually enriching, dialogic, and vigilant of obstructive cultural assumptions’ (see Powell and Takayoshi 2003, 401). Not only were we careful in asking the participants sensitive questions regarding poverty and social disadvantage, but we also feel the garnered data was only possible through forming powerful, trusting relationships. Interviews were audio-recorded and fully transcribed and processed via QSR International’s NVivo Version 12 software. The qualitative analysis primarily involved content analysis focused on identifying themes and coding the data specifically in relation to how the participants produced the self as well as changes in aspiration. Pseudonyms are used for all participants to ensure anonymity.

For this article we adopt a case study approach (Bartlett and Vavrus 2017) where, as Stake (2006) notes, the ‘unique life of the case is interesting for what it can reveal about the quintain’ (vi). Case study methodologists Creswell (2013) and Stake (1995) suggest bounding case studies by time and activity and Miles and Huberman (1994) recommended bounding by definition and context. Within the entire data set only three students were able to secure formal WIL opportunities with partner organisations linked to the university; these were all opportunities they had to compete in order to gain credit towards their degrees. While these students remain a compelling data set, this article focuses on the six participants who were able to, of their own volition, access professional contexts which reaffirmed their upwardly mobile aspirations (see Table 1). In comparing the case studies, we were vigilant not to flatten the data by imposing concepts or categories taken from one case study to another, endeavouring instead to capture the contextual information which contributed to the uniqueness of their experiences (Van der Veer and Gibson 2016).

Table 1. Area of study and informal WIL experience.

Student	Area of Study	Non-formal WIL Experience
Manny	Bachelors in Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering/Bachelors in Education	Volunteer youth work, Student Support Officer (local school)
Isaac	Bachelors in Sport Science and Bachelor of Psychology, Counselling and Interpersonal Skills	Qualifies as Personal Trainer, employed at local gym
Vuong	Bachelors Degree in Pure Maths (Advanced)	Student Support Officer (local school)
Avery	Double degree in Management and Finance	Attains managerial position at Hungry Jack’s
Campbell	Bachelors in Accounting/Bachelor of Commerce	Management role in call centre of superannuation company
Kinsley	Bachelors in Education	Student Support Officer (local school), Indigenous Student Ambassador (university)

Case studies

Manny

Manny was admitted to the Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering programme which was a source of pride for himself and his wider Pacific Islander family; however, even in the first few weeks Manny openly admitted that he was out of his depth in some content areas. In their study of the struggle of young men at university, Bowman et al. (2018) note many are unprepared whether it be in terms of ‘behavioural training, time management and study skills, critical reading and writing preparation, and a foundation in maths and the sciences’ (14; see also Stahl 2021). Stahl (2021) has written previously regarding how Manny lacked the basic chemistry skills typically acquired at the secondary level and this limited how he accessed course content in the engineering degree (Stahl 2021). This, coupled with extensive familial responsibilities (e.g. looking after his younger siblings) and part-time service work, eventually led to him suffering academically, which naturally influenced his perception of himself and his capabilities as a university student. Highlighting the affective nature of his experience in higher education, specifically concerning feelings of shame, Manny told us ‘Every so often, I blame myself sometimes but then I get over it after a while and then continue’.

Overall, Manny’s story became one of looking for validation and fulfilment. As he continued to suffer in his studies and became demotivated, this led him to volunteer activities with local youth groups and through his church. When we asked Manny to describe where he felt comfortable, he stated:

… don’t know, through volunteering I feel more comfortable, at work I feel comfortable. I generally try and be comfortable but then there’s certain spots where there’s people that are kind of snobby [at university] and I’m like … shell a bit by myself.

Volunteering became very informative for Manny’s identity development, and it was where he was able to reflect on his strengths, ‘Yeah, volunteer work is fun. You get to influence kids while also learning a bit from them too because you learn heaps from kids … ’ Manny’s experiences floundering in a competitive engineering juxtaposed with his enriching experiences volunteering with young people led to him to consider changing his degree.

I was actually looking into teaching, but I don’t know. I’m a good people person, I’m pretty good with kids. I volunteer a lot with all these kid programs and stuff.

When we last spoke, two years from the completion of his compulsory schooling, Manny had switched from engineering to an education degree and was studying to become a Maths and Physics teacher. Furthermore, he had picked up part-time work as a Student Support Officer (SSO) at the primary school affiliated with his local church.

Manny: [SSOs] pretty much just help students with their learning. I think my first one I did last week, I was helping a kid with autism. He was in year one. So, it was a bit different.

Interviewer: You’re not used to that.

Manny: I didn’t know what was happening. I was just supporting the kid.

Interviewer: It’s very outside your comfort zone.

Manny: Yeah. It was a bit out of my comfort zone ’cause it’s a different age group. You can’t really yell at a kid, especially a year one kid. I was running around the place, getting all stressed. But I was seeing what a teacher would be like because they’re looking after like 20 something kids.

Furthermore, during this time Manny stated he was receiving informal mentorship from teachers within his Pacific Islander community, ‘Yeah, there’ve been a bunch of teachers that I’ve talked to through … and picked their brain in a way’. When we drew Manny’s attention to how his experience as an SSO may expand his resume and increase his employability, he had already made that connection ‘because I’ve been told if you work in SSO [roles], they become better teachers in a way’. Manny here highlights a main tenet of WIL which is the value of mentorship, whether formal or informal (Lloyd et al. 2019).

Isaac

Isaac, an Anglo-Australian student, was enrolled in a dual degree Bachelor of Exercise and Sports Science and Bachelor of Psychology, Counselling and Interpersonal Skills where he describes his degree as ‘so it’s basically like a sports scientist and like a sports psychologist as well’. Upon enrolment to university, he was also completing self-paced personal training course (Certificate III) which he started at the end of Year 12 and intended to complete during his first semester of university. This micro-credential complemented what he would be learning at university with significant learning overlaps in the area of anatomy.

When Isaac eventually achieved his Certificate III, he began working at a local gym which he described as, ‘Yeah well that’s the idea because I will be able to – even if I’m like I think just put my foot in the door – it’s not the profession I want but it’s just in the industry … ’ While there were very few examples in the data of Isaac discussing university as an enriching environment, he often highlighted moments of pride in reference to his employment. For example, at the gym, Isaac was able to set his father up on a workout routine:

Like, dad has no idea how to do anything in the gym, so I’m there helping him out, which is good. Which is I find rewarding, because I’m teaching my dad something, and he’s been teaching me stuff my whole life. So I find that to be… That’s been rewarding in that way.

According to Isaac he excelled in his position and the management were more than satisfied with his performance, ‘A guy from HR came down and just said, you know what you’re doing’. Furthermore, Isaac noted ‘A little while ago I got asked if I wanted to be the gym manager down at the Aquadome there. I was like, oh, maybe not. I’ve only been doing it for a year or so and I’m still studying and stuff, so … ’. While managing a gym did interest him, Isaac’s real aspiration was to work with young elite athletes ideally for a professional association which required a university qualification. He was committed to this aspiration and, in terms of his own employability, Isaac clearly saw the value in the experience of personal training work and spoke about the importance of bolstering his resume with what he described as ‘real life’ experiences.

Well, I’m hoping that with my sort of, if I do apply for a new job with my degree, so as an exercise scientist or a high-performance coach, something like that, they’ll see that I have had previous experience. Rather than, like if my grades are decent, they’re not the best, but I’ve had experience in the field, they might think right hang on, he knows what he’s talking about, he has done it, he knows how to communicate with people, he knows the lingo basically now, rather than someone who’s fresh out of uni, never done anything, works at JB Hi-Fi² or something like that. There’s nothing bad about that, but I’m just, it’s not in the field.

Isaac’s words highlight how he sees his work as a personal fitness trainer as integral to attaining his long-term goal of a high-performance athletic coach and how it is a way to set him apart from other candidates in pursuit of the same aspiration.

In research on WIL, Lloyd et al. (2019) contends that ‘relatedness’ is a key ingredient of students’ perception of a ‘connection between their workplace experiences and personal goals, motivation, academic achievement and future career pathways’ (15). Isaac’s investment in these non-formal WIL opportunities echo a commitment to what Brown (2013) calls the logic of ‘learning equals earning’ (685) where contemporary discourses portray educational qualifications as the only way to participate in the labour market successfully. Furthermore, emphasising how micro-credentialling has become essential to be a competitive candidate in the labour market, Isaac informs us that he intends to attain further certificates, ‘strength and conditioning course, so that compliments what I do now. You have to have that accreditation before you can even get into the industry after university’. Furthermore, demonstrating the value of professional networking, Isaac has clearly found mentors at the gym which has furthered his knowledge.

And I was talking to my boss the other day, and once I finish university, there’s a cert like three, four, in nutrition, which is just under the Australian dietary whatever it is. And you can become an accredited dietician. So again, that would open even more… It’s not a university degree. It’s just cert three, four.

Knowing what employers want – a form of professional capital – is integral to the WIL experience. In Isaac’s pursuit of non-formal WIL experiences, he gains important knowledge which arguably enhances his aspirations to continue his university study and his words suggest the notion of credentials = opportunity resonates with Isaac. In short, the time he invests looks likely to get him the returns he desires.

Vuong

When we first encountered Vuong, a Vietnamese-Australian, he presented himself as a confident mathematics student with high aspirations. He performed well on his exams and gained admission to an elite higher education institution where he was in a selective course of study. Vuong’s intention was to eventually pursue graduate study and eventually enter academia. He was clearly anxious about his employment prospects, and he spoke often about this anxiety in interviews, ‘So I knew that to keep my options open, I needed to be able to come across as employable in industry, in various companies anyway’. With this in mind, Vuong was working as a tutor at his old secondary school on Monday and Wednesday mornings for two hours. Vuong was able to make the connection between tutoring and what he would be doing as a lecturer, ‘Because I already tutored and I do enjoy tutoring and I feel like I wouldn’t mind lecturing. But I’ve talked to a bunch of lecturers already and they said, “Yeah okay I think you can do pretty well in academia and everything”.’ Highlighting the risks and benefits involved with balancing part-time work with full-time study, Vuong was originally reluctant to take on part-time work given the demands of his course.

Yeah, because – yeah, so it works out for them, and I don’t work as much, which is a good thing, because I mean if I was loaded with hours of just part time work, how am I supposed to ever find uni time itself, because uni time is my priority, and part time is only there to help support me at uni, so yeah.

Furthermore, he felt tutoring offered him something beyond just part-time employment, mentioning a few times a sense of fulfilment, ‘ … when I come across students who want help and I know they want help, I try to give them the best help as I could’. As we were interested in how this non-formal WIL experience may have informed Vuong’s aspiration, when asked if the tutoring had changed him in some way where he noted:

A little. A little. I think I’m a bit more understanding of another student’s struggles because even though I struggled a lot in Year 12 as any Year 12 student would, I still succeeded in the end whereas this time as a tutor, I actually get to see through a pinhole or something of students who actually are struggling but they’re not succeeding.

When Vuong did not get the formal WIL internship he applied for, which would have enhanced his resume more than tutoring at his old secondary school, this raised his anxieties around his employability:

You might feel oh, I should have answered this better in my interview or I should have done this bit better. But that could have been a perfectly fine response or whatnot. And I haven’t gone through the internship process, but just knowing my friends who were stressed about the uncertainty of being accepted or rejected from these opportunities, I wouldn’t call myself, I’m assured enough to know that someone eventually hopefully will employ me. But I also know that it’s just not a certainty either.

Vuong’s words suggest a sense of resilience in response to the pressures he put himself under. He sees this as a missed opportunity but he is also confident that other opportunities will come along and the job at the school will suffice in the meantime.

Campbell

Campbell, a Chinese-Australian young men, attended a small Catholic university where he began his studies in accounting, ‘Yeah, like the thing with me is that I just, I love business, and like, I will do anything in business, and like, I saw accountancy as where the money was at, and so, that’s why I’m doing it’. While Campbell clearly valued the university experience, he never thought the university degree would be enough and his restless nature led him to pursue other opportunities with the intention of enhancing his employability and he was fortunate enough to gain part-time employment in a superannuation call centre.

During this time in Campbell’s life, he was extremely busy and, by his account, he effortlessly balanced the demands of university study (switching to part-time) with his responsibilities in the call centre. His intense schedule did result in him at times feeling like he was sacrificing his social life, ‘Yeah, just missing out on like, like living. Like, just for example, like all my tradie mates, they always go out every weekend, and it’s … and like, I’m working all the time if I’m not at uni, so like, missing out on that is … When I meet up with them, they tell stories, and I’m like, fuck, I should have been there, yeah’. For Campbell, where he invested his time became a strategic deliberation where he was on guard against diminishing returns. Endeavouring to position himself advantageously for high level managerial positions in the future, he was hungry to bolster his CV informed by the belief a degree was simply ‘a piece of paper’ (see Stahl 2021 for more detail).

According to Campbell his job performance was exceptional and, as a result, he was able to convince his employers to offer him a part-time position so he could return to university full time in his third year, ‘I excelled in it, and they ended up offering me part time so I could come back to uni full time and then they’re taking me on part time’. When he elaborated further, it was clear Campbell felt nurtured in the workplace where he had a strong connection:

Yeah, they’re [bosses] … good. Yeah, especially for big companies, they were really – they really liked me so they’re like, you know what, Campbell, ‘We want to keep you on, we’re more than happy for you to stay at uni, go to uni, you’re 18, you need to be at uni, and then they offered me part time’. So I was over the moon, I was so happy because I love working there.

Campbell expressed multiple times throughout our conversation that balancing white-collar work and university has ‘worked out really well’. Where university felt routine and, at times, mundane, his experience at the superannuation call centre became a source of pride, ‘ … I’ve shown the best stats, I’ve shown the most growth and every – all my managers and stuff, they’re just praising me for that so I am feeling proud of myself for doing that’. Furthermore, the experience at the superannuation call centre influenced his aspirations, inspiring him to change his degree from accountancy to a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in management (see Stahl 2021 for more detail).

Campbell saw the opportunities available to him highlighting how it his experience with white-collar employment was an opportunity to blend both worlds and really enhance his resume, to ‘“achieve” a competitive advantage … in the competition for credentials, jobs or income’ (Brown 2013, 687). When Campbell reflected back on the last year of his life:

Oh, it’s changed so much. All these new experiences, like uni and full-time work and everything, it’s really brought me out of my shell, because in Year 12 I was really like, I guess I’ll do this, oh, I’m not too sure, but now I’m really confident in terms of what I want to do.

Shuker (2014) highlights how student cultures now produce patterns and orientations where what is valued is being both ‘active’ and ‘self-confident, responsible and competitive” (234). Having experienced the corporate world and the university setting, Campbell’s words suggest his aspirations are bolstered and he is confident that he can achieve. Furthermore, having engaged in the corporate world, and assumed managerial responsibilities, has led Campbell to this conclusion:

… I’ve got this motivation to actually just get my degree, just pump it out and do well and then just further my career in the corporate world. I’m just here so I can just write down bachelor on my resume, sort of thing. So, yeah, I just really want to just pump this out, get this done, and then just see where it takes me, so yeah, I’m really, I’ve got this fire right now.

Avery

When we first met Avery shortly before his Year 12 exams, he was working 30 hours per week at Hungry Jack’s, a fast-food chain, which he has done for the last three years. Largely he was unfazed by this intense schedule, and he described himself as a person who was passionate about business and who looked up to famous entrepreneurs an explicitly referenced Bill Gates and Elon Musk. While Hungry Jack’s is not a white-collar profession, the employment offered Avery insight into the interworking of business furthering his interest and informed the development of his career in business:

[Business is] what I’ve always found interesting and then only for the last two years I’ve been able to take up that class and that’s where I want to go in my life. I want to proceed in that kind of area and it’s really interesting to me, that’s why it’s my favourite class.

Furthermore, Avery, who described himself as growing up in a single-parent household where finances were restricted, described himself as ‘I’m a very money-orientated person, I’ll admit that but, yeah, that’s how I define success is by money, I guess’. As Year 12 was drew to a close, his immediate goals were to gain entry into a prestigious university doing a double degree in management and finance and then defer with the aim of expanding his management experience at Hungry Jack’s.

Yeah, I work so much because they’re trying to get me into management by the end of the year so I can do that part time while at uni, so I’ve been really working more so in the side of money and the stock coming in and the cash flow and stuff like that as well as the normal work I’m doing.

When we next caught up with Avery, he had completed four weeks of management training and was managing a Hungry Jack’s full-time having deferred the first semester of university. Where scholars have argued that this service sector work is disempowering for disadvantaged young men as they struggle with embodying a subaltern masculinity (McDowell 2004; McDowell 2012), Avery makes his employment work for him where his words suggest a strong identification with the neoliberal entrepreneurial self who is active and self-reliant individual (Rose 1996). He was happy to be on a higher wage but annoyed that people questioned his authority due to his youth. In terms of the change in responsibilities, he explained to us, ‘But when you’re in management you’re dealing with like stock and finances and stuff, and like managing people which is what you go in to … like to do’. Given his non-formal WIL experience, which enhanced his CV, we asked him if what a university qualification meant for him had changed and what he was now looking for from an experience in higher education:

Avery: More knowledge, I was looking for knowledge. Like always learning, always reading books, always listening to audio books when I’m, like if I’m not doing an overnight I’ll be like listening … . I just want more knowledge to come out of university really which is what you’re there for essentially … I just want to like get as much knowledge as I can.

Despite earning a good wage as a manager at Hungry Jack’s, Avery was undeterred from his aspiration to attend university and described being first-in-family to attend university as ‘it’s a big deal in like many people including myself’. By mid-year, Avery was able to scale back his hours and progress into university full-time and, while his schedule was demanding, he felt he would have the necessary study time to ensure his success. This decision suggests he is positioning himself advantageously and willing to make sacrifices in the short-term to achieve his end goal. We know very little about what influences marginalised men to attend university, and in the case of Avery the data suggests that non-formal WIL experience bolstered his aspirations for university study. While working at Hungry Jack’s is typical service sector employment, and very common within his immediate locale (where attending university in contrast is quite rare), the management position Avery assumes appears to be both personally and intellectually fulfilling.

Kinsley

Kinsley was studying a bachelor’s degree in education with the intention of becoming a primary school teacher. Over the course of three years, he assumed several different jobs, all of which were aligned with enhancing his employability. For Kinsley, a significant part of his aspiration to become a teacher was informed by his cultural identity as an Indigenous-Australian.

But I’ve kind of had this idea instilled in me where cause everyone, cause I’m Indigenous and I’m a male that you don’t see as much male teachers, primary teachers especially, and because I’m a male and indigenous and I enjoy primary teaching, everyone that goes like, ‘Oh you know, what are you studying? What do you want to be?’ And then I tell them and then they’re like, ‘Oh, you know, like everyone’s looking for male teachers’ …

Kinsley’s words here highlight the relationship between his cultural identity, his aspirations and also his sense of future employability. In terms of his non-formal WIL experience, Kinsley’s first job during his first year of university was as a SSO at a local school mainly assisting on ensuring children attended school:

I catch a bus with some kids that can’t get to school on time and they can’t get there with their parents. Like sometimes they don’t have any access to transport, so there is like a courtesy bus run by the diocese and I am like the carer on the bus. So there is the bus driver and I am the one who opens the doors, knocks on the doors and clicks the seatbelts in if they’re too young.

He described this job as ‘rewarding’ and when asked how he got the job Kinsley highlighted how Indigenous support services at the university informed him of the opportunity and encouraged him to apply. Eventually the commute for this part-time job became too time intensive and Kinsley was able to secure a second job as an Indigenous Student Ambassador at the university.

… so it’s like when events are run, so because I’m studying at the uni, I enrolled as a student ambassador and it’s kind of like winter events are run through the uni. You have people that kind of organize it, then you have people that also run it. And I’m kind of one of the people that runs it kind of. So, not as in like on a, like a big boss or anything, but I just like, I work with the kids, take them from place to place, run workshops, stuff like that kind of.

When the conversation turned to employability, Kinsley’s experience with both jobs bolstered his confidence and he did not seem to feel anxiety to the same degree as the other boys in the study who secured non-formal WIL experience:

Yeah, so I feel like I don’t really need to [look for more experience] because of the positions that I’ve already done and am doing relate to that kind of thing. So, and when I do work experience I can also, cause I think that’s next year, so I can also put that on my CV kind of. Yeah, so I don’t think I really need to pimp it out that much cause I’m kind of proud of it. As long as it’s concise and it shows my skills and stuff, I think that’s enough.

We acknowledge theories of neoliberalism simultaneously demand flexibility and adeptness alongside regulation. Keddie (2016) writes how students today ‘are children of the market, that is to say, they are crafting their identities and making sense of their educational and employment experiences and choices within the context of neoliberal imperatives’ (109). Kinsley, who was perhaps less ‘active’ and competitive (see Shuker 2014) than the other five boys who secured non-formal WIL experiences, seemed to think he had perhaps done enough to be competitive. Furthermore, it is worth noting Kinsley was more confident than the others comforted by the belief that as a male primary teacher from a non-traditional background, he will likely be highly employable which suggests he has a certain knowledge of the market and his position in the market.

Discussion and concluding thoughts

Research continues to document how students develop confidence through formal WIL opportunities where the evidence strongly suggests it contributes to enhancing their professional capabilities. Furthermore, research on formal WIL experiences highlights how it assists with making connections between theoretical knowledge and practical application and can have a positive effect on leadership roles in terms of their future employment (Chikeleze, Johnson, and Gibson 2018). Unfortunately, despite investment, WIL requirements and practices vary widely across universities in Australia and internationally and within certain disciplines. They are often influenced by host organisation, timing and duration, and remuneration (Lloyd et al. 2019). Given the fragmented picture regarding the implementation of WIL in Australia, the majority of the wider cohort of participants in the First-in-Family Males Study were unable to access any formal WIL opportunities.

This article shifts the conversation to how students from non-traditional backgrounds pursue non-formal WIL opportunities. Their motivation to pursue these opportunities – and the time they devote – suggests they do not see their degree as a guarantee of future employability. For the most part they see these experience as part of the wider social mobility puzzle. Furthermore, it could be argued the pursuit is an effort to mitigate against the risk of being first-in-family to attend university and potentially having very little to show for it at the end. In contrast to previous research on boys’ post−16 aspirations (Kenway and Hickey-Moody 2011; Kenway, Kraack, and Hickey-Moody 2006), explicit mention in the interviews of CVs, employability, networking (‘who you know’), mentorship suggests these working-class young men are developing a certain familiarity around how to best market themselves to employers, what Jackson and Wilton (2016) refer to as ‘perceived employability’, which has typically been associated with middle-class student dispositions.

In looking across the six case studies, there are some common themes which emerge (see Table 1). Where in formal WIL experiences, the university takes the leading role in securing the opportunity, in non-formal WIL experiences the participants actively secure these jobs largely through their local networks. They gain access to what they are familiar with and, given their working-class (and working-poor) backgrounds, this does restrict the professional capital they are gaining. Therefore, in terms of the development of career management competencies, or what Bridgstock (2009) refers to as labour market awareness or job capabilities awareness, there are limitations. Another significant influencing resource limitation was transport. Of the six participants, only Campbell and Avery owned their own vehicles, and the rest would have had to depend on public transport to not only attain the form of employment but also to maintain it. A substantial commute may have required a risk, cost benefit analysis where the boys would have had to think carefully regarding how they could balance their university studies, the commute and the demands of employment. They also had to consider how these non-formal WIL experiences needed to be paid as it was only Manny who engaged in volunteer work.

Attention to how higher education can be a risky endeavour is a prominent theme in first-in-family studies where there is often a high degree of attrition. With this in mind, what these case studies suggest is that these non-formal WIL experiences worked to reaffirm their aspirations in terms of taking an unconventional path as all six of the young men remained at university. We argue the reaffirmation occurs in two ways: first, their words suggest they find fulfilment in the experience which positively influences their confidence and, second, they are able to see their aspirations towards the employment of their choice as actually feasible. Furthermore, when they fail to form a sense of belonging with university, these WIL experiences can serve to buoy their aspirations if those aspirations happen to be floundering.

Bottero (2009) emphasises how, in the wake of post-industrialisation, young men ‘in particular have become disproportionately concentrated in low-level manual’ where in the past ‘one of the main ways in which working-class men could lay some claim to social respect rested in the nature of the jobs that they performed’ (9; see also McDowell 2012). Bottero extends this point further emphasising the rise of ‘McJob’ has ‘undermined such claims to respect’ where ‘manual work is increasingly seen as a form of subordinate and dependent labour’ (9). We do not dispute these claims but highlight how some of the empirical data presented in this article serves as a counterpoint to these assertions, highlighting how upwardly mobile working-class young men living and working in post-industrial contexts are able to use forms of part-time employment to bolster their future employability. Granted the majority find their ways into the lower end of the white-collar forms of employment (e.g. call centres, schools), but even Avery’s experiences at Hungry Jack’s suggest his skills and aspirations around business are being developed.

To conclude, the article highlights one dimension of the experience of upwardly mobile working-class young men pursuing opportunities to improve their marketability in white collar professions. As previously mentioned, labour has historically been foundational to the identities of working-class men. Researching upwardly mobile men and the importance of labour nearly 40 years ago, Tolson (1977) writes, ‘The roots of gender identity are inferfused with expectations of achievement – “becoming someone” through working, “making something of yourself”’ (13). As previously mentioned it is surprising that, from a social justice perspective, that there has not been more attention to the role WIL (whether formal or non-formal) can play to enhance the university experience for underrepresented equity groups. The proactivity of these young men suggests not only an appetite but a strong identification with a neoliberal pressure to perform. Given how WIL remains a fragmented picture, to conclude, we highlight how within the wider research study only three students were able to secure formal WIL opportunities and how it is too early to say if these students were positioned more advantageously.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the annonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and useful suggestions which led to an improvement of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Australian Research Council [DE170100510].

Notes on contributors

Garth Stahl

Garth Stahl is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Queensland. His research interests lie on the nexus of neoliberalism and socio-cultural studies of education, identity, equity/inequality, and social change.

Jianing Wang

Jianing Wang is a research assistant at the University of Queensland. His research interests include WIL, social inequality and mental health.

Notes

1. Professional capital encompasses a wide range of factors, including education and training, work-place experience, specialised knowledge, and general familiarity with the expectations of the job.

2. JB Hi-Fi is a store which sells electronics and other media-related products.