The predominance of work‐based training in young graduates’ learning

Abstract

This article draws upon results from an ESRC‐funded research project exploring young graduates’ attitudes to, and experiences of, further education or learning postgraduation. Respondents’ narratives indicated a strong emphasis upon job‐based learning, or training, over and above an oft‐stated desire to do further study ‘for its own sake’. Whilst the majority of graduates expressed contentment with their work‐leisure‐education balance, a significant number also marked up a desire for ‘leisure‐learning’ which was not ‘yet’ possible due to the demands of work and work‐based training. This prompts questions about how we, and the graduates, conceptualise the ‘use’ of having a degree in an era of higher education massification, exploring issues of ‘generic’ skills and personal growth. It also raises questions about the role and function of wider ‘lifelong learning’ practices for those in their twenties, as well as the status of the work‐leisure‐education balance of young professionals, and whether this encourages or discourages efforts to develop a ‘learning society’.

Keywords:

• lifelong learning
• training
• young adults
• higher education
• leisure

Acknowledgements

We are extremely grateful to the 90 young graduates who gave up their time to talk to us, and the ESRC for funding the research (grant reference RES‐000‐22‐0662). We would also like to thank the anonymous referees for very helpful feedback.

Notes

1. For example, whilst almost all respondents from ‘Campus’ were recruited through the alumni mailings, none from ‘Oxbridge’ came via this route. Across the other four, about half the sample was recruited through the mailings.

2. There are clearly important methodological issues related to the use of this method of sampling. We are cognisant of some of the ethical issues raised by Power et al. (2005), and are also aware that accessing graduates in this way may well have led to a rather skewed sample.

3. For example, it is likely that the sample over‐represents those who consider themselves to have had reasonably successful careers to date and under‐represents those who have more difficult trajectories into work.

4. The project recognised a wide variety of ‘learning’ including the following main groups: that which is directly taught and provides a qualification or accreditation; that which is directly taught and does not provide qualification; that which is not directly taught (either indirect or non‐taught) and provides a qualification; and that which is not directly taught and does not provide any qualification.

5. More than with his third and fourth understandings, of education as a tool for the reproduction of social structure and as a revolutionary force for liberation and reflection, although of course there is much that can be read into and from the interview data in this regard.