Mature students’ experiences of undertaking higher education in English vocational institutions: employability and academic capital

ABSTRACT

Understanding the role of higher education in a system of high participation is becoming more important to providers and policymakers internationally. In this system, whereby increasingly higher education is taking place in vocational institutions, there has been renewed focus on the distinct nature of this provision, and the benefits it may hold for participants. This paper explores the experiences of mature students participating in higher education in a vocational institution in England. Using data from a multiple case study, four narratives are presented to illustrate the conceptualisation of employability by those students and the notion of academic capital and graduate identities is used to frame them. Reconsidering employability in this way challenges a competency-based model of employability reflected in skills-centred policy discourses. In doing so, the paper argues that HIVE is distinct and holds benefits for its participants, but for in different ways than those purported by policymakers.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• further education
• vocational institutions
• mature students
• employability
• capitals

Introduction

The expansion of higher education (HE) in England has seen the rise of alternative higher level qualifications and pathways such as the sub-degree qualification – the foundation degree (FD), which are commonly delivered in further education colleges, also known as higher vocational education (HIVE). In England, further education (FE) is typically associated with providing vocational and adult education up to and including level 3 qualifications. However, FE colleges have been delivering different forms of higher education for some time, in the form of short cycle 1 year Higher National Certificates (HNC) at level 4 and 2 year Higher National Diplomas (HND) at level 5. New two-year level 5 Foundations Degrees were introduced to the further education HE curriculum offer in 2000 to provide new and accessible routes to Higher Education. These developments are part of the widening participation agenda to increase participation in HE of traditionally underrepresented groups. Higher vocational education is often seen as a viable alternative to traditional university HE and typically attracts students with vocational and non-traditional entry qualifications, such as mature students. However, there has been debate around the purpose and place of higher education in further education colleges (Bathmaker, 2016; Bathmaker et al., 2008). Some have argued that Further education and Higher Education are distinctive forms and levels of learning and therefore should be taught in institutions predominantly concerned with each type of learning (King & Widdowson, 2012), others have challenged this distinct divide of the academic and the vocational. As such, higher vocational education has often been positioned by policymakers as providing a ‘distinct’ type of higher education to that of higher education provided by universities. There has been a considerable amount of debate about the position of this type of higher education amongst the wider HE landscape, and the benefits (or lack of) that those participating in HE through these pathways can gain as compared to those participating in university higher education. This paper makes a contribution to this debate by considering the perceived benefits of HE participation in vocational institutions from the perspective of mature students in relation to the employability discourse that is central to many concerns about the returns on HE participation.

Degrees in vocational institutions – the English context

Since 1997 dual-sector arrangements have been in place and policymakers have concerned themselves with growth in the area of HE in FE. Dual-sector or non-university HE provision is common in multiple national HE systems such as those of Canada, the United States, South Africa and Australia. Often referred to as ‘short-cycle’ higher education (Moodie, 2003), these qualifications take less time to complete and are at lower levels than traditional bachelor’s degrees.

The value of higher education in these contexts has largely been seen as threefold; benefits to individuals, benefits to the labour market and the economy, and benefits to society. Dominant views held about the benefits to individuals are returns of earnings, returns on employment opportunities and lifetime benefits (Conlon & Patrignani, 2011). In the English context, it has been shown that HIVE qualifications provide marginal returns in earnings but fairly strong returns on employment (particularly for women holding these qualifications). However, there are considerable gaps in the data available for HIVE qualifications in England (Little et al., 2003).

More recently, research has raised further questions about the value of HIVE to students who participate in it. Debates have centred on whether HIVE constitutes a distinctive form of higher education within the overall field of HE catering for particular types of students, or, because not all forms of higher education are equal, it performs a function in reproducing social inequality (Wheelahan, 2016). Some have argued that this provision offers opportunities for students from non-traditional backgrounds to access a form higher education where they might have been excluded from universities (Bathmaker et al., 2008). Whilst others have argued that whilst this may be the case, the type of higher education that these students are participating in is low-status with very few opportunities for increased earnings or social mobility (Avis & Orr, 2016). The policy assumption that increased qualifications will lead to increased upward social mobility has been critiqued on the basis that as educational systems expand and diversify, qualifications within them are revalued (Webb et al., 2017). However, whilst HIVE qualifications may not benefit individuals in terms of social mobility they do offer an opportunity of increased access to the broader benefits of participation in HE and the knowledge that participants are likely to be exposed to. For example, Avis and Orr (2016, p. 61) argue ‘For many individuals, however, HE in FE courses can and do transform lives by opening up fields of knowledge that may explain and enhance experience’. It is to this argument that this paper is positioned, by contributing understandings of how HIVE students experience these fields of knowledge in ways which may enhance lives. One aspect of this experience is how students, and mature students, in particular, experience this knowledge in relation to their working lives, and how their understanding of the value of HIVE relates to ideas of employability.

Perspectives on employability

This section considers perspectives on employability in relation to higher education participation. Firstly, it offers some context and background to those perspectives, before considering the problematic ways in which employability is defined, and then how it is operationalised in this case. The stratification of English HE means that, in spite of efforts to enhance the employability of students, some are more ‘employable’ than others, due to the social and economic privileges of their background, further enhanced by the choice of elite HE institutions available to them. Within a highly differentiated HE system, college-based HE or HIVE is positioned as low status (Parry et al., 2012), and outcomes for participants in this type of HE are likely to be far less assured. Nevertheless, policymakers continue to treat the issue of ‘employability’ in graduates as the main barrier to securing successful employment and improving life chances. Enhancing the employability of students has therefore remained a central focus of both government policy and institutional practice (Roodhouse, 2004). For mature students participating in HE, the problem with current and conventional definitions of employability is that they are typically associated with enabling younger graduates to gain initial entry to the labour market, and practices associated with employability reflect this (Little, 2011). Therefore, there has been considerable criticism of how employability is both defined, and measured. In a mass HE system, there appears to be little evidence of a ‘graduate premium’ in terms of the economic return to graduates (Tholen & Brown, 2018). Therefore, alternative ways of understanding the concept are needed to generate useful knowledge to enhance students HE experiences in relation to their employment and wider lives.

The conventional way in which employability has been operationalised by institutions delivering higher education qualifications has been based on a skills-centred discourse (Tomlinson, 2017). This includes a focus on transferable skills for work and early career management. However, there has been a move away from this approach in appreciation of a broader and more complex picture of graduate employability than this. This move has largely been driven by wide-ranging criticism of a skills-centred discourse and the notion of employability more widely. Jackson and Wilton (2016) discuss employability in terms of ‘career management competencies’, these include self-management and career insights involving an ability to future plan for careers and have confidence in their perceived employability. Still, these understandings of employability have limitations of being situated within the ‘skills agenda’ (Holmes, 2001).

These conceptualisations of graduate employability make an important contribution to understanding the concept in relation to those entering the labour market; however, they are skills and competencies that mature students may already possess. Instead, Tomlinson (2017, p. 348) argues that in relation to employability there is a need to ‘introduce new vocabularies that connect with its relational complexities and graduates’ lived experience beyond and through HE’. Furthermore, when considering these new vocabularies, it is important to take account of the conceptualisations of employability from the perspectives of different stakeholders. This paper takes as its starting point employability from the perspective of students themselves, and is therefore conceptualised as such. One such way of doing this is through the use of ‘capitals’. Capitals have been used to understand the components of employability, focusing on four dimensions; human, social, cultural and psychological (Tomlinson, 2017; Williams et al., 2016). The use of capitals to understand employability avoids one of the criticisms associated with the term, which is that the concept gives lack of attention to the subjective dimensions in relation to individual identity (Holmes, 2001). Holmes (2001) argues that to understand employability we have to take account of ‘graduate identity’. Developing graduate identity comprises of two conditions, the first is the assumption that there are a set of practices associated with the social arena in which an activity is being carried out. The second is that there are a set of identities, or positions, in this arena that the individual, through engagement with the practices, is deemed to occupy. In this context, the practices are those associated with the development of academic capital in vocational institutions, and the position which students occupy is how they construct their understandings of this capital.

This paper adds to these discussions by suggesting that in the context of HE in vocational institutions, academic capital is also an important dimension from the perspective of mature students. Mature students already have experience in the labour market, and may already be employed in the industry related to their studies. Employability, or enhancing employability, may therefore hold different meanings for mature students in this context. To evidence this, this paper considers the operationalization of employability as a concept from the perspective of four mature students undertaking higher vocational education in a further education college. This also reveals the effect they perceive that undertaking higher education in this context has had on their working lives.

The acquisition of academic capital

Academic capital as a concept refers to the way in which a person can use qualifications or other educational experiences in becoming more upwardly mobile. One way in which Bourdieu operationalises the concept is by length of time spent in education (Bourdieu, 1984) or perceived quality of that education (i.e. attending a prestigious school or university) (Bourdieu, 1988). According to Bourdieu (1984), academic capital can also be seen as converted from other forms of capital, such as cultural capital. Academic capital is, therefore, a product of the combined effects of cultural transmission of capitals by the family and cultural transmission of capitals by the school (the efficiency of which depends on the amount of cultural capital directly inherited from the family) (Bourdieu, 1984). Similarly, others have conceptualised academic capital as based on institutionalised types of cultural capital important in the field of higher education (Naidoo, 2004). Therefore, the concept of academic capital does not just refer to the exchange value of one’s qualifications in order to become upwardly mobile, but includes dispositions and competencies seen as ‘academic’ or distinctive to the field of higher education. Academic capital can be seen as primarily intellectual and cultural, rather than economical (Canaan & Shumar, 2008). Therefore, practices associated with the acquisition of academic capital are informed by values and rules of the HE sector. ‘According to Bourdieu, acts of cognition are implemented to select and consecrate what is classified as “academic” and therefore what counts as valid criteria for entry and success in higher education’ (Naidoo, 2010, p. 73). Therefore, in the case of HE delivered in colleges, the acquisition of capitals necessary for entry and success in higher education is informed by conceptions outside of the context in which they are applied. If conceptions of academic capital are to be taken as time spent in education, or quality of that education, then it would appear that the mature, working-class students in this study would on the surface lack such capital. However, if academic capital is conceptualised as an institutionalised form of higher education cultural capital (Naidoo, 2004), this capital may be developed during the process of participation in higher education. This capital may be experienced by students in multiple ways but one is to shape their understandings of the nature of their graduate identity and their understandings of graduate employability as part of the HIVE experience.

Method

A multiple case study was conducted of seven mature students studying higher education at a medium-sized further education college in the north of England. Informal interviews, and participant observation with the mature students were conducted. Documents of focus groups that were held throughout the academic year and were also used to construct the case studies. A cross-case analysis was conducted thematically using the a priori themes of HE and FE practices, including ‘independent learning’, ‘critical thinking’ and ‘collective learning’. However, during the analysis more nuanced and complex themes of different understandings and experiences of employability amongst the mature students were revealed. Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘capital’ and ‘field’, and in particular, the concept of ‘academic capital’ were subsequently used in the analysis and interpretation of the data. Holmes’s (2001) conceptualisation of employability as subjective and graduate identity has also shaped the analysis as evidence emerged of students operating in the field of HE in different ways and therefore developing academic capital in different ways. The interpretation of this data has been supported by earlier discussions around the role and value of HIVE, and whether it can offer something distinctive or not (Bathmaker, 2016). The interpretation is also grounded in the idea that whilst HIVE may be considered low status HE, it has qualitative benefits to individuals that shape their working lives (Avis & Orr, 2016). The next section explores this idea through tracing the development of academic capital and its impacts amongst mature students and therefore argues that the accumulation of academic capital in this context shapes how students understand their participation in HIVE in relation to their employment.

Results

Data from four mature students are presented to illustrate the different ways in which they developed academic capital, to become more active and critical citizens in the workplace. Using this approach, employability has been conceptualised in four different ways based on the individual narratives of these mature students’ experiences: employability as confidence building; employability as credentialism; employability as authority; and employability as critical workplace enquiry. The students benefitted from this enhanced employability with increased confidence, status and agency in their working lives.

Donna

Donna was 38 years old during fieldwork and was studying for a full-time BA(hons) top-up in Acting Performance at the College. She had progressed to the top-up from the foundation degree in acting at the same College. She had three grown-up children and explained that she became pregnant with her first daughter ‘really young’ at aged 18. She described herself as not academically bright and left school wondering what to do with herself.

Donna explained how her experience of HIVE at the College was one of the transformations; she had gained confidence and thrived in a challenging learning environment. She realised that the course was a HE one, and she was scared but determined. She said the thought of gaining a degree in the subject that she loved drove her to push herself to make the most of the experience. Donna felt she had underestimated how academically demanding the course might be, but felt that the small group sizes and flexibility had enabled her to thrive. She also felt that the academic nature of the course had enabled her to personally develop in other areas of the life. She described how she was able to hold an argument and have a critical discussion that was well articulated, with authority.

I can sort of like argue the point with somebody in a proper manner, you know if someone disagrees with whatever and I can say ‘well you know, it’s X,Y and Z and this is why I feel like it’s X,Y and Z’ it’s sort of like given me that extra boost, whereas I would have just at one time said ‘oh right if that’s how you feel then that’s fine’. [Donna Interview 2: 12/06/2014]

Donna felt like she was able to put together an argument now and this was useful for her cleaning business. She could successfully argue the terms of a contract in order to make sure that she was not taken advantage of. This demonstrates the emancipatory potential of mobilizing critical thinking and academic capital outside of the educational site.

Donna also took the opportunity to make contacts that helped her with different aspects of her study. As part of her acting degree she had written a children’s book and she had contacted a publisher and famous illustrator to see if he would illustrate her book. She had also been in touch with academic figures in the field of drama and drama therapy to help her with her dissertation. Using her initiative to practise independent learning as something to be engaged with outside of the classroom, she had enriched her HE in FE experience.

I had a personal invite from a lady called Dr Jane Smith to attend one of her workshops which I knew would assist me hugely for both my theoretical study and my performance project and also I attended a lecture again, same kind of thing, more for my PDP [personal and professional development] was the other lecture though that sort of like assisted me really well on the PDP … Yeh, you have to do, it just sort of like contributes to your achievements, you can’t just float on by in the hope that … so I was fortunate really that I did get those invites. [Donna Interview 2: 12/06/2014]

The development of academic capital throughout her studies had equipped her with the necessary confidence to develop social capital to enhance her employability.

Whilst for the most part Donna enjoyed her HE experience, she also felt that some aspects of her HIVE experience did not resonate with her. One of these involved the personal and professional development (PDP) modules and the employability ones. Donna felt that these modules did not hold any value to her as a mature student, and were ‘geared’ towards her younger peers who were less experienced in the labour market. In order to make these modules more relevant to her, Donna said that she sought out opportunities to engage with academics in the local HEI’s and used those experiences to shape her personal and professional development instead. She seemed to have a very clear idea that she wanted the degree to lead her into some kind of drama therapy role and felt that the aforementioned modules were aimed at younger students who did not know what they wanted to do at all. Donna expressed the view that whilst a career stemming from her studies would be an added benefit, she had wanted to experience the course and achieve for the sake of learning and studying something she loved.

Donna described her greatest achievement and sense of joy on the course as coming from writing her final dissertation. She said the process of getting to grips with writing such a theoretical piece of work involved having ‘ups and downs’, but it made her realise how ‘academic’ she really was. Because she enjoyed the experience so much, by the end of the course she was seriously considering continuing her work for masters or PhD study, instead of re-entering the labour market. She felt that ‘at her age’ it was something she just had to pursue as she wanted to enjoy doing something for herself in this chapter of her life. Donna’s story of engaging in education for enjoyment and personal fulfilment, rather than for instrumental reasons, shows how the development of academic capital enabled her to harness the confidence of her true potential and realise future ambitions that were previously out of her reach. Donna’s narrative can be seen to construct employability as confidence building.

Nathan

Nathan was 26 years old at the time of his participation and was studying for a part-time HNC in construction management, which was run as an evening course. He first came to the College at the age of 16 from school – he said he had been told by teachers at the school that he was not academic and would do better for himself if he became qualified in a trade. Nathan described himself as not being very good at reading or writing at school, so much so that he was not allowed to sit his GCSE English exam. He also suggested that he contributed to his lack of success in school by not doing homework and messing around. For Nathan, this was because he did not want to learn what he was being made to learn, rather than because he was not able to achieve.

Nathan’s career trajectories were complex and not necessarily directly related to the HNC he was undertaking. He still wanted to go into some kind of design work eventually, but he felt that the course was a step in the right direction due to its transferability. He also felt that by completing a HE qualification he was able to show high levels of analytical thinking, problem solving and commitment, which were beneficial to further learning. Another way in which Nathan considered employability was what the HE qualification represented, not in terms of vocational competency, but personal attributes that were desirable in an employee. For example, Nathan explained that the HNC he was undertaking represented determination and a sense of commitment to potential employers.

Employability, I would class that as, I suppose it does [the HNC] make you more employable because you’ve done it at night school and you’ve got the qualification meaning you are determined in a way, and you know what you want to do so I suppose that make you more employable, yeh. [Nathan Interview 2: 22/04/2014]

Unfortunately, near the end of Nathan’s studies, opportunities for progression were limited. Coming back to the College to continue onto an HND was not an option as there were not enough students interested to make running the course worthwhile for the College. Therefore, nearing the end of the academic year, he was looking for opportunities elsewhere, but location was the biggest barrier. Nathan said he also wanted to find work doing what he loved, the design aspect of building services, but he did not think the HNC qualified him to do that. Nathan thought that was OK though, because undertaking the HNC had been for personal achievement purposes, rather than employment prospects. He also felt that in a volatile employment market the general attributes he had developed would be valuable to any potential employment.

Kate:

Being a mature student now … . Has your outlook changed?

Nathan:

Yeh, you realize it’s more important to get the qualifications. Yeh you do realize it’s more important. I wouldn’t say I look back and wish I had done it when I was younger because … . Erm but now that I’m older I do realize that I have to do it now.

Kate:

Why do you have to do it?

Nathan:

‘Cause you need the paperwork to get a job and money, experience doesn’t really count. You need experience, but you need the qualification as well to get your foot in the door. [Nathan Interview 2: 22/04/2014]

Nathan ultimately considered his course as symbolising the qualities and attributes that he was not able to articulate in other ways using his social or cultural capital or experience of the workplace, such as discipline, commitment, analytical thinking and problem-solving. Nathan’s construction of employability on his course is most likened to the instrumental use of academic capital as something that can be exchanged in the field of the labour market for meaningful employment, or the construction of employability as credentialism.

Carolyn

Carolyn suggested that she did not have much confidence in education until she had undertaken the National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), a work-based qualification in England awarded at levels 1, 2 and 3. Having completed them, she wondered about taking her education further, but was not sure what route she would have to go down. As she had already completed two-level three vocational qualifications, she was not sure what her options were. As her educational background had involved mainly vocational qualifications, she thought she did not have the traditional qualifications associated with entry to higher education and discounted that as an option. A friend of Carolyn’s had started a Foundation Degree in Early Years at a different provider than the site of enquiry in this study and Carolyn thought it sounded interesting.

Carolyn’s expectations of HE learning, once she had applied, were mostly similar to traditional (and perhaps outdated) notions of university lectures. She described an event during which these notions were supported by her prospective tutor. During the group interview, she was invited to, her tutors kept referring to ‘delivery’, which for Carolyn summed up images of sitting, listening and taking notes. Whilst she held these images of HE learning in general, she explained that at this point she was unsure of the content that would be covered as part of her foundation degree. In spite of this, she did have an idea of how it would differ from the content and delivery of the NVQs she had previously undertaken. She articulated this by suggesting that the NVQ was about qualifying her existing competencies by documenting what she already did at work, it was ‘boring’ and was a ‘tick the box’ exercise.

I think the difference is that with the NVQ I didn’t actually learn anything, whereas I do actually feel like I’m learning now, looking deeper into things. NVQ3, it’s just about your experience ‘I did this at work, I looked at this policy, and this is why we do it this way’ – now I’m actually learning. [Carolyn Interview 1: 04/11/2013]

For Carolyn, the foundation degree, on the other hand, was not about learning to do the job, but about developing further knowledge that could be used to enhance practice and her general personal development.

I’ve been there for 11 years. I’ve actually done all that, from when I was new coming in. I might not have had that experience ‘oh, I’ve never done that’ ‘I’ve never understood that policy’ so then they’d be put into that situation, which for them [younger students] it would be learning, but for me it was just a case of saying ‘oh, yeh, I did that then’ ticking the box, so it was boring. [Carolyn Interview 1: 04/11/2013]

The social interaction that occurred as part of her learning was really important to Carolyn, as she did not work in the early years sector herself. She said that this provided her with insight into the experiences of those that did, and in turn broadened her thinking. Carolyn valued the broad range of perspectives the diversity of her cohort brought to her learning; this differed from her previous educational experiences, which she thought had been quite black and white: knowledge and understanding had been viewed as either right or wrong.

Contrary to this black and white view of knowledge, Carolyn said she was excited by the degree of autonomy she had in her learning experience. She spoke of how it gave her an opportunity to explore different fields of study as part of her learning and have an opinion in her work. Carolyn referred to this autonomy as ‘finding an opinion’ and said how it had opened up her thinking in all aspects of her life. Carolyn attributed ‘finding her opinions’ through a combination of research, reading and reflecting on her own experiences.

Carolyn also valued the confidence that finding an opinion had given her and described how the notion of independent learning had facilitated this. She suggested this time that she put aside to read and write gave her a place to take charge of her own learning. She suggested that being in college five days a week to do a course would not have suited her, but with so much emphasis on independent learning, she was able to tailor her experience to suit her lifestyle. She also described how the independent learning she undertook at home gave her a space to concentrate on herself, rather than her family or job. She referred to this as ‘me-time’ and ‘her thing’ and this time she spent on herself was legitimated as it was an essential part of her studies.

Her construction of employability through academic capital acquisition enabled her to be heard in the workplace, it symbolised her status as somewhat expert, and allowed her to apply some sort of control over her working life and wider life by enabling her to hold democratic conversations about the decisions taken in the workplace and at home. This academic capital was beneficial two-fold, as it equipped her with the entry criteria to pursue a pathway to teacher education and thus gaining more authority and power in the workplace.

Carolyn:

It was nothing that I’d ever considered doing earlier in my life but something I’ve fell into, that I really, really, really love, and the plan with work is that I do the foundation degree, then the top-up and, and then possibly what was GTP.

Kate:

So the FD isn’t directly related to your job then?

Carolyn:

No, but it is a route to teaching. [Carolyn Interview 1: 04/11/2013]

Carolyn’s narrative therefore can be seen to construct employability as authority.

John

John was 51 years old during the fieldwork for this research, and was studying for a part-time foundation degree in Health and Social Care. John worked for the bank for over 30 years and made his way up to a senior position in that time. This work also offered him the ‘perk’ of being able to move from his hometown in the North West to a small town near the College with his family. However, he spoke of how a few years ago he was offered redundancy and took the opportunity to explore other career and education options that were ‘meaningful’, and not ‘just a means to an end’. Consequently, John secured employment in a centre caring for adults with learning disabilities. Whilst doing this, John spoke of how he became increasingly aware of his lack of formal qualifications in this sector and felt he needed to gain more credibility and knowledge in the area of social care in order to make a difference.

John always talked about his studies in a collegial manner, explaining that whilst the part-time mode of study was frustrating for him, he recognised that others in the group needed that time to ‘get to grips’ with higher level study. He perceived there to be a range of abilities and confidence levels in the group and suggested that others did not necessarily have the academic background he had, and they struggled with concepts and ideas that he found easy. He also spoke of how he recognised the differences in HE experiences of older mature-aged students. John described how everyone had different paths, goals and expectations of HE and how he had come to realise that not everyone was the same as him. He explained how the diversity of the group had served as a reminder in his work and social life not to make assumptions about people and to accept people’s strengths and weaknesses. It had exposed him to new people from different backgrounds and allowed him to appreciate the value that brought to learning.

John felt that studying as a mature student in this particular environment had been far more appropriate for him. He spoke of how he valued the small class sizes, enabling debate and discussion to facilitate learning. He described the small classes as a ‘safe place’ which enabled him and his peers to explore topics and develop their criticality and understandings without fear of judgement. John explained how in HE, analysis and debate were far more important when writing essays than re-presenting the course material. For him, it was not just about learning facts, but about applying and questioning knowledge. The small class sizes also facilitated this. John explained that he could not learn just from being ‘talked at’, but rather he learned by doing as well. The independent study expectations of the course were more useful in developing that understanding for him, by reading, researching, applying and writing about his topics. This helped John to engage with a range of literature on any given topic, developing an understanding of different and often competing perspectives.

John explained that developing an understanding of knowledge that was not fixed or ‘right and wrong’ but fluid and ever-changing was one of the main lessons he applied to his work with adults with learning difficulties. He felt he used this understanding to question and critique his own practice. For John, this had made him a far more effective and valuable employee. It was through this that he also began to question common practice in social care and the way things were done in his sector. He suggested he was recognising areas of bad practice and wanted to challenge and change them, in order to ‘make a difference to the lives of the people he was working with’. In this respect, John felt he had changed as a result of his studies, but he still felt uncomfortable in being defined by his work and studies as he was ‘still me’.

Kate:

OK, so can you see a difference in yourself from when you first started?

John:

Yeh, both in terms of knowledge, but also in terms of ambition. I like to use what I’ve got. I don’t want to be a central manager or anything, but I’d like to be in a position where I can have more direct influence on what goes on ‘cause I don’t think we do things particularly well … .

Kate:

Is that a result of … .

John:

Partly it’s a result of the course, and actually I can critique in what I see more, whereas I wouldn’t have it done before, I would have thought, ‘I’ve got two and a half years to go, just forget it!’ But now I’m thinking, ‘I’ve only got two and a half years, that’s crap!’ But the way we do things is poor. [John Interview 2: 19/06/2014]

When John had started the course he had maintained that his reasons for participation in HE were intrinsic, for sense of self-satisfaction and to learn more about something he felt passionate about. He maintained the view that he was not looking for enhanced employment opportunities throughout; he did not want a promotion or extra responsibilities as a result of achieving the degree. John had had a career in banking and due to his knowledge and experience of the labour market, he purported not to need another one! However, towards the end of his studies, he began to consider pursuing a more senior role in social care, as he felt this was the only way in which he could affect change to the issues of practice that had been uncovered through his critical engagement with the course material.

When I started this course I thought I was doing it just because, for myself, I’ve got no intentions of really using the foundation degree afterwards. I haven’t got any career path plans. But I guess that I found as I’ve gone through it, I’ve noticed some short falls in some of the areas and I think ‘I probably should apply for team leader roles’. I’ve got myself, I’ve realized now I’m too young to pack in completely, but my ambition is limited to almost getting to the step where I can have more of a material impact on what happens. [John Interview 2: 19/06/2014]

To do this, John felt it necessary to continue and gain a full degree via a top-up. For this reason, his future plans were to do a top-up and to continue to use his learning experience to shape his work and wider life. John’s construction of employability through the development of academic capital enabled him to challenge practice through critical enquiry. This manifestation is related to authority but the focus is not being a democratic member of the workplace but an antagonist for change, or the construction of employability as critical workplace enquiry.

Conclusions

These four constructions of employability are developed through critical engagement with the subject area over a period of time, with the college enabling a space for challenge, debate, and critical thought – preparing them for continued learning experiences which are essential for navigating a turbulent labour market. Reconsidering employability through the lens of mature students’ own conceptualisations serves to challenge a competency-based model of employability reflected in skills-centred policy discourses. Such a shift could empower students to be active and critical citizens in the workplace and the enhancement of academic capital through different forms of degree participation can be the mechanism for change in people lives.

These findings can therefore contribute to the debates about the role and value of HIVE outlined at the beginning of the paper. Firstly, is HIVE a distinctive form of HE (Bathmaker, 2016; Wheelahan, 2016)? It can be seen from the conceptualisations of employability provided that the student experience is different to those that might be undertaking HE qualifications in university. However, it is not distinct in the way that is purported by policymakers of HIVE. That is, a distinctly vocational form of HE for ‘vocational learners’. The graduate identities demonstrated here are more closely aligned with traditional graduate attributes such as being able to think critically and abstractly, engagement with theory and building argument than vocational competency.

Secondly, does HIVE provide access to students that may have been excluded from other forms of HE (Bathmaker et al., 2008)? The stories that have been presented here and the conceptualisation of academic capital as building confidence, authority and voice demonstrates that without this already, some students would not have entered HE at all. The institution and context are therefore important to support access for these students. The graduate identities shown also reveal how developing academic capital in various forms can help to open up further educational opportunities for students that they may have considered closed off to them before.

Lastly, can participation in HIVE be a vehicle for social mobility (Avis & Orr, 2016; Webb et al., 2017)? Due to the small sample and qualitative focus of the study, it is difficult to argue whether this may or may not be the case for some individuals. For example, if Carolyn trains to be a teacher, she may become upwardly mobile. However, what the findings do suggest is that social mobility is not the reason for participating in HIVE. The conceptualisation of employability in these four ways shows that developing personally and engaging in work more meaningfully is important for students, particularly mature students. HIVE may not be able to reconcile the stratification of higher education and its part in reproducing educational and social inequalities at a macro level, but at the micro, individual level, it can enrich the lives of those who undertake it. Therefore, whilst there is distinctiveness in these forms of higher education, within a mass system they also constitute new pathways for individuals to gain some of the benefits associated with higher education more broadly, but in diverse contexts and institutions.

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Kate Lavender

Kate Laven is a Senior Lecturer in Initial Teacher Education (Lifelong Learning) having joined the University of Huddersfield in 2017. Previously I have worked in a range of teaching, training and Learning development roles in both an FE college and universities.