‘Economic rewards are the driving factor’: neo‐liberalism, globalisation and work attitudes of young graduates in Australia

Abstract

Successive Australian governments have adopted neo‐liberal ideological imperatives of engaging with globalisation. This has been particularly noticeable in the policy areas of employment and higher education. Frame analysis and sensemaking are deployed to examine the ways in which neo‐liberalism has influenced the perspectives young people graduating from two Australian universities have towards work and education. Our findings show that the ways in which students made sense of their environment reflected neo‐liberal conceptions in that their attitudes to work and education were framed in mainly instrumental, economic terms. It is concluded that although neo‐liberalism is ascendant, it is not all pervasive.

Keywords:

• framing
• globalisation
• neo‐liberalism
• sensemaking
• universities
• work

Acknowledgements

Our thanks go to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.