To and from the university: employability discourses and narratives of PhD graduates from the social sciences and humanities in Denmark

Abstract

ABSTRACT For several years, Danish and other European countries have had political objectives for promoting higher education and research. As a result of this, there has been an increased supply of PhD graduates in all disciplines. From a socio-economic point of view, investment in the development of a highly educated work force is considered necessary to ensure competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. It is assumed that PhD graduates are requested outside of academia and that they will contribute to the dissemination of knowledge and skills outside of academia. However, within the social sciences and humanities, most PhD raduates are employed within academia and employment in other branches appears less frequent. This has led to an increased research interest in the strategies and competences of these PhD graduates vis-à-vis the structures of the labour market. The focus tends to be more on individualist perspectives of employability than on structuralist perspectives of social background and knowledge discourses, which constitute the focus of this article. Our focus is on analysing narratives of PhD graduates from the social sciences and humanities as to which career strategies they follow and how they apply competences and refer to knowledge acquired through their PhD. Based on data from universities in Denmark, we have analysed the implications of the policy discourses of employability and transferability and how they result in different knowledge discourses.