Universities and Unpaid Work: Louis Althusser Re-visited

Abstract

This chapter examines the practice of student work experience as a route into employment through the theoretical lens of Louis Althusser’s ideological state apparatuses. In particular, I focus on unpaid work experience which is compulsory or highly recommended, but not formally facilitated by the university. Work experience such as this raises a concern about the exploitative nature of unpaid work. I investigate to what extent such consideration is evident in the universities’ discourse of employability. Drawing on Althusser’s notion of ideological state apparatuses I pose the question whether the universities’ approach to employability, based on the values of individualism, can be held responsible for legitimising unpaid labour as a method of gaining access to paid employment.