‘You have to be well spoken’: students’ views on employability within the graduate labour market

Abstract

This study reports upon the perceptions of a sample of Education Studies undergraduates of their employability within three jobs: teaching, accountancy and marketing/sales management. The concept of employability is framed around two themes analysed through a Bernsteinian conceptual analysis: transferable utility of an Education Studies degree for employment in the jobs and importance of class and gender to employment in the jobs. The question of how undergraduates, who would traditionally anticipate working in teaching-related employment, perceive jobs within different occupational areas has acquired particular interest following ongoing public sector cuts in the UK with consequent implications for employment within teaching. In focus group interviews students identified class and gender barriers in relation to all three jobs, thus demonstrating a wider sensitivity to the classed and gendered nature of the graduate labour market. While the students did not, generally, see either of the two business/finance jobs as completely closed to them in terms of class and gender-related constraints, there was a clear perception that their degree did not provide them with the necessary skills for employment within these jobs. This represents a rejection of dominant discourses regarding transferable graduate skills and challenges assumptions of graduate occupational mobility.