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Moving Beyond Skills as a Social and Economic Panacea
Abstract
This article examines two inter-related issues. First, the tendency for UK skills policies to act as a substitute for other social and economic measures. Second, the problem of current conceptualisations of skills policy creating narrowly-drawn, technicist interventions that are frequently incommensurate with the scale of the problems which they purport to tackle. The article suggests that current policy formation processes, particularly in England, are being deployed in a manner that seeks to close off consideration of other potential avenues by which contemporary social and economic problems might be addressed. The case is made for a wider framing of both policy possibilities and avenues for relevant research to support such policy development.
... By criticality we refer to the ways in which FE practitioners and initial teacher education (ITE) tutors find ways of creatively interrupting a monistic skills agenda that Shore and Butler (2012) call 'the mechanic metaphors ' and assumptions (204) that inhabit the lived experience (habitus) of FE practice. The dominance of a skills-driven agenda, ostensibly linked to improving employability, productivity and inclusion, has, in reality, come to mirror systems failure associated with the UK's low-skill, low-wage economy (Keep and Mayhew 2010). The market pulleys and levers that maintain such interventions (i.e., funding, audit and inspection) are supported by pathways and curriculum (emphasis on basic skills, competencies, learning styles, etc.) designed to keep teaching and learning in touch with a work ethic that is not working. ...
... Research in Post-Compulsory Education 89 FE incorporation, recurring patterns of VET policy and practice have essentially tracked rather than challenged the UK's low-skill, low-wage economy (Keep and Mayhew 2010). The subsequent plethora of VET initiatives both promotes and reflects recurring crises generated by market, policy and system failure. ...
... Looking to the future, therefore, what can reasonably be expected of FE practitioners beyond the current contexts of their work? This question arguably turns on what not to do, given evidence of widespread systems failure in VET itself (Coffield et al. 2008;Keep and Mayhew 2010). ...
... Other researchers in the political economy and economic sociology fields have implicitly questioned the key role of education and skills policy identified by the VoC literature and they more broadly questioned the assumption that -to paraphrase the title of a book authored by Colin Crouch and colleagues -'skills are the answer' to growth and prosperity in knowledge-based economies (Crouch, Finegold, and Sako 1999, see also Brown, Green, and Lauder 2001, Brown, Hesketh, and Wiliams 2003, Brown, Hesketh, and Williams 2004. These accounts in particular place education and skills policy in the broader context of employment creation in high-end sectors and they suggest that the potential for employment creation is limited unless education and skills policies are firmly coupled with industrial policies (see also Keep and Mayhew 1996, Keep 1999, Gleeson and Keep 2004, Keep and Mayhew 2010). Yet, while stressing the joint importance of and mutually-reinforcing relationship between supply and demand side policies, these analyses do not challenge VoC's central tenets in terms of national models of skill formation for two main reasons. ...
... Yet, unlike other LMEs, such as the US, that compensated the chronic weaknesses of the vocational training system through large higher education systems, the UK featured rather low enrolments in higher education too (Soskice 1993). After vocational training policy represented a terrain of political conflict between trade unions and the Thatcher governments in the 1980s, which ultimately led to its breakdown, attempts to revive the system in the 1990s did not bring about significant improvements: employers' disengagement with the vocational system has not been reversed (Keep 2014, Keep and Mayhew 2010, Keep, Mayhew, and Payne 2006, Gleeson and Keep 2004 and parity of esteem with general education was not achieved (Hansen and Vignoles 2005). As improving vocational training proved problematic, the mid-1990s saw an increasing focus on the higher education sector to ensure an adequate supply of skill to labour market, in connection with the increasing importance assigned to knowledge-based economic growth (Wilson 2012, 18). ...
A successful transition into the knowledge economy is said to depend upon higher level skills, creating unprecedented pressure on university systems – as they expand across countries – to provide knowledge-based labour markets with the skills needed. But what are the political economy dynamics underlying national patterns of high skill formation? This thesis argues that existing theoretical approaches are not well-suited to answer the question: ideational and structuralist frameworks downplay persistent national differences, while institutionalist accounts assume that national differences rest upon the very lack of higher education expansion in some countries, downplaying the crossnational trend of higher education expansion. The thesis proposes a framework that accounts for distinct national trajectories of high skill formation within the convergent trend of higher education expansion. In particular, two crucial variables are identified to theorise the relationship between higher education systems and knowledge-based labour markets: (i) the predominant type of knowledge economy in a given country; and (ii) the degree of inter-university competition across different higher education systems. It is argued that the former explains what type of higher level skills will be sought by employers and cultivated by governments, while the latter helps understanding of why some higher education systems are more open at the outset to satisfy labour market demands compared to others, determining whether institutional change in a given higher education system is likely to be encompassing or marginal. Cross-national descriptive statistics and systematic process analysis across a set of diverse country case studies (Britain, Germany and South Korea) are used to test the theory. By highlighting the agency of universities, governments and businesses and by linking higher education policy with knowledge-based growth strategies, this thesis provides a theoretical and empirical contribution on processes of institutional change in higher education and on broader trajectories of institutional change across advanced capitalist countries.
... of foreign direct investment (FDI) to local and regional economic development is particularly salient and increases the spatial complexity of state involvement in skills issues (Almond, Ferner and Tregaskis, 2015). We suggest that the field of HRM has important questions to address, and a contribution to make, concerning its agency within the socio-political context ( Almond and Ferner, 2006;Brewster, Wood and Brookes, 2008;Keep and Mayhew, 2010;Morgan and Kristensen, 2006;Muller, 1999;Tregaskis et al., 2010). Our work aims to contribute to this body of research. ...
... While this can be attractive for FDI, skills and education have long been a politically contentious issue, with the quality and volume of state investment significantly lacking compared with other European countries. With little regulation mandating firm investment, the burden for skills investment has increasingly shifted to the employee ( Keep and Mayhew, 2010). Second, increasing privatization of education and skills provision, and shrinking public funds, has reduced the power of governance actors to influence labour market skills ( Keep, 2014). ...
This paper uses an embeddedness framework to reconceptualize HRM agency over the external labour market, and in so doing bring into focus the societal implications of HRM. Drawing on qualitative data from 53 key informants in two English regions, we identify the ways in which the subsidiaries of foreign multinationals (MNCs) engage with labour market skills actors. Our findings reveal how power structures are mobilized by local economic actors to align labour market skills with MNCs’ demand priorities. We show that multinationals may seek to partially endogenize (i.e. take ownership of) the resources of local labour markets when their competitive value is redefined in social as well as economic terms, and demonstrate that the social structure of sub-national institutional governance arrangements and firm strategic action on skills creates the conduit through which resource endogenization may occur. Theoretically, this paper identifies the social structure of networks as a casual mechanism to bridge divergent skill interests, which is mobilized when network actors have the capacity to frame fields within the social structure of the network around ideas on economic sustainability and moral interest.
... 21 Vanuit het denken over menselijk kapitaal zijn vaardigheden alleen wel érg centraal komen te staan in onderzoek en beleid op het gebied van onderwijs en de arbeidsmarkt: vaardigheden worden soms bijna als wondermiddel gezien. 22 Het verbeteren van vaardigheden wordt hierbij soms het einddoel, zonder dat erbij wordt stilgestaan waarvóór deze vaardigheden uiteindelijk goed zijn. Zoals Bryson suggereert is het paradoxale dat de focus op vaardigheden er wellicht ook zélf toe heeft bijgedragen dat er sprake is van overskilling op de arbeidsmarkt en een mismatch tussen de vaardigheden van mensen en het werk dat ze doen. ...
... Knowledge about the situation is the name for handling a conflict (Spinosa, 2006). Additionally, skills have been promoted as the 'solution' to society's growth issues and as a 'social and economic panacea' (Keep & Mayhew, 2010). ...
This narrative review examines the degree to which authors contend that education contributes to or hinders the development of an individual skill that leads to employment. Besides, it provides an overview of the kinds of training that allow people to develop their skills and find employment globally and within Ethiopia following a dependency model (employability on education and skill development). The literature review examines the importance of education for employment and developing skills and talents. A few of the most significant policy issues, employment strategies, and challenges are also reviewed accordingly. Consequently, it might be possible to conclude that a person's education should align with the kind of job that organizations and individuals are seeking around the globe, including in Ethiopia. In the end, following a thorough literature review, this research provides some recommendations to enhance education for upcoming progress.
... Without proper attention to the limitations of the scant evidence on non-degree credentials, we run the risk of misinterpreting potential equity implications of non-degree credentials. Equity implications for non-degree credentials, like their degree counterparts, present both opportunities to increase access within engineering and to reproduce systems of inequity currently present in the field (Keep & Mayhew, 2010;Ball, 2013). Even with some jobs in the United States loosening degree requirements, there are still many structural barriers that prevent individuals from entering certain fields within the engineering workforce. ...
... see Rothwell and Rothwell, 2017) and on attempting to show the impressive labour market outcomes of their students, foregrounding them on websites and marketing materials and actively competing in global employability rankings. Governments increasingly use employability as an accountability measure, root HE fee structures in the assumption that, since individuals benefit from their education, they so should pay for it, and embed industrial strategies in the panacea of skills supply (Keep, 2010). However, on closer scrutiny, the central tenets of employability orthodoxy, particularly when reduced to discourses that emphasise financial returns over individual agency, appear fragile and problematic. ...
Despite the broad engagement of higher education institutions in most social sectors, limited thinking and hyper-individualistic approaches have dominated discussions of their value to society. Advocating a more rigorous and comprehensive approach, this insightful book discusses the broad range of contributions made by higher education and the many issues entailed in theorising, observing, measuring and evaluating those contributions.
Prepared by a group of leading international scholars, the chapters investigate the multiple interconnections between higher education and society and the vast range of social, economic, political and cultural functions carried out by universities, colleges and institutes and their personnel. The benefits of higher education include employable graduates, new knowledge via research and scholarship, climate science and global connections, and the structuring of economic and social opportunities for whole populations, as well as work and advice for government at all levels. Higher education not only lifts earnings and augments careers, it also immerses students in knowledge, helps to shape them as people, and fosters productivity, democracy, tolerance and international understanding. The book highlights the value added by higher education for persons, organisations, communities, cities, nations, and the world. It also focuses on inequalities in the distribution of that value, and finds that the tools for assessing higher education are neither adequate nor complete as yet.
... see Rothwell and Rothwell, 2017) and on attempting to show the impressive labour market outcomes of their students, foregrounding them on websites and marketing materials and actively competing in global employability rankings. Governments increasingly use employability as an accountability measure, root HE fee structures in the assumption that, since individuals benefit from their education, they so should pay for it, and embed industrial strategies in the panacea of skills supply (Keep, 2010). However, on closer scrutiny, the central tenets of employability orthodoxy, particularly when reduced to discourses that emphasise financial returns over individual agency, appear fragile and problematic. ...
... Britain has made a far greater commitment to the expansion of tertiary education (Durazzi, 2020), than to providing skills for nonacademic workers. While successive governments across the political spectrum have paid lip service to vocational education and a plethora of private training options have developed below the upper-secondary level, these are poorly funded and fail to provide real skills (Keep & Mayhew, 2010;Payne & Keep, 2011;Wolf 2002). With respect to governance, British reformers enthusiastically have endorsed new public management ideas with national standards governing curricula and quality control, funding linked to test scores and privatisation; however, teachers are frustrated with standardised curricula that force them to teach to the test (Tamir & Davidson, 2011, 240). ...
Education has become a key tool for reducing inequality in the postindustrial economy; however, educational reformers must address tensions in goals of efficiency and equality. Cross‐national differences in cultural assumptions about education provide context for countries’ choices in resolving tensions between efficiency (developing skills) and equality (ensuring educational access for marginal workers). Cultural frames encourage actors to consider the role of education in solving social problems in strikingly different ways across countries. Britain and Denmark exemplify cross‐national variation in coping with efficiency and equality. I first demonstrate how cultural frames regarding education differ historically in Britain and Denmark in large corpora of literature from 1700 to 1920 (Martin, 2018). I show that British and Danish authors (as producers of culture) differ significantly in their depictions of education with respect to efficiency (skills), equality (perceptions of class and society) and governance (role of the state, assessment and coordination). I then report findings from an online internet survey of 2100 British and Danish young people that demonstrate the continuing divergence in cultural constructions of education in Britain and Denmark today. The survey reveals that the same cross‐national cultural distinctions apparent in the nineteenth‐century continue to resonate in contemporary views of education reform. The paper contributes by adding a cultural perspective to the factors driving diverse country choices about efficiency and equality in education policy, and it reinforces the importance of public opinion in policy choices. Moreover, the paper expands upon our understanding of Nordic social democracy from a historical perspective.
... The policy discourse advocating education for employability fails to examine the link between work and self-realisation, and avoids dealing with the disturbing truth thatespecially for Roma -work can be degrading, alienating and precarious. The depoliticised focus on 'skills' gains prominence in ways that circumvent ideologicallyloaded discussions on class politics and power relations (Keep and Mayhew 2010). In so doing, the policy discourse of our time whitewashes a large part of our racialised, gendered and precarious labour market. ...
This paper aims to demonstrate the analytical potential of initial vocational education and training (iVET) in the debate on the costs of social mobility. It is based on extensive qualitative fieldwork with over 250 young people in Romania’s iVET (around 20% of whom were Roma). Central to the discourses of young Roma are the experiences of discrimination, the absence of a ‘vocational habitus’ and an awareness of credential inflation, despite the social and economic costs of attending iVET. The research calls for a recalibration of the narrative on social mobility, in an economic context where work is becoming increasingly precarious.
... No single incident since the Great Depression in the early 1903s, or the Second World War has affected the world's businesses and livelihoods so tragically. In fact, the literature is replete with instances and sites where employers have considerably extinguished workplaces, or local labour markets particularly in vulnerable areas (Beynon et al., 2002;Keep & Mayhew, 2010). It seems apposite to state, given the narratives of the respondents that in their estimation, governments declaration, or rather imposition of shutdown, and restriction of movement, was harsh and cruel, as their livelihoods and interest seemed not to have informed government policy. ...
COVID-19 Pandemic has affected different categories of workers in diverse ways. The paper seeks to interrogate the livelihood challenges of those in precarious employment with a focus on migrant construction and transport workers in Awka during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. The paper explores the coping strategies adopted by these urban poor in the face of the severe shutdown and abrupt termination of their marginal means of livelihood by the State and National governments. The paper also sought to find out the forms of assistance, or palliatives, if any from governmental, non-governmental organizations, corporate bodies and individuals. The paper is an in-depth study of select construction and transport workers who are not indigenes of Anambra State, using In-depth Interview Method and Focus Group Discussion. The study revealed, that trapped in precariousness, the daily paid workers in the construction and transport sub sectors of the informal economy faced double jeopardy, not only in terms of the starvation earnings that are irregular, and uncertain, but in its total stoppage, with no safety nets, nor savings to fall back on. It also provides insights into the nature of the relationship that these masons, bricklayers and transport operators have with their ad hoc employers and the State
... These latter comprise freelancers and contractors working mainly for one employing organization because it suits the worker, the employer or both to contract for tasks or activities rather than for agreed hours of work (Moore and Newsome, 2018). Such hybrid forms of work may arise from the flexibilization strategies of large organizations (Keep and Mayhew, 2010;Murgia et al., 2020). Self-employed workers have become a substitute for employed workers, allowing employers to limit the costs of recruiting, retaining and firing the latter (Moore and Newsome, 2018;Smith, 2006). ...
Rising self-employment may indicate growing precarity. This article investigates poverty in self-employment in the UK using a large-scale official household survey for 2010 to 2019 through a focus on material deprivation. The principal finding is that, after controlling for the selective nature of self-employment, self-employed households may experience higher levels of material deprivation than employed ones. This is particularly so for those without children and access to welfare and other support that children may bring. This finding is consistent with previous research on the reliability of self-employment earnings data. It also may highlight the impact of precarious self-employment on low earning households. This is apparent in detailed analysis of earnings and material deprivation gaps at different points of the distribution, where self-employed households rely more on the income of one self-employed earner.
... Training and skills provision must, however, be externally accredited to ensure it is of a high standard; the failings of apprentice provision and the use of training as a form of unpaid labour worsens job quality for young workers, rather than improving it. Improving supply of skilled labour must also be matched by increased demand, something which has so far been lacking in UK industrial strategy, resulting in persistent issues of underemployment (Keep and Mayhew, 2010). Interventions could specifically target sectors which are sites of good work for young workers and provide them with financial and technical support to facilitate growth and development. ...
This article explores variations in job quality for young workers by analysing six employers across three industrial sectors of Greater Manchester, an English city-region. Four aspects of job quality are examined because of their centrality in shaping how youth labour-power is deployed in the labour process: technological utilisation, work-rate, autonomy and discretion, and opportunities for training and career progression. Primary data were collected from 30 semi-structured interviews with business owners, managers, young workers and from workplace observations. Findings reveal job quality is high in advanced manufacturing and creative and digital sectors, but low in business services. Job quality is shaped by the nature of commodity production and accompanying labour process. Development or degradation of young workers in the labour process depends largely on the requirements of the employer, as few countervailing pressures exist. Training provision improves job quality, but demand-side interventions are required to generate sustainable good jobs for young workers.
... Until the 2008-2009 recession, the effect of the business cycle on training investments has received little attention in the literature (e.g. Keep and Mayhew, 2010). The increasing recognition of the importance of workplace training in the knowledge economy together with the severity of the 2008-2009 crisis revived the interest on this topic. ...
Purpose
This paper investigates the relationship between labour hoarding practices and training investments during severe economic downturns focusing on the case of Italy during the Great Recession.
Design/methodology/approach
Data come from the 2010 Italian wave of Continuing Vocational Training Survey (CVTS). Econometric estimates plug a proxy of labour hoarding into the probability function that firms provide either off-the-job or on-the-job training. A bivariate selectivity probit model is also used for robustness sake.
Findings
Results show that labour hoarding should not be considered as an enhancer of training investments when considered as a standing-alone practice in presence of severe and deep economic downturn. However, labour hoarding does not penalize off-the-job training investments if it occurs in an innovative firm or in a firm that perceive specific skill requirements in the workforce during the recessionary period.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the debate on the role of labour hoarding during severe recessions by showing that it cannot be functional to re-oriented firms’ investments aimed at upskilling their workforce. It is only compatible with new training courses that accompany the workforce across a technological transition. Policy implications deals with the suitability of job retention schemes or state-financed furlough during recessions, as occurred during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
... Research has advanced the above notion by showing how employers gain competitive advantage by utilising low-skilled employees that are much cheaper and more disposable than trained ones (Keep and Mayhew, 1998). Keep and Mayhew (2010) insist that structural variables, such as the nature of the labour market, determine the skill levels required, so any skill-upgrading will be meaningless without broader systemic changes in areas such as ownership structures, product market strategies, work organisation, job design, employee relations and others. Various studies in service sector employment confirm this trend with hotels, hospitals and retail being increasingly characterised by low-skilled and lowpaid employees, whose rights are significantly undermined by changes in wage setting systems and employment regulation (Appelbaum et al., 2003). ...
... No single incident since the Great Depression in the early 1903s, or the Second World War has affected the world's businesses and livelihoods so tragically. In fact, the literature is replete with instances and sites where employers have considerably extinguished workplaces, or local labour markets particularly in vulnerable areas (Beynon et al., 2002;Keep & Mayhew, 2010). It seems apposite to state, given the narratives of the respondents that in their estimation, governments declaration, or rather imposition of shutdown, and restriction of movement, was harsh and cruel, as their livelihoods and interest seemed not to have informed government policy. ...
COVID-19 Pandemic has affected different categories of workers in diverse ways. The paper seeks to interrogate the livelihood challenges of those in precarious employment with a focus on migrant construction and transport workers in Awka during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. The paper explores the coping strategies adopted by these urban poor in the face of the severe shutdown and abrupt termination of their marginal means of livelihood by the State and National governments. The paper also sought to find out the forms of assistance, or palliatives, if any from governmental, non-governmental organizations, corporate bodies and individuals. The paper is an indepth study of select construction and transport workers who are not indigenes of Anambra State, using In-depth Interview Method and Focus Group Discussion. The study revealed, that trapped in precariousness, the daily paid workers in the construction and transport sub sectors of the informal economy faced double jeopardy, not only in terms of the starvation earnings that are irregular, and uncertain, but in its total stoppage, with no safety nets, nor savings to fall back on. It also provides insights into the nature of the relationship that these masons, bricklayers and transport operators have with their ad hoc employers and the State.
... as an alternative to transitions into paid jobs of lower quality in a world of labour 'flexibilization' (Keep and Mayhew, 2010;Crouch, 2012), or because workers are attracted by the experience and narrative of entrepreneurial opportunity (Audretsch et al., 2006;Thurik et al., 2008)? Self-employment is highly heterogeneous, encompassing activity across a wide range of sectors and occupations, sometimes concentrated in particular demographic groups, sometimes as part-time activity alongside other work. ...
The UK has experienced very significant growth in self-employment since the financial crisis. The self-employed are at higher risk of income volatility while facing lower levels of social insurance. Individual transitions into self-employment may be driven by a range of factors, both ‘pull’ and ‘push’. This paper proposes a re-evaluation of the evidence on whether private sector business organizations stimulate entrepreneurial transmission amongst their employees. In the UK context rising self-employment may reflect the consequences of flexibilization and falling job quality, rather than outright job loss. Previous research has focused mainly on the subjective notion of job satisfaction to identify the level of attachment the future self-employed have to their current employer. Quantitative analysis is undertaken using large scale British longitudinal survey data. The paper extends this work to show that organizational (dis)attachment is evidenced in a range of extrinsic indicators of job quality, providing explanatory information beyond intrinsic job satisfaction. Specifically, the paper shows that the impact of training on self-employment entry depends asymmetrically on the source of that training. Finally, the paper argues that reduced attachment provides an alternative explanation for any ‘entrepreneurial transmission’ effect, through which employees, particularly those in smaller organizations, are more likely to enter self-employment. However, anticipated improvement in the experience of work from choosing self-employment is seen to be somewhat illusory, speaking to growing concerns about the impact of the growth of the gig economy.
... Wolf 2011: 10-12). Indeed, at the time, skills seemed to have become the panacea to all British ills (Keep and Mayhew 2010), and reforms have given employers too large a role in educational and vocational training with too little accountability (Gleeson and Keep 2004: 37). The Labour government's UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) received praise from both employers and labor, and some manufacturing sectors successfully launched coordinated efforts for skills development through the program (Interviews with CBI and TUC, March 2015). ...
In the wake of the global financial crisis, systems of economic production and social protection may well be under siege. Countries are forging new growth strategies in the post-crisis, post-industrial economy. Alternative growth strategies include export-led growth, demand-led growth relying on public Keynesian fiscal policies, and demand-led growth relying on private Keynesian policies to foster easy credit and household debt. New growth strategies may well elicit shifts in the boundaries of the welfare state, and dominant producer groups are likely to be crucial agents in post-crisis welfare reform processes. Employers—often in conjunction with labor—may build coalitions to forge new social reform packages in support of national growth strategies. Therefore, it is necessary to understand employers’ changing preferences for social provision and participation in reform coalitions. The chapter suggests that the structure of industrial relations organizations shapes employers’ preferences and coalitions to promote new strategies for growth.
... The narrative of the "new careers", or careers in the new economy, tends to highlight the positive side for the individual-autonomy, freedom of choice, and self-fulfilment. However, the emphasis on "self-direction" in careers places the onus of "being employable" on the individual (Keep and Mayhew 2010), who is asked to undertake a never-ending process of life design and re-design. In today's society, unemployment is considered a personal weakness more than a collective responsibility, ignoring in this way the dynamics and the dynamism of the labour markets (Serrano Pascual 2001). ...
This chapter addresses the micro-level of graduate employability, the level of the students and graduates. The concept of self-perceived employability is defined. Perception depends on aspects that include more than formal education: in particular, sociological research has advanced understanding of how the labour market, as a construct of individuals, is perceived subjectively by those preparing for or seeking work. Also, the perception of one’s employability is conditioned by one’s awareness of the global and the local labour markets, and of the channels to access work, which vary according to the work sector or type of company.
... The narrative of the "new careers", or careers in the new economy, tends to highlight the positive side for the individual-autonomy, freedom of choice, and self-fulfilment. However, the emphasis on "self-direction" in careers places the onus of "being employable" on the individual (Keep and Mayhew 2010), who is asked to undertake a never-ending process of life design and re-design. In today's society, unemployment is considered a personal weakness more than a collective responsibility, ignoring in this way the dynamics and the dynamism of the labour markets (Serrano Pascual 2001). ...
This chapter discusses trends in pedagogies for employability. It reports on findings of research about the most effective methods for enhancing employability and then explores the relation between the place and pedagogical approaches, considering the value of place awareness for employability potential. Finally, it describes the main features of rural economies and seeks to identify elements there that can support the employability of graduates.
... The narrative of the "new careers", or careers in the new economy, tends to highlight the positive side for the individual-autonomy, freedom of choice, and self-fulfilment. However, the emphasis on "self-direction" in careers places the onus of "being employable" on the individual (Keep and Mayhew 2010), who is asked to undertake a never-ending process of life design and re-design. In today's society, unemployment is considered a personal weakness more than a collective responsibility, ignoring in this way the dynamics and the dynamism of the labour markets (Serrano Pascual 2001). ...
In response to many demands about their role within society, in the past few decades universities have reviewed and changed curricula and teaching methods, and created, improved, or diversified initiatives to link with reference territories. In this ongoing effort, universities need to address the issue of their own “new role” and identity within a continuously changing society. This chapter outlines the key themes of the “changing university” by focusing on the employability issue, looking at emerging employability models, and reporting on the current debate about the role of the university within the social system.
... The narrative of the "new careers", or careers in the new economy, tends to highlight the positive side for the individual-autonomy, freedom of choice, and self-fulfilment. However, the emphasis on "self-direction" in careers places the onus of "being employable" on the individual (Keep and Mayhew 2010), who is asked to undertake a never-ending process of life design and re-design. In today's society, unemployment is considered a personal weakness more than a collective responsibility, ignoring in this way the dynamics and the dynamism of the labour markets (Serrano Pascual 2001). ...
This chapter provides an overview of the key policies and strategies that are directly linked to regional development and universities. After a summary on how regional policies have changed over time, it outlines educational policies affecting higher education, then offers an overview of global goals, which are, or should be, the overarching framework for policy interventions at all levels. The chapter concludes with some considerations about the implications of graduate employability’s theme in regional economies and local markets.
... The narrative of the "new careers", or careers in the new economy, tends to highlight the positive side for the individual-autonomy, freedom of choice, and self-fulfilment. However, the emphasis on "self-direction" in careers places the onus of "being employable" on the individual (Keep and Mayhew 2010), who is asked to undertake a never-ending process of life design and re-design. In today's society, unemployment is considered a personal weakness more than a collective responsibility, ignoring in this way the dynamics and the dynamism of the labour markets (Serrano Pascual 2001). ...
The concept of employability ranges from the individual to the global dimensions, and encompasses several domains. This chapter outlines the key socio-economic transformations that have modified transition pathways between education and work, and describes the changing nature of jobs and careers. Following major changes in the nature of employment, the concept of employability has been accordingly re-formulated: in this context, the nature of jobs for university graduates has changed towards new professional roles and positions that are not yet fixed. The chapter introduces the main shift from employment to employability as a consequence of new policies implemented, in particular in Western countries, then analyses the concept of employability that has resulted from socio-economic changes, including the entrepreneurial components, and concludes with the analysis of “university graduate jobs” as conceived today.
... Ewart and Mayhew have compiled a list of no less than nine major issues that they believe can be tackled through the learning of skills. 9 The inventory goes from antisocial behavior and welfare dependency to innovation and productivity. A 2011 Cedefop report was entitled "Vocational Education and Training Is Good for You: The Social Benefits of VET for Individuals." ...
Vocational education and training (VET) is high on the European agenda. This article adds nuance to the policy ambition of “fixing” parents’ views on VET. It is based on extensive qualitative research in Romania, with over 250 young people. An unanticipated finding was the “absence” of parents from the young people’s accounts, along with a tendency by the teachers and employers to blame young people for having “unreasonable expectations.” This article explores the deeper structural reasons for the current state of “parental disengagement.” It links parents’ precarious working lives with young people’s sense of disillusionment and communist nostalgia.
... On the contrary, Folbre (1994) argues that children should be considered as public goods, with positive externalities for society: In short, children are an economic asset to the whole society, since they will become tomorrow's workforce and sustain the economic institutions we rely upon for our welfare state (health services, retirement, etc). In addition, children's education has been regarded as a means of promoting social cohesion and creating economic growth in a way that seems to ensure that everyone is a winner (Keep and Mayhew, 2010). 9 Arguments in favour of non-parents supporting parents in child rearing seem intuitively hard to deploy from liberal approaches. ...
The welfare state has been shown to be a powerful, effective mechanism in the fight against poverty and social exclusion. Yet, it retains a surprising bias towards the elderly, as identified in more than one strand of the social sciences literature. We construct the National Transfer Accounts (NTA) for Spain before and after the Great Recession to determine how this bias might have shifted during the crisis. Our results confirm that children have borne the brunt of the economic decline. The rise in unemployment and the fall in wages inevitably led to the impoverishment of families, deprived of adequate social policies to act as a counterbalance. In contrast, the elderly were by far better protected, thanks to the well-established public pension and health care systems. The question arises as to why high-income societies appear to be so averse to old-age poverty while they seemingly accept child poverty almost without flinching.
... The number of jobs at each skill level is determined by the interaction between demand and supply (McIntosh, 2013) and, as evidenced in this research, employment growth in the low skill occupations has occurred in spite of the substantial increase in educational attainment. Polarisation presents considerable implications in inequality and opportunities for labour market mobility, particularly for young people (Holmes and Mayhew, 2015;Peat, 2016;Keep and Mayhew, 2010). Not only are the number and share of entry level jobs reducing, the opportunity for low to mid-qualified individuals to enter the workforce is contracting and the chance of progression or the ability to move from low skill level jobs to higher skill level jobs is increasingly difficult (Goos and Manning, 2007;Holmes and Mayhew, 2010b;McIntosh, 2013;Peat, 2016). ...
Closely associated with rising non-standard forms of work, under-employment and a lack of opportunity for young and new labour market entrants, workforce polarisation is an increasingly pervasive feature of economically restructuring regions. Recent scholarship regarding the causes of workforce polarisation has diverged, particularly since the global financial crisis (GFC). While most explanations for job polarisation rest with technological advancements, growing interregional economic divergence within nations suggests that the extent of job polarisation is predetermined by historical socioeconomic and industry structures. Other perspectives include the rise of the services sector and changes to the social organisation of care. Efforts to understand and project changes to the occupational distribution need a localised, regional lens. This article presents the evidence and discusses the implications of heightened job polarisation for Tasmania, Australia, pre and post GFC. Marked within skill level and occupation group changes, including increased spare capacity within the workforce, present considerable challenges for policy-makers.
... Por ejemplo, la transformación de las demandas de las economías ha conducido cambios en las matrices productivas, llevando estructuras tradicionales de producción de "bienes o productos con escasa elaboración" hacia el funcionamiento de economías de valor agregado. Dado tal escenario, las organizaciones han posado su vista sobre sus trabajadores para encontrar y rentabilizar dichas fuentes de valor (Sparreboom & Tarvid, 2016;Hawley, 2014;Smith V. , 2010;Keep & Mayhew, 2010;Flecker & Meil, 2010). ...
Las transformaciones en la fuerza de trabajo y los procesos productivos a raíz de laglobalización y desarrollo tecnológico, han generado presiones sobre las unidadesde recursos humanos para atraer, retener y desarrollar el talento al interior de lasorganizaciones. Uno de los aportes de la psicología del trabajo ha sido proponer elajuste entre los valores individuales y la cultura de la organización como una variable relevante en dichas tareas. Este trabajo busca evaluar las propiedades psicométricas de la Encuesta deValores Laborales (EVAT 30). Este instrumento, basado en el modelo de valores universalesde Schwartz, permite evaluar y analizar los valores del trabajo de las personas. A travésde un chequeo progresivo de las propiedades del instrumento, que incluyó confiabilidad,escalamiento multidimensional, análisis factorial exploratorio y confirmatorio, en unamuestra de 2826 personas, se encontraron resultados favorables respecto de la utilidad ycalidad del instrumento.
... Temporary sponsored migration in particular has become an increasingly important source of skills supply, especially in liberal market economies including Australia (Oliver and Wright, 2016). This reflects a wider trend among employers in these economies to 'buy' skills through external labour markets, including via work visa programs, rather than 'build' them internally through formalised training and structured career pathways (Bosch and Charest, 2008;Keep and Mayhew, 2010;Krings et al., 2011). With employer-sponsored temporary migration schemes advocated as an efficient and reliable mechanism for matching labour supply to employers' immediate needs (Papademetriou and Sumption, 2011), recruiting trained workers, including on skilled visas, can be seen as a rational strategy for addressing skills demand. ...
This article analyses the function of temporary sponsored skilled migrants in Australian hospitality, an industry with acute difficulties attracting and retaining skilled workers. Drawing upon survey data, the findings indicate that rather than utilising temporary sponsored skilled migration to source hard skills, as assumed within the extant literature, employers’ recruitment practices are motivated by a desire to source soft skills and labour perceived as relatively controllable, productive and reliable. In explaining these findings, the article develops new insights regarding the dependence of temporary sponsored skilled migrants on their employer sponsors and the industry effects of hospitality. These factors make these workers a relatively more attractive source of labour and shape the nature of employer demand.
... However, their low acquisition undermines this and suggests that relatively little progress in workforce upskilling has been made since the 2000 Act. Policy, however effectively designed, may be compromised by poor implementation, which calls into question skills initiatives at the individual level as a mechanism to deliver improved performance (Keep & Mayhew, 2010). ...
In this article, we explore workforce policy and its potential to improve care quality in English long-term elder care. Using large, secondary sector datasets, we analyze relationships between care quality and the skill development practices prescribed by workforce policy, care quality, and a wider set of employment practices. We demonstrate that the latter is more likely to improve care quality than skill development alone. We further demonstrate that both skill development/care quality and employment practice/care quality relationships are stronger in the statutory than the independent sector. Our findings challenge the effectiveness of workforce policy in two ways. First, it may be too narrowly focused on skill development at the expense of wider employment practice. Second, it may not be effective in improving care quality when outsourcing care ostensibly to improve it leads, particularly in the independent sector, to cost-based commissioning that mitigates against robust employment practice.
... In a late industrial society, acquisition of human capital through skills development is regarded as a cornerstone of economic development, productivity growth, job quality, and social equity (Grugulis, Holmes and Mayhew, 2017;Keep and Mayhew, 2010;. Late industrial society is also described as a 'society of advanced industrialism', since it is based on human assetse.g. ...
The acquisition and maintenance of human capital are considered key drivers of productivity and economic growth. However, recent literature shows that in the case of Russia, this relationship is not obvious, which raises a question concerning the nature of human capital accumulation, despite the significant expansion of tertiary education in this country. The existing literature, much of it relying on a theory of market imperfections, tends to explain low incidences of training by the lack of employer incentives to invest in the human capital of their employees. This dissertation adds to this view confirming the negative role of ‘bad’ jobs and social origins in obstructing employees from skills development in BRIC-like countries. Skills training in Russia is constrained by stratifying occupational forces comprising jobs with low requirements to skills development, which conserves the working population in generic labour. This reveals the phenomenon of skills polarisation ‘at the bottom’ in a late-industrial country, thus, contributing to the growing critique of the knowledge society theory. For those few workers who occupy ‘good’ jobs, skills training is strongly linked to personal-specific traits, such as qualifications and computer and language skills; and this is common in both Russia and India. However, in contrast to Russia, India is still forming their knowledge society. This is confirmed by the statistically significant impact of socio-demographic origins (e.g. age, household size, marital status, and religion) on the incidence of training, which reveals a crucial role of ascription in human capital acquisition in contemporary India. The present thesis contributes to the growing literature on structural prerequisites for successful advancement and the contradictory development of the BRIC countries.
http://repository.essex.ac.uk/21789
Why did Denmark develop mass education for all in 1814, while Britain created a public-school system only in 1870 that primarily educated academic achievers? Cathie Jo Martin argues that fiction writers and their literary narratives inspired education campaigns throughout the nineteenth-century. Danish writers imagined mass schools as the foundation for a great society and economic growth. Their depictions fortified the mandate to educate all people and showed neglecting low-skill youth would waste societal resources and threaten the social fabric. Conversely, British authors pictured mass education as harming social stability, lower-class work, and national culture. Their stories of youths who overcame structural injustices with individual determination made it easier to blame students who failed to seize educational opportunities. Novel and compelling, Education for All? uses a multidisciplinary perspective to offer a unique gaze into historical policymaking. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.
In this chapter I explore the Reform of Vocational Education (RoVE) programme as a policy and system-level phenomenon. These reforms represent the most significant change in 30 years to vocational education and training (VET) in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). In basic structural terms, they involve the dismantling of two sectors, the creation of new national entities, and significant changes to the funding system. These changes are, however, intended by the government to create deeper changes in how VET is organised and offered.This chapter outlines the reforms, their background, and goals. The first section contextualises RoVE by an overview of how Aotearoa NZ’s VET system – and broader approach to skills policy – developed since the market reforms of the 1990s. The next section discusses the immediate factors that caused Minister Hipkins to begin a programme of reform. And the final two sections outline the initial proposals and the final decisions. Together, this provides background for the following chapter, which explores some of potential implications of the RoVE changes.KeywordsVocational educationNew ZealandEducation reformEducation policyReform of vocational education
This thesis examines the relationships between schools and universities regarding progression to higher education. It asks: what are the characteristics of school-university relationships in this sphere and how do they vary? It examines schools with different rates of progression to higher education, as defined by the Department for Education’s destinations data (Department for Education, 2019c) to frame a qualitative study. This thesis examines the relationships between schools and universities regarding progression to higher education. It asks: what are the characteristics of school-university relationships in this sphere and how do they vary? It examines schools with different rates of progression to higher education, as defined by the Department for Education’s destinations data (Department for Education, 2019c) to frame a qualitative study. This thesis makes several contributions to the academic literature. Empirically, the involvement of schools in progression to higher education is under-researched, with university-focused studies dominating the literature. Theoretically, the thesis draws upon partnership theory in order to understand the relationship between schools and universities, using policy sociology as an analytical lens. In doing so, it examines theory in a new space. Finally, this thesis focuses on an under-researched geographical area, the North East of England, in order to consider how university progression occurs in a particular physical area outside of London. This thesis may be of value to practitioners and policymakers, as well as contribute to the debate surrounding the access and participation agenda, and inequality discourses such as ‘levelling up’ and ‘closing the attainment gap’.
With successive changes to apprenticeship policy, shifting emphasis on the amount of involvement of employers in engaging and delivering apprenticeship, and an over-reliance on further education to fill the gaps in the midst of its own storm, this article explores the successful ingredients for employer engagement in apprenticeship and vocational formation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with employers and apprentices from five business in the automotive industry and their further education training providers. The findings suggested that a close collaboration and communication between the college, employer and the young person, based on high levels of trust underpinned three successful mechanisms for ensuring quality apprenticeships: supporting, safeguarding and achieving.
Transitions from education into work, or as part of career change and development, are increasingly central to policy debate and academic inquiry. However, the role that employers play in shaping transition is often overlooked. In this paper, we examine this issue through the experiences of a graduating cohort of ‘degree apprentices’. We present original analysis of new empirical data from what we believe to be the first substantive qualitative longitudinal research conducted with those experiencing this new vocational pathway in the English Apprenticeships system. Through analysis of repeat semi‐structured interviews with 22 degree apprenticeship graduates (44 interviews in total), we provide early empirical insights into experiences of this new pathway and add to existing theoretical conceptualisations of transition within the educational literature and the employer's role within it. We show that the degree apprentice to graduate transition can be broken down into three key stages: ‘getting in’, ‘getting on’ and ‘going further’, and that employers—at both strategic and relational levels—shape experiences at each stage.
This article explores the underexamined idea of employer engagement as the institutional agency around the supply-demand relationship surrounding education and training (E&T) and VET in England (2012), arguing why VET needs are still likely to be unmet. A single case-study methodology and forty convergent interviews with high-skill employers and policy stakeholders revealed three types of highly constrained employer agencies, in England’s Northwest Bioregion, during a period when policy institutions faced restructuring and closure. The research is set against the backdrop of a previously failed and historically repeatedly revised VET institutional environment. In further addressing the lack of empirical evidence on the employer engagement problems faced by policy stakeholders during 2012, it reveals an individualised, voluntary, yet expected weak employer agency around supply-side initiatives. Also, a voluntary yet collective employer agency underpins the wider challenged efforts of policy stakeholders in engaging employers around E&T/VET, while also evident is a collective progressive employer agency around high-skill VET linked to R&D production. Discussions highlight the influence of supply-/demand-side constraints for current VET, questioning what has really changed.
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the relationship between different organisational development programmes (360-degree feedback; Coaching; Job assignment; Employee assistance programmes; On-the-job training; Web-based career information; Continuous professional development; External education provision) and employees’ career development. The implications of the moderating effects of gender on the relationships between these eight organisational programmes and career development are assessed.
Design/methodology/approach
To examine hypothesised relationships on eight organisational programmes and career development, this paper computed moderated regression analyses using the PROCESS macro (3.5), for a two-way analysis of variance (Hayes, 2018). The data collected are based on a survey sample of employees (n = 322) working in Scotland.
Findings
Two main findings arose from this empirical study. First, there are significant direct relationships between seven out of the eight organisational development programmes and their influences on employees’ career development. Second, gender is a significant moderator for four of the programmes’ relationship with career development, namely, coaching, web-based career information, continuous professional development and external education provision. However, gender failed to moderate the four other programmes’ (i.e. 360-degree feedback, job assignment, employee assistance programmes and on-the-job training) relationship with career development.
Originality/value
This paper concludes that closer attention should be given to the organisational design of these development programmes and consideration of potential gender differences in employees’ perception of their importance for career development in their organisation. To date, the majority of research in the literature has concentrated on the impact of training on career development, so this study contributes to the body of knowledge on a set of organisational development programmes and their effect on career development moderated by gender.
While the employment of migrant workers in the care sector can be observed in many countries, significant differences are apparent. A rich body of literature has focused on either micro (individual experiences of migrant care workers) or macro (regime analysis) perspectives. Studies often implicitly link individual experiences to differences in the way national care, migration and employment regimes intersect. The complex relationship between national policies and people’s journeys, however, is rarely really explored. Utilizing an exemplary empirical case study, this contribution analyzes the possibilities of linking phenomenological data to national and transnational regime analysis. It asks whether and how the particular professional and migration journeys can be used to identify the specific macro and meso arrangements that foster people’s ways into the care labor market in another country.
In the UK and Scotland, considerable resources have been devoted to tackling the persistent issue of young people who are, or are at risk of becoming, not in education, employment or training (NEET), a pathologized status that incurs significant penalties for young people and the economy. Using critical discourse analysis, this paper analyses and evaluates policy rhetoric to explore how the NEET ‘problem’, agenda and population are constituted by the UK and Scottish governments. In doing so, numerous unifying and problematic NEET policy tropes are identified, challenging the popular notion of significant policy divergence between the punitive reputation of Westminster and the image of Scottish governance as more socially democratic. Moreover, this paper differs from traditional policy analysis by also evaluating policy from the perspective of young people, drawing on empirical data from a qualitative study of the school-to-work transitions of NEET and marginally employed young people in Scotland.
For more than a decade actors in Europe, North America and Australasia have been warning of crises with horticultural skills, highlighting shortages of specialists, educational programmes and traineeships. Related warnings predict worsening shortages of skilled workers essential for production of horticultural crops. Analysis of recent strategies from the UK finds these problems poorly defined and characterised, without articulating what horticultural skills comprise, tending to misconstrue problems and causes. This paper aims to characterise food growing knowledge systems and challenges they face. The result is a new definition of and conceptual framework for horticultural skills to enhance understanding of the sector's problems and formulation of solutions. The framework valorises knowledge of workers often portrayed as unskilled, and demonstrates how skills and labour challenges are wholly inter-linked. Knowledge flows are found to be affected by multiple impediments which contribute to a sense of crisis. Unresolved questions regarding this skills system present avenues for research to better understand the future prospects of food production skills, and demonstrate the value critical social science can bring to this topic.
Purpose
This research contributes to current debates on automation and the future of work, a much-hyped but under researched area, in emerging economies through a particular focus on India. It assesses the national strategy on Artificial Intelligence and explores the impact of automation on the Indian labour market, work and employment to inform policy. Methodology
The article critically assesses the National Strategy on AI, promulgated by NITI Aayog (a national policy think tank), supported by the government of India and top industry associations, through a sectoral analysis. The key dimensions of the national strategy are examined against scholarship on the political economy of work in India to better understand the possible impact of automation on work.
Findings
The study shows that technology is not free from the wider dynamics that surround the world of work. The adoption of new technologies is likely to occur in niches in the manufacturing and services sectors, while its impact on employment and the labour market more broadly, and in addressing societal inequalities will be limited. The national strategy, however, does not take into account the nature of capital accumulation and structural inequalities that stem from a large informal economy and surplus labour context with limited upskilling opportunities. This raises doubts about the effectiveness of the current policy.
Research Implications
The critical assessment of new technologies and work has two implications: first, it underscores the need for situated analyses of social and material relations of work in formulating and assessing strategies and policies; second, it highlights 1 the necessity of qualitative workplace studies that examine the relationship between technology and the future of work.
Social implications
The policy assessed in this study would have significant social and economic outcomes for labour, work and employment in India. The study highlights the limitations of the state policy in addressing key labour market dimensions and work and employment relations in its formulation and implementation.
Originality and Value
This study is the first to examine the impact of automation on work and employment in India. It provides a critical intervention in current debates on future of work from the point of view of an important emerging economy defined by labour surplus and a large informal economy.
Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) technology have spurred a re-examination of technology’s impacts on jobs and the economy. This article reviews several key contributions to the current jobs/AI debate, discusses their limitations and offers a modified approach, analysing two quantitative models in tandem. One uses robot stock data from the International Federation of Robotics as the primary indicator of robot use, whereas the other uses online job postings requiring robot-related skills. Together, the models suggest that since the Great Recession ended, robots have contributed positively to manufacturing employment in the USA at the metropolitan level.
This note describes some of the early policy developments in the UK and the way in which the framing and understanding of a novel economic problem evolved to include a focus on livelihoods combining social protection and business support orientations. It highlights various points including the rapid iterative nature of policy development based on consultation in the face of uncertainty, as well as a trade-off between risk-sharing with commercial banks to limit adverse selection and the rapid prevention of insolvencies. We consider some of the policy-making lessons to date and conclude with suggestions for issues that policy makers might consider to support workers in the near and medium term. JEL Classification: A1, D7, D8, J00, H, P1
This paper uses the work of Pierre Bourdieu to understand the lives of a set of young White working-class men living in a deprived urban locale in the north of England. All participants were classified as NEET (not in education, employment or training) throughout the research and had spent lengthy periods of time outside education and work before the study commenced. Although none took part in formal employment, many participants engaged in illicit activities, often for material gain, during the course of the fieldwork. The data presented is drawn from ethnographic fieldwork and deals with participants’ attitudes to education, work and social life more broadly. Whilst some findings are troubling, the paper challenges dominant discourses about the attitudes, values and aspirations of NEET young people, especially those from White working-class backgrounds.
Skills and innovation are often claimed to be the twin engines of economic growth but there is a surprisingly limited appreciation of how these core features combine and interact both at the firm level and at the interface between tertiary education and industry. Governments around the world, especially in high-income countries, have invested in training schemes and in higher education to improve ‘human resources in science and technology’, as well as to grow the pool of ‘knowledge workers’ equipped with skills of problem-solving and analytical thinking ready to contribute to expanding knowledge-intensive industries. There is thus an apparent consensus that skilled workers in both the public and private sectors are needed to create and diffuse the knowledge needed for successful innovation performance.This report looks at the evidence that appears to underpin this policy consensus.
This article provides a response to the other contributions in this special issue and explores the range and scale of the opportunities for policy learning across the four UK nations. It addresses the importance of locating FE and skills policy within wider national policy contexts, national choices between markets and systems and the wider implications of these choices, and the vexed role of employers. Behind these lie three over-arching questions that are then interrogated – have we arrived at a moment when we can conceive of the UK as a policy learning laboratory, is this laboratory open for expansive policy learning, and who might be working in it?
This study focus is on career boundaries to graduate employability in a crisis economy. The underlying theoretical framework focus on career boundary theory and perceived employability. The empirical findings are based on a small-scale qualitative study that includes five focus group interviews conducted with Portuguese graduates of both genders in the academic fields of Business and Management. The analysis reveals that graduate employability is constrained by four types of career boundaries: (1) Organizational and work-related boundaries; (2) Contextual and labour-market boundaries; (3) Personal-related boundaries; and (4) Cognitive-cultural boundaries. This article contributes to the literature by highlighting the diversified nature of the career boundaries that graduates encounter in both external and internal labour markets. At the policy level, the findings underline that the issue of graduate employability requires a concerted effort among governmental entities and Higher Education policy-makers, as well as employers, and cannot be the sole responsibility of the individual.
This chapter examines the changing nature and meanings of manual work, with an emphasis on two poles: craftsmanship and precarious work, which are used as ‘ideal types’. The first part defines craftsmanship as ‘an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake’ (Sennett, The craftsman. Yale University Press, New Haven, 2008). It links craftsmanship with a sense of vocation, described as a practice that incorporates a personal dimension (the ‘calling’), and a social, public facet (Hansen, Educ Theory 44:259–275, 1994; Billett, Vocational education. Purposes, traditions and prospects. Springer, Dordrecht, 2011). The second part looks at several transformations in the world of work (notably de-skilling) that threaten the notion of craftsmanship as vocation and, implicitly, people’s sense of identity, pride and sociality.
Bildung gehört zu den drängenden sozialen Fragen des 21. Jahrhunderts. Folgerichtig hat die soziologische Bildungsforschung in den letzten beiden Jahrzehnten einen enormen Aufschwung erfahren. Derzeit gehört sie zu einem der innovativsten Bereiche in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Theorie- und Modellbildung, Methodenentwicklung, Datenerhebung und bei den empirischen Erkenntnissen. Gleichwohl gibt es zahlreiche Leerstellen und Verengungen der soziologischen Bildungsforschung. Die Beiträge des Bandes geben daher nicht nur einen Überblick über die aktuelle soziologische Bildungsforschung, sondern widmen sich auch bislang vernachlässigten Themen, Debatten und theoretischen Ansätzen. Zahlreiche Beiträge weisen methodische Innovationen auf, wie z. B. einen Methodenmix aus qualitativen und quantitativen Analyseteilen, Inter- und Intragruppenvergleichen sowie Analysen mit bisher wenig beachteten Datensätzen in der Bildungsforschung.
Der Band umfasst ein breites Themenspektrum, das von der Grundschule bis zur Ausbildung und Hochschule in Deutschland und im internationalen Vergleich reicht. Er beinhaltet neuere Studien zur sozialen Herkunft wie auch zu Behinderung und Intersektionalität oder zu Bildungsmodellen im Zeitalter von Bologna und Kopenhagen. Unter den Autorinnen und Autoren finden sich neben renommierten Forscherinnen und Forschern auch zahlreiche Nachwuchswissenschaftlerinnen und ‑wissenschaftler.
This article is based on the Keynote Address to ECER, Lisbon, Portugal, 11-14 September 2002. The opportunity to make a better life is enshrined in democratic societies. In recent decades the growth in personal freedom and the rhetoric of the knowledge economy have led many to believe that we have more opportunities than ever before. We are told that the trade-off between efficiency and justice no longer holds in a global knowledge-driven economy, as the opportunity to exploit the talents of all, at least in the developed world, is now a realistic goal. This article will challenge such accounts of education, opportunity and global labour market. It points to enduring social inequalities in the competition for a livelihood and an intensification of ‘positional’ conflict. Our ‘opportunities' are becoming harder to cash in. The opportunity-cost is increasing because the pay-off depends on getting ahead in the competition for tough-entry jobs. Middle-class families in competitive hot spots are adopting increasingly desperate measures to win a positional advantage. But the opportunity trap is not only a problem for individuals or families. It exposes an inherent tension, if not contradiction, in the relationship between capitalism and democracy. It will be argued that the legitimate foundations of opportunity, based on education, jobs and rewards, are unravelling. Within education, this not only represents further symptoms of the ‘diploma disease’ but a social revolution that fundamentally challenges our understanding of education, efficiency and social justice.
The autumn 1988 issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy considered the UK's deficiencies in vocational education and training (VET). It was there that Finegold and Soskice first popularized the notion of the 'low skills/low quality' equilibrium. This Assessment introduces a range of articles which discuss developments in the decade that has passed since then. It argues that, despite massive policy initiatives, there has been only limited improvement in the UK's relative VET performance. Considerable progress has been made in analysis of market failures affecting the supply of skills, and in analysis of the possible causes and consequences of low employer demand for skills (systems failure). The recent Competitiveness White Paper reflects this improved understanding. However, there is still an imperfect appreciation of the nature of skills and of their contribution to the development of a more competitive, higher value-added economy. The article ends by suggesting how progress might be made on this front.
The education policies of governments have become increasingly directed towards economic ends, including the development of workforce skills. UK governments have been particularly committed to such policies and have adopted some quite distinctive tools, relying heavily on targets and emphasizing certificated rather than uncertificated learning. The underlying assumptions of such policies have been subject to sustained critique, but there has been relatively little empirical evidence available regarding their impact on individual adult learners. This paper uses a large national longitudinal data set to examine whether governments in the UK have met their objectives and how far these are consistent with the learners’ own. It provides, in particular, detailed information on the factors affecting acquisition of additional formal qualifications in adult life and whether there has been any shift in favour of the less skilled in recent years. It also examines the extent to which qualifications, and especially those prioritized by government, lead to increased earnings for their holders. The results strongly suggest that current policies are failing even on their own terms. In conclusion the paper provides some possible explanations for the findings and sets them in an international context.
This article surveys the potential impact of skill on productivity. It opens with a review of the utility of productivity as a measure of systemic economic performance, and then goes on to explore the oft-assumed close and strong relationship between skills and productivity. The importance of other factors and types of investment is stressed. These complementary elements may be at least as important as skill in boosting performance, and their absence may negate the impact of public investment in education and training. The ability of economic development policy, particularly as it relates to the Regional Development Agencies, to address skills and economic development is assessed, and questions are raised about what type and level of skill might have the largest impact on economic performance. In conclusion, we discuss the demands that new policy approaches are making upon the machinery and personnel of government. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.
The United Kingdom's labor market policies place it in a kind of institutional middle ground between the United States and continental Europe. Low pay grew sharply between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s, in large part due to the decline of unions and collective bargaining and the removal of protections for the low paid. The changes instituted by Tony Blair's New Labour government since 1997, including the introduction of the National Minimum Wage, halted the growth in low pay but have not reversed it. Low-Wage Work in the United Kingdom explains why the current level of low-paying work remains one of the highest in Europe. The authors argue that the failure to deal with low pay reflects a policy approach which stressed reducing poverty, but also centers on the importance of moving people off benefits and into work, even at low wages. The U.K. government has introduced a version of the U.S. welfare to work policies and continues to stress the importance of a highly flexible and competitive labor market. A central policy theme has been that education and training can empower people to both enter work and to move into better paying jobs. The case study research reveals the endemic nature of low paid work and the difficulties workers face in escaping from the bottom end of the jobs ladder. However, compared to the United States, low paid workers in the United Kingdom do benefit from in-work social security benefits, targeted predominately at those with children, and entitlements to non-pay benefits such as annual leave, maternity and sick pay, and crucially, access to state-funded health care. Low-Wage Work in the United Kingdom skillfully illustrates the way that the interactions between government policies, labor market institutions, and the economy have ensured that low pay remains a persistent problem within the United Kingdom.
This article reviews current English Vocational Education and Training (VET) policy. It argues that policy now stands at a decisive juncture, torn between two competing models. The first is traditional, and relies on yet more institutional change and increases in the supply of skills. Its embodiment is the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). The other model for policy comes from the Cabinet Office Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU)'s work on workforce development. This posits a need to tackle issues about demand for and use of skills in the workplace, and for marrying skills policies with wider business support and development. The article reviews the prospects for the LSC and identifies a number of weaknesses inherent in its supply-led approach. The article argues that, for a variety of reasons, the PIU's broader analysis may be likely to gain greater influence, but that it will also need to overcome significant barriers embedded in the current ideological and institutional fabric in England.
This article examines the causes and consequences of the increasing control of English education and training (E&T) by central government and its agencies. It poses three questions—what are the reasons for national government becoming the dominant player in this area of policy, why is the English system so statist in design and operation, and what factors underlie the continuity of this trend in policy over the last quarter of a century? In seeking answers, it argues that policy has become caught up in a cycle of intervention that is heavily path-dependent, and that this is the result of the interplay between a set of paradoxes about what the state believes it can and cannot do within the labour and product market. E&T has come to act as a substitute for regulation in both these areas. The article concludes that unless and until the state ‘lets go' of some element of control it will be trapped into having to do more and more, as other actors take a passive role and fail to develop their capacity to act as strong partners in the E&T system.
Increasing dispersion in the returns to graduate education is found, using quantile regression. This trend is related to rising overqualification. We distinguish between and validate measures of Real and Formal overqualification, according to whether it is or is not accompanied by underutilisation of skill; and using a unique data series in Britain we report the trend in overqualification types between 1992 and 2006. The distinction between types is relevant because employees in the Real Overqualification group experience greater, and more sharply rising, pay penalties than those in the Formal Overqualification group. Real Overqualification, but not Formal Overqualification, is associated with job dissatisfaction. Formal Overqualification has been increasing over time, and in 2006 characterised nearly one in four graduates. Real Overqualification has been steady or rising only slowly; in 2006 it affected less than one in ten graduates. Conditioning on graduates being matched to graduate jobs, it is found that there is no significant increase in the dispersion of returns to graduate education. The normative implication drawn is that the state should provide regular public information on the distribution of the returns to graduate education.
In Britain in recent years social mobility has become a topic of central political concern, primarily as a result of the effort made by New Labour to make equality of opportunity rather than equality of condition a focus of policy. Questions of the level, pattern and trend of mobility thus bear directly on the relevance of New Labour's policy analysis, and in turn are likely be crucial to the evaluation of its performance in government. However, politically motivated discussion of social mobility often reveals an inadequate grasp of both empirical and analytical issues.
We provide new evidence relevant to the assessment of social mobility – in particular, intergenerational class mobility – in contemporary Britain through cross-cohort analyses based on the NCDS and BCS datasets which we can relate to earlier cross-sectional analyses based on the GHS. We find that, contrary to what seems now widely supposed, there is no evidence that absolute mobility rates are falling; but, for men, the balance of upward and downward movement is becoming less favourable. This is overwhelmingly the result of class structural change. Relative mobility rates, for both men and women, remain essentially constant, although there are possible indications of a declining propensity for long-range mobility.
We conclude that under present day structural conditions there can be no return to the generally rising rates of upward mobility that characterized the middle decades of the twentieth century – unless this is achieved through changing relative rates in the direction of greater equality or, that is, of greater fluidity. But this would then produce rising rates of downward mobility to exactly the same extent – an outcome apparently unappreciated by, and unlikely to be congenial to, politicians preoccupied with winning the electoral ‘middle ground’.
Government Policy and the Human Capital Tradition, SKOPE (mimeo)
- K Mayhew
- R Fernandez
Mayhew, K. and Fernandez, R. (2008) Government Policy and the Human Capital
Tradition, SKOPE (mimeo).
Schools and Families/Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills
- Department For Children
Department for Children, Schools and Families/Department for Innovation,
Universities and Skills (DCSF/DIUS) (2007) 2008–9 Grant Letter to the LSC,
16 November 2007. London: DCSF.
Our Nation's Future: The Role of Work
- A Blair
Blair, A. (2007) 'Our Nation's Future: The Role of Work', URL (consulted 15 May
2007): www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page11405.asp
The Elephant in the Corner: Skills Policy and the Displacement of Industrial Relations
- E Keep
- C Lloyd
- J Payne
Keep, E., Lloyd, C. and Payne, J. (2010) 'The Elephant in the Corner: Skills Policy
and the Displacement of Industrial Relations', in T. Colling and
M. Terry (eds), Industrial Relations in Theory and Practice, 3rd Edition,
pp.398-421. Oxford: Blackwell.
Skills in the UK: The Long Term Challenge
Leitch Review of Skills (2005) Skills in the UK: The Long Term Challenge. London:
HM Treasury.
Towards a High-Skilled, Low-Wages Workforce?
- P Brown
- D Ashton
- H Lauder
- G Tholen
Brown, P., Ashton, D., Lauder, H. and Tholen, G. (2008) Towards a High-Skilled,
Low-Wages Workforce? [SKOPE Monograph] Cardiff: Cardiff University.
Raising the Bar, Closing the Gap, Opportunity Agenda
Conservative Party (2008) Raising the Bar, Closing the Gap, Opportunity Agenda,
Policy Green Paper 1. London: Conservative Party.
Developing Workforce Skills: Piloting a New Approach
- Hm Treasury
HM Treasury (2002) Developing Workforce Skills: Piloting a New Approach.
London: HM Treasury.
How Competitive Strategy Matters? Understanding the Drivers of Training, Learning and Performance at Firm Level
- D Ashton
- J Sung
Ashton, D. and Sung, J. (2006) How Competitive Strategy Matters? Understanding
the Drivers of Training, Learning and Performance at Firm Level, SKOPE
Research Paper 66. Coventry: University of Warwick.
Schools and Families/Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills Raising Expectations: Enabling the System to Deliver, Cm 7348
- Department For Children
Department for Children, Schools and Families/Department for Innovation,
Universities and Skills (DCSF/DIUS) (2008) Raising Expectations: Enabling the
System to Deliver, Cm 7348. London: HMSO.
The Anglo-American Approach to Vocationalism: The Economic Roles of Education in England
- W N Grubb
Grubb, W.N. (2004) The Anglo-American Approach to Vocationalism: The
Economic Roles of Education in England, SKOPE Research Paper 52.
Coventry: University of Warwick.
You Need Greater Equity to Achieve More Social Mobility', The Guardian
- A Giddens
Giddens, A. (2007) 'You Need Greater Equity to Achieve More Social Mobility',
The Guardian, 24 May 2007: 32.
A Comparison of the Welsh Workforce Development Programme and England's Train to Gain
- E Keep
Keep, E. (2008) A Comparison of the Welsh Workforce Development Programme
and England's Train to Gain, SKOPE Research Paper 79. Cardiff: Cardiff
University.
Prosperity for All in the Global Economy: World Class Skills
Leitch Review of Skills (2006) Prosperity for All in the Global Economy: World
Class Skills. London: HM Treasury.
Market Failure in Skills, SSDA Catalyst Series, Issue 1. Wathupon-Dearne: Sector Skills Development Agency
- E Keep
Keep, E. (2006b) Market Failure in Skills, SSDA Catalyst Series, Issue 1. Wathupon-Dearne: Sector Skills Development Agency.
Skills in Context. Sydney: NSW Department of Education and Training
- C Alcorso
- K Windsor
Alcorso, C. and Windsor, K. (2008) Skills in Context. Sydney: NSW Department of
Education and Training.
- J Buchanan
- S Yu
- S Marginson
- L Wheelahan
Buchanan, J., Yu, S., Marginson, S. and Wheelahan, L. (2009) Education, Work and
Economic Renewal. Southbank: Australian Education Union.
His main interests are the links between skills and economic performance, lifelong learning, initial education and training, and how skills policy is constructed. He has acted as an advisor to Scottish and UK parliamentary committees, the Cabinet Office, DfES, DTI, and the National Skills Task Force
- Ewart Ewart Keep
Ewart Keep
Ewart Keep is Deputy Director of SKOPE, and has worked as a full-time researcher
on skills for 24 years. His main interests are the links between skills and economic performance, lifelong learning, initial education and training, and how skills policy is constructed. He has acted as an advisor to Scottish and UK parliamentary committees, the
Cabinet Office, DfES, DTI, and the National Skills Task Force. He is a member of the
Scottish Funding Council's Skills Committee, and the UK Commission for Employment
and Skills' Expert Panel.