Employabili - Society for Research into Higher Education

Developing Bernsteinian notion of

Employability- Andrea Abbas

Thoughts based on 2 projects

Pedagogic Quality and Inequality in University First Degrees:

Resources and outputs (http://www.pedagogicequality.ac.uk/) And http://www.bath.ac.uk/education/staff/andrea-abbas/

With

Monica McLean (University of Nottingham) Paul Ashwin (University of Lancaster)

ESRC Funded.

Lincoln’s work on the Postgraduate Experience Project

Details overall project here: http://www.postgradexperience.org/

Work at Lincoln with Rachel Spacey.

HEFCE Funded.

Two areas of conceptual framing adapted from Bernstein

a) Specialised Disciplinary Identity (Adapted from Bernstein, 2000*)

i) Disciplinary (retrospective identity) ii) Social (prospective identity)

iii) Performative (instrumental – skills and dispositions)

b) Pedagogic Rights (directly taken from Bernstein (2000)

i) Individual Enhancement (Confidence – Specialised Disciplinary Identity)

ii) Social Inclusion (Communitas – a position – relates to employment but can be social)

iii) Political Participation

*McLean, M., Abbas, A. and Ashwin, P., 2015. 

‘Not everybody walks around and thinks “That’s an example of othering or stigmatisation”’:Identity

, pedagogic rights and the acquisition of undergraduate sociology-based social science knowledge. Theory and Research in Education, 13 (2), pp. 180-197.

In terms of employment require access to

“discursive gap”

The gap is accessed when knowledge provides access to the gap between esoteric meaning and the material

base (reproductive knowledge).

Provides access to ‘unthinkable’, ‘alternative social order’

To access political participation:

“It is not only about discourse, about discussion, it is about practice, a practice that must have outcomes – to

participate in procedures whereby order is constructed, maintained and changed’ (Bernstein, 2000, p. xxi)

If employability is to facilitate social mobility arguably

requires diverse graduates being influential in this way.

Bernsteinian notion of employability proposed

• Centralises the role of knowledge Bernstein (2000, p.30- 31)

• Universities – the distribution of knowledges (more or less powerful depending on hierarchical position – pedagogic device)

• Thinkable and unthinkable (connects the mundane and the esoteric)

• “Potential discursive gap” – new possibilities

“Any distribution will regulate the potential of this gap in its own interest, because the gap itself has the possibility of an alternative order, an alternative society, and an alternative power relation.”

(ibid, p.30)

Leads to debates about:

a) The role of knowledge

b) What employability means in relation to the knowledges learned at university

c) The role of the university in terms of political

participation which in relationship to putting knowledge into practice to change the social order.

Examples Specialised Disciplinary Identity for 1

generation students: in social sciences

Sociology: Body and Society... and it’s about how much your body is... it’s just that whole because I look like a girl, because I am a girl but I think that I’m a girl... it’s just that whole, like, what are you, where it’s like in psychology it teaches you that oh when you’re young because you’re conditioned to

become a girl... and then sociology would .. it’s like ok because you’re a girl everybody treats you a certain way [Ah]... it’s just that you’re seen in a

particular way... you can see it in everyday examples but sociology really, really like, just completely puts it into context (Leena, Diversity, Year 3).

I just used to kind of listen and think, but now it’s like I understand more because I’m better at listening... to it. Like, when the lecturer is speaking and stuff, I’m listening to the basic point that they’re making … I’m kind of, ok, I’m like summarising that point... and then I’m writing that down. I’m listening more and because I’m listening more I find that I can understand better (Leena, Diversity)

Also in 1

generation STEM students

So if someone tells me something now I rarely believe them unless I go away and look it up. [I laughs][Yeah]

If something is written on paper I’ll probably be asking questions for the next five days why that's, why that's the case or [Yeah] even if something is actually

published and they're saying right we got these results I’m just going to say how did you get these results? And that doesn't really apply to other scenario's so. [Yeah]

So yeah my undergraduate helped me in that sense.

(Edward, MSc Biotechnology, reflecting on UG)

Also STEM MSc programmes try to give

financially poorer students access to social positions

e.g. MSc. Sports Science trying to find bursaries to enable poorer student to participate in clinics rather than work in irrelevant employment to fund.

e.g. MSc Biotechnology staff supporting with access to employment networks

Reframes Problems

• Universities can be entrusted with and held to account for providing access to the specisalised disciplinary identity

• This involves providing access to contexts where

disciplinary knowledge can be put into practice (e.g. law clinics, physiotherapy clinics etc..)

• However, political participation which relates to Social Mobility cannot easily be tackled by individual

programmes and for universities involves long-term strategizing

• Is geographically and economically and socially unequal

And there is the complexity of understanding what students bring and what universities

(can) add…

ED SELECTIVE

YOUNG- BLACK WORKING–CLASS

ALWAYS CLEVER DROPPED OUT YR2 LABOUR COUNSELLOR

DISSATISFIED WITH PEDAGOGIES AND CURRICULA

IMPRESSIVE APPOINTMENTS- UNIONS 3 YEARS LATER FINISHED DEGREE – A

FIRST IN POST-92

HAD SECURED A GOOD JOB IN AN INTERNATIONAL CHARITY

LUCIA DIVERSITY

MATURE (EARLY 40’S)

ETHNICITY (PAKISTANI\FRENCH\ENGLISH) WORKING CLASS

TRAUMATIC LIFE-EVENTS (PRIOR TO AND DURING UNIVERSITY)

DYSLEXIA

PASSION FOR SUPPORTING WOMEN AND CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES

THROUGHOUT (VOLUNTARY WORK) WELL-SUPPORTED BY TUTORS WHO WERE

MATURE STUDENTS LIKE HER PART-TIME YR 2 AS FELL BEHIND DUE TO

NEEDING TO SUPPORT CHILD WITH DISABILITY

3 YEARS LATER HAD AN IMPRESSIVE INTERNSHIP WITH A NATIONAL

GOVERNMENT AGENCY