Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Education and Work on 26/10/2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13639080.2016.1239348
Accepted author manuscript, 286 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Relational transitions, emotional decisions
T2 - new directions for theorising graduate employment
AU - Finn, Kirsty
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Education and Work on 26/10/2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13639080.2016.1239348
PY - 2017/4/19
Y1 - 2017/4/19
N2 - University-to-work transitions tend to be discussed in terms of skills, outcomes and the readiness of graduates for an increasingly insecure and flexible labour market. Such a focus on individual attributes and orientations depicts graduates as lonely and ostensibly rational figures; disembedded from their intimate networks and devoid of emotional context as they navigate their post-university pathways. This article aims to steer the debate in a new, fundamentally relational direction by exploring the role and significance of intimate kin and non-kin relationships for the ways graduates experience and make choices about employment and careers.Drawing on qualitative longitudinal research with women who graduated from universities in the UK between 2009 and 2011, the discussion highlights the value of an explicitly relational perspective for revealing the personal and emotional dimensions of the transition out of higher education. The article concludes that the process of securing work and committing to a career is embedded within the broader experiences of personal life, emotion and (im)mobility and, thus, raises important questions about the role and responsibility of universities at a time when employability metrics are read as a marker of teaching quality.
AB - University-to-work transitions tend to be discussed in terms of skills, outcomes and the readiness of graduates for an increasingly insecure and flexible labour market. Such a focus on individual attributes and orientations depicts graduates as lonely and ostensibly rational figures; disembedded from their intimate networks and devoid of emotional context as they navigate their post-university pathways. This article aims to steer the debate in a new, fundamentally relational direction by exploring the role and significance of intimate kin and non-kin relationships for the ways graduates experience and make choices about employment and careers.Drawing on qualitative longitudinal research with women who graduated from universities in the UK between 2009 and 2011, the discussion highlights the value of an explicitly relational perspective for revealing the personal and emotional dimensions of the transition out of higher education. The article concludes that the process of securing work and committing to a career is embedded within the broader experiences of personal life, emotion and (im)mobility and, thus, raises important questions about the role and responsibility of universities at a time when employability metrics are read as a marker of teaching quality.
KW - Emotion
KW - graduate employment
KW - personal relationships
KW - reflexivity
KW - relationality
U2 - 10.1080/13639080.2016.1239348
DO - 10.1080/13639080.2016.1239348
M3 - Journal article
VL - 30
SP - 419
EP - 431
JO - Journal of Education and Work
JF - Journal of Education and Work
SN - 1363-9080
IS - 4
ER -