Becoming a graduate: the benefits of the Graduate Identity Approach

Leonard HolmesRoehampton University

Right action, wrong reason? Example 1

• London in mid-C19: cholera epidemics• 1858: ‘The Great Stink’• Cause: miasma, foul air• Action:Bazalgette’s sewersBUT• Alternative explanation: germ theory

Right action, wrong reason? Example 2

• Why do certain materials burn?• Explanation: they contain phlogiston, which is released

in combustion• 1774: Joseph Priestly heated mercuric oxide to obtain

‘dephlogisticated air’BUT• 1777: Lavoisier argued that combustion is a process

whereby combustible material combined with oxygen • Phlogiston theory now discredited• [Rocket science]

Example 3?Graduate employability

• Plenty of examples of practices intended to enhance employment prospects of individuals in post-graduation lives

• Some probably work well, some less well• Some probably work well/ less well, whilst being well-

resourcedBUT• Why & how do those that do work, work, and those

that don’t, don’t? • Assumption: better explanation leads to better

practices

Explaining employability: Competing perspectives

Employability is:

• Possession (skills and attributes)– what you have

• Positional (cultural capital, habitus)– who you are by virtue of birth and upbringing

• Processual – what you do interaction with ‘gatekeepers’ to employment

(Holmes, forthcoming)

Possessive approach

• Skills and attributes are acquired, possessed, used (‘transferable’)

• Possessive-instrumentalismBUT • flawed– Conceptually– Theoretically– Evidentially– Practically

Processual perspective: Graduate Identity Approach

• Student/ graduate presents self to gatekeepers as the ’kind of person’ whom they would wish to employ

• How they present self affects perceptions of ‘gatekeepers’ (recruiters)

• ‘Gatekeepers’ base decision on ascriptions: this is [or is not] the kind of person we want

Identity

• Interactionist, processual view• ‘Identifying’, ‘identification’• Relational, constructionist approach rather

than essentialist, entitative• We don’t ‘have’ an identity, but self-identify

and are identified by others as a ‘kind of person’

• Situated, multiple, fragile

Claim-affirmation model

Warranting claims and ascriptions

• Individuals express claim on identity in particular ways (verbal and non-verbal)

• These act as warrants for claim• Others (gatekeepers) warrant decisions (hire/

not-hire) in terms of ascriptions of identity• Outcomes depend on accordance of

warranting• Language of skills and attributes acts as ‘first-

rate warrant’

Rehearsal

• of aspired-to identity • of practices appropriate to identity• of warranting through• in-class activity• assessment activity• cross-programme, ‘integrating’, activity• experience (placement, internship, ‘extra-

curricular’, etc)

Using Graduate Identity approach:In what ways can students in your institution (or on your

module, unit, course, programme) rehearse• identity• practices• warrantingin relation to future employment?

In what ways can your institution provide guidance etc for graduates who experience difficulties in gaining appropriate employment?