Resisting the 'employability' doctrine through anarchist pedagogies and prefiguration
File version
Version of Record (VoR)
Author(s)
Grant-Smith, Deanna
Griffith University Author(s)
Primary Supervisor
Other Supervisors
Editor(s)
Date
Size
File type(s)
Location
License
Abstract
Increasingly those working in higher education are tasked with targeting their teaching approaches and techniques to improve the 'employability' of graduates. However, this approach is promoted with little recognition that enhanced employability does not guarantee employment outcomes or the tensions inherent in pursuing this agenda. The increasing focus on employability seems to suggest that the primary role of contemporary higher education is to produce skilled (yet increasingly un/der paid and precarious) workers. Although graduate employment is undoubtedly an important outcome, we do not consider it our primary purpose or the yardstick by which the quality of education (and our teaching) should be measured. To do so would be to cede ground on what the role of higher education is and can be, potentially impacting negatively on both students and those who teach them. Drawing on anarchist pedagogies and prefigurative politics and our own experiences as educators and researchers in vocationally-oriented disciplines, we consider the possibilities for resistance within the academy to the dominant discourses of employability. We highlight the tensions inherent in the neoliberal pursuit of employability, characterising them as fissures through which possibilities for resistance and transformative praxes may take hold and indeed thrive.
Journal Title
Australian Universities Review
Conference Title
Book Title
Edition
Volume
59
Issue
2
Thesis Type
Degree Program
School
Publisher link
DOI
Patent number
Funder(s)
Grant identifier(s)
Rights Statement
Rights Statement
© The Author(s) 2017. The attached file is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. For information about this journal please refer to the publisher’s website or contact the author(s).
Item Access Status
Note
Access the data
Related item(s)
Subject
Human resources and industrial relations
Other built environment and design not elsewhere classified
Education systems
Curriculum and pedagogy not elsewhere classified
Specialist studies in education
Human geography not elsewhere classified