Agile bodies: a new imperative in neoliberal governance

Gillies, Donald

doi:10.1080/02680939.2010.508177

Cited by 102 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Hardly surprising, therefore, graduate employability is seen as a significant issue for institutions of further and higher education. The majority take steps to publicly present an institutional approach to addressing student employability concerns by embedding employability skills within the curriculum and offering students curriculum vitae enhancement opportunities (Leitch, 2006, 1;Yorke, 2006,8;Gillies, 2011). They also gather information on the student's first employment destination following graduation, information that is subsequently used to promote the university and its programmes to future students.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nowadays, according to Clarke and Patrickson (2008, 121-2), much of the career literature continues to promote the idea of employability as a basis for career and employment success. Within the international discourse about employment and employability, the expectation that educational establishments will equip students with the skills and knowledge required for employability and career building is promoted (BIS 2009;Gillies 2011;Holden and Hamblett 2007, 517;OECD 2002, 72). Graduation from post-compulsory education is considered to be a starting point in relation to career development (Brown, Hesketh and Williams 2004, 2), and the individual is largely made responsible for their continued professional development throughout the length of their careers (NCTL 2013;BASW 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Graduates’ experiences and perceptions of career enactment: identity, transitions, personal agency and emergent career direction

Leach

2015

Research in Post-Compulsory Education

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This paper contributes to the contested body of work about graduate employability, employment and sustained career building. Educational establishments across the world are expected to equip students with the knowledge and skills for employability, sustainable employment and career development. The protean career concept and the boundary-less career model influence much of today's career literature. To remain marketable, it is said protean careerists are able to repackage their knowledge, skills and abilities to fit the changing work environment. They are said to be 'career actors' who value their freedom, are flexible, believe in continuous learning and seek intrinsic rewards through their work. Hardly surprising, therefore, commentary on protean careers tends to emphasise the 'winners' in the employment marketplace. There are few critical studies that focus on the difficulties that others face when attempting to be 'career actors'. Drawing on the work of Martin Buber and Homi Bhabha in particular, the research for this paper is focused on the way graduates perceive and enact their careers, the evolution of their careers, and how building their careers involves crossing physical, cultural and psychological boundaries. The implications of the research findings for post-compulsory education are discussed in this paper.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Graduates’ experiences and perceptions of career enactment: identity, transitions, personal agency and emergent career direction

Leach

2015

Research in Post-Compulsory Education

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“…In particular, such discursive approaches have been helpful to explicate the repertoire of elements and positions brought to the fore by neoliberalism Ball & Olmedo, 2013). These include not only active, and increasingly agile (Gillies, 2011) subjects, who are incited to maximise themselves to make good amid fluctuating markets (Masschelein & Simons, 2005) and a retrenched state, but also the responsibilisation (the making responsible) of citizens for functions and activities previously undertaken by and guaranteed by the state. The obverse of these can be seen in the rise of diagnoses of anxiety, vulnerability and other forms of distress associated with financial pressures, precarity and insecurity, that can lead even to suicide (Barr et al, 2015;Ellis et al, 2013;Isin, 2004 ).…”

Section: A Foucauldian Discursive Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subjects of, or subject to, policy reform? A Foucauldian discourse analysis of regulation and resistance in UK narratives of educational impacts of welfare cuts: The case of the ‘bedroom tax’

Burman¹,

Greenstein

Bragg

et al. 2017

EPAA

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This paper draws on material generated from a qualitative study of educational impacts of a British welfare reform affecting housing rent subsidy, size and location commonly known as ‘the bedroom tax’ (Bragg et al., 2015), which was partly taken as a topic for study specifically because of its iconic status as a controversial and unpopular welfare ‘reform’ (or cut). The analysis draws on Foucauldian understandings of subjectification or subject-formation - as elaborated both from within and in relation to the social (Foucault, 1970; 1983; Ball, 1990; Olssen, 2006; Popkewitz & Brennan, 1998), read through new and newly available perspectives (Allen, 2015; Pêcheux, 2014). This approach is applied to discuss how those addressed by educational policy, and also as research participants, are both subject to prevailing political and practice-oriented discourses (of educational ‘problems’, and of the neoliberal frameworks by which poverty and welfare cuts are discussed), but also – at times – how they can become the subject of – in the sense of reformulating – these discourses in their accounts of everyday activities. After outlining our approach and the context for the study, we focus on four examples drawn from the narratives of the various stakeholders in the study – parents/carers, school staff and other community-based organisations as illustrations of how this discursive approach can provide rich readings of relevance to educational policy debates. From these we not only take further discussions of the production and regulation of subjectivities via social and educational policy practices, but also offer indicative glimpses of resistance to this as expressed by those who are its primary subjects, and where in one case such resistance brings our own research commitments under critical scrutiny. As such, the contribution of this article is both topic-related (concerning the educational impacts of policy) but, crucially, also conceptual and methodological, in motivating for a Foucauldian-influenced discursive approach that is sensitive to struggle and resistance.

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“…The theory positions actors in a particular way, understanding themselves and acting on themselves, and others, as 'human capital' . This is central to neoliberal gov-ernmentality and the notion of the self as enterprise [Foucault 2005;Rose 1999;Miller, Rose 2008;Gillies 2011] .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

State Education as High-Yield Investment: Human Capital Theory in European Policy Discourse

Gillies¹

2011

Journal of Pedagogy / Pedagogický Casopis

Self Cite

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Human Capital Theory has been an increasingly important phenomenon in economic thought over the last 50 years . The central role it affords to education has become even more marked in recent years as the concept of the 'knowledge economy' has become a global concern . In this paper, the prevalence of Human Capital Theory within European educational policy discourse is explored . The paper examines a selection of policy documents from a number of disparate European national contexts and considers the extent to which the ideas of Human Capital Theory can be seen to be influential. In the second part of the paper, the implications of Human Capital Theory for education are considered, with a particular focus on the possible ramifications at a time of economic austerity. In problematizing Human Capital Theory, the paper argues that it risks offering a diminished view of the person, a diminished view of education, but that with its sole focus on economic goals leaves room for educationists and others to argue for the educational, social, and moral values it ignores, and for the conception of the good life and good society it fails to mention .

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Agile bodies: a new imperative in neoliberal governance

Cited by 102 publications

References 23 publications

Graduates’ experiences and perceptions of career enactment: identity, transitions, personal agency and emergent career direction

Graduates’ experiences and perceptions of career enactment: identity, transitions, personal agency and emergent career direction

Subjects of, or subject to, policy reform? A Foucauldian discourse analysis of regulation and resistance in UK narratives of educational impacts of welfare cuts: The case of the ‘bedroom tax’

State Education as High-Yield Investment: Human Capital Theory in European Policy Discourse

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