Engaging with childhood: Student placements and the employability agenda

Abstract

Employability is an organising narrative within the global, neoliberal economic discourse, with relevance across different educational contexts. Most attention is paid to attaining the knowledge and skills relevant to gain employment and competitive advantage. This is particularly concerning in university programmes that develop professionals who work with children.Placements are a common approach to embedding employability within university curricula. This article explores student placements in primary school settings in the north of England. Analysis considers students' engagement with their own learning and with the children who are essential to that learning, who may be marginalised as a feature of it.Keywords: Childhood, Employability, Higher Education, Placements.Placement, the opportunity to learn alongside children and young people in their homes, schools, nurseries/kindergartens, and other settings, is a long-standing feature of university vocational education programmes. More recently the neoliberal 'employability' discourse has come to be a significant organising feature of university education (Tomlinson, 2012) and an aspect of global economic relations (Hill, 2002;Olssen and Peters, 2005). Consequently, increasing numbers of university programmes offer students a placement. Significantly, the employability discourse is focussed on the needs of the market and ignores wider political and moral concerns, including children and young people's needs, in the socially mediated relationship between politics, power and people's experience of the employability agenda (Reid, 2016).

Perceptions of placement experiences of Early Childhood Studies students: the fluency of knowledge and skills

“…It can be argued, based on this small-scale research study, that these relationships are what help to develop the confidence and the aspects that, as discussed above, cannot be taught in an academic context. Reid (2016) has asserted that the relationship between tutors and students has been de-professionalised with a focus on accountability and social efficiency of late, and although in this research, findings indicate the value of this relationship, both institutions are careful to maintain the appropriate levels of professionalism related to this.…”

“…The Nutbrown Review of Qualifications (2012) highlighted the importance of placement experiences, citing them as an essential part of training for early years practitioners within England. Additionally, Reid (2016) recognises that placement opportunities are a long-standing feature of vocational university education programmes, including Childhood Studies programmes. Placement experience in the sector at an undergraduate level is often associated with trainee teachers and as such, there is a sound research base related to primary and secondary teaching placements (Rouse, Morrissey and Rahimi, 2012;Macy, Squires and Barton, 2009;Moody, 2009) that eventually lead to Qualified Teacher Status.…”

‘Finding a voice’: utilising Tronto’s ethic of care framework for developing students’ attentiveness to voice in a university module

“…Just getting my head round all the concepts and the terminology. Any framing of children as individuated objects of concern allied to the privilege of interpretation has the potential to silence children (Reid 2016b). However, in developing knowledge and skills in listening beyond the intimacy of the conversati on with the child, in enabling students to critique discourses of voice was acknowledged by the students as 'empowering'.…”

“…Accordingly, the programme is built around a mix of modules that focus on empirical and practice learning opportunities. The demand by universities for good outcomes in student degree classifications and student employability has the potential to foreground performative and instrumentalist practices (Kalfa and Taksa 2017) for both students and lecturers which silences the children and young people with whom students will eventually work (Reid 2016a;2016b). Student's considering how their need to be the best they can be, their role the coordination of voice, can lead to difficult but good learning outcomes: I think for me, it was sort of being critical, because I found when we looked at a lot of the theories, obviously they're quite… I don't know how to say it, but they're all very positive.…”