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Higher education institutions (HEIs) have transformed across Europe and beyond as a result of economic, social and political factors resulting in the increasing expansion, globalisation and marketisation of universities. One effect of this has been the opportunity to widen participation and access to groups who would not have previously entered HE such as adult students (Scott, 2001; Fleming, Loxley and Finnegan 2017). Another change initiated by the Bologna process (EC2010) has been a policy push to enhance links between universities and employers with the emphasis to prepare students for the labour market by making them employable. The onus is on students to develop their employability skills and portfolio if they want to succeed in a competitive, individualistic world. As Tomlinson points out: ‘It now appears no longer enough just to be a graduate, but instead an employable graduate’(2012: 25).

Adult students in universities experience a number of transitions on entering university and during their studies which impact on their learning careers and identity: for many it is a transformative experience but as Reay (2003 ) points out it can also involve the risk of making previous balances and relationships more unstable. In a similar way, transitioning into the graduate labour market can also bring with it benefits but also bring risks. Adult students, particularly working class students, do not experience a level playing field when it comes to transitioning into the labour market (Thompson, 2012; Merrill et al, 2020) as competing in the labour market with young graduates can highlight issues of inequality such as age, class, gender and race (Burke, 2014). Non- traditional adult students are taking a longer transition period than ‘traditional’ students to gain employment and when they do it is often at a lower and less meaningful level than graduate level. Such students, therefore, experience a mismatch between higher education qualifications and the demand of the labour market.

The transformations in higher education put an emphasis on the concept of transition in two different directions: on one side the experience of entering HE institutions was highlighted in order to better support the chances of a growing population (e.g. non traditional students), on the other side a focus on future professional contexts took a rising relevance in connection with the need of preventing over-skilling, skill mismatch and unemployment. These two processes (ingoing and outgoing) are deeply entangled as the movements from HE to workplaces and vice-versa are not linear and may reoccur at different times in a person’s life. Career transitions are, in fact, a lifelong endeavor and many studies highlight their frequency and multiple configurations: ‘both minor discontinuities and major interruptions in an individual career’(Chudzikowsk, 2012, p. 298) – for example a shift to a different work role, change a work setting (Greer & Kirk, 2022), experience retirement (Beehr, 2014) or a job loss (Gowan, 2014).

In a contemporary scenario characterised by ‘protean’ careers (Hall, 2004) and ‘life design’ (Savickas, 2021) but also by dramatic professional interruptions (e.g. the recent great resignation), the need of constantly re-imagining a multiverse of professional futures, alternative working contexts and multiple learning itineraries is on the fore. Unexpected effects, crises as well as a potential in terms of transformation (Akkermans and Kubash, 2017) are dimensions often connected to transitional experiences. Adult students entering university are an example of how the interconnection of identity issues, professional itineraries, training aspects and socio-economic dimensions depicts – potentially – a multi-faceted and complex phenomenon. On the other hand the overarching predominance of assumptions still based on human capital theory (Becker, 1964) continuously generates the risk of adopting linear and reductionist perspectives. For example, transferable competences are often represented as commodities to be delivered on the market or as instruments equipping the subjects to navigate the uncertainty (Han, 2009). Holmes (2023), drawing on Macpherson’s political-economy theory, denotes a widespread use of a possessive approach in which the individual is conceived as ‘essentially the owner of his own person or capacities, owing nothing to society for them’ (Macpherson, 1962, p. 3). A scenario where self- contained individualism (Sampson, 1988) pushes subjects to ‘invest’ in themselves, by engaging in life-long learning to develop their skills and attributes (Field, 2006). These common representations radically underestimate the systemic factors that are intertwined with individuals, higher education institutions, employers, policy makers etc. Researchers such as Tomlinson (2008), Kalffe and Taksa (2015), to contrast this mainstream perspective, have adopted a social positioning model which focuses on a relational and historical perspective. Other research has drawn on Bourdieu (1986) and his work on capitals (social, cultural and economic) in order to consider structural factors on graduate labour market outcomes, which continue to be differentiated particularly by class, ethnicity and gender (Merrill et al., 2020).

Higher education institutions, specifically, are dealing with all these issues as they are more and more asked to support transitions towards workplaces through dedicated modules, tutoring activities and guidance services. Along this articulated net of interventions they are inevitably conveying a certain transition culture and triggering – from a Foucauldian point of view – certain kinds of subjectification processes.

The conference is dedicated to the exploration of proces-sual, contextual, theoretical and methodological perspectives on this phenomena in order to better understand how transitions from higher education (HE) to the labour market take shape and how career development and identities unfold across working life. A constellation of constructs and meanings are often connected to transitions when we start interrogating their configurations and the possibility to partially plan or foresee their effects. In this sense, the concept of flexibility, the notion of employability (De Vos et al., 2021) and the complex domain composed by those competences that should allow smooth passages from one professional context to another (for example, transferable or cross sector competences) are part of our investigation.

The conference welcomes papers, roundtables, and symposia which address one or more of the following topics:

•  Different ways of facing the “imperative of employability” both on HEIs and students' sides: are there spaces for cultivating critical and imaginative attitudes?
• Conceptual and theoretical approaches to employability;
• Employability schemes and strategies to deal with “nonlinear transitions” into HE and between HEIs and workplaces;

• Experiences of tensions between the multiple roles addressed to HE: e.g the community development inspired by social justice may be in contrast with employability discourses based on human capital development;
• Issues related to different generations in the transition from HE to workplaces;
• Gendered transitions from HE to work: challenges and responses;
• Innovative learning approaches and didactic strategies aimed at connecting with emerging complexity of workplaces; eg.: the need of developing DEI mindset (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) while acknowledging cultural differences across organizations and countries;
• The role of cultural and social capital and habitus in relation to transitions and employability;
• Methodological approaches to research/ career transitions.

References

Akkermans, J. and Kubash, S. (2017). Trending topics in careers: A review and future research agenda. Career Development International, 22 (2): 586–627.

Becker, G. (1964). Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Beehr, T. A. (2014). To retire or not to retire: That is not the question. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35(8): 1093–1108.

Bourdieu, P. (1986).“The forms of capital”. In R. J. (Ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research forthe Sociology of Education (pp.241-258). New York: Greenwood Press.

Chudzikowski, K. (2012). Career transitions and career success in the ‘new’ career era. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 81, 298–306.

Field, J. (2006). Lifelong learning and the new educational order.London: Trentham Books.

Gowan, M. (2014). Moving from job loss to career management: The past, present, and future of involuntary job loss research. Human Resource Management Review, 24(3): 258–270.

Greer, T. W., and Kirk, A. F. (2022). Overcoming barriers to women's career transitions: A systematic review of social support types and providers. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 7: 77- 110.

Hall, D.T. (2004). The protean career: A quarter-century journey. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 65 (1): 1-13.

Han, S. (2009). Competence: Commodification of Human Ability. In K. Illeris (Ed.), International Perspectives on Competence Development (pp. 56-68) London: Routledge.

Holmes L. (2023). Graduate employability and its basis in possessive individualism. In Siivonen, P., Isopahkala-Bouret U., Tomlinson M., Korhonen M. and Haltia N. (Eds), Rethinking graduate employability in context. Discourse, policy and practice (pp. 29-50). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kalfa, S and Taksa, L (2015). Cultural capital in business higher education: reconsidering the graduate attributes movement and the focus on employability. Studies in Higher Education, 40 (4): 580-596.

Macpherson, C. (1962). The political theory of possessive individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Oxford: Oxford University Press.