Students' Views of Higher Education in Their Transitions to Work in Portugal

1 Students' views of higher education in their transitions to work in Portugal Teresa Frances Pole-Baker Gouveia Institute of Education University of London January 2010 2 Students' views of higher education in their transitions to work in Portugal Higher education has grown to mass proportions in the past two decades in Portugal, with the political expectation that it will contribute to the knowledge economy and social change. However, the predominantly low skilled productive system has led to increasing graduate unemployment and underemployment. The central question in this research is what higher education signifies for students and graduates in this context. Higher education has the potential to change students' relationship with knowledge, developing critical thinking, autonomy and character (Barnett 1990). However, this potential for change depends on how individuals engage in it, according to their values and perspectives (Bloomer 2001). Moreover, knowledge is constructed contextually (Lave and Wenger 1991), and its relevance is not always clear when graduates start work. This longitudinal research therefore consisted of in-depth interviews with graduates to ascertain the meanings and values they attribute to higher education and how this changes in the transition to work. In this study, participants' view of higher education was narrow, focussing on how it affected their labour market opportunities, rather than as a place for personal development, gaining generic skills and critical engagement. This affected how they acted on their educational opportunities and the criteria by which they measured the validity of higher education after their transition to work. Moreover, labour market limitations meant that graduates who did not find work in areas directly related to their degree devalued their education. This study concluded that individual paths from education to work are affected by social networks, resources and significant others, but there are no deterministic effects of social class, gender or field of study. A key finding was that in contrast to Bloomer's concept of learning careers (1997), graduates' embedded knowledge was insufficient for their new work contexts; instead they needed to reconstruct their knowledge according to their socio-cultural resources, and membership of multiple communities. This has significance internationally for research into transitions to work. In general, broader perspectives of higher education by students and employers, greater support for the transition and greater labour market opportunities, would be beneficial for both graduates' self-realization and how mass higher education can affect the knowledge economy. 3 STATEMENT OF AUTHENTICITY I hereby declare that, except where explicit attribution is made, the work presented in this thesis is entirely my own. Word count (exclusive of appendices and bibliography): 79,948 Teresa Frances Pole-Baker Gouveia, January 2010 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis has taken a long time to research and write as I have juggled the simultaneous demands of being a student, teacher, mother, and wife to a busy GP in rural Portugal. Study was frequently interrupted by the needs of my children, the phone ringing, or kindly patients bringing live chickens and offering to pluck them on my balcony. It has also been difficult carrying out this research in a foreign language, in Portugal, far from the support of the Institute of Education in London. However, as a result, I have gained greater insight and appreciation of the language and culture of Portugal. The difficulties I have faced, especially in time management, made me wonder if I would ever finish this project. I would never have managed it without the support of my supervisors, Professor Karen Evans, and Professor Ron Barnett, who through their comments, questions, suggestions, and painstaking reading and observations on my thesis, were invaluable in my progress. I would also like to thank Professor Gareth Parry, who helped me start this project. Thank you too, to all the participants in this study, who went far out of their way to be available for interviews, phone calls and discussions after class, and later on, after work. To all of you, this is for you, about you, and about your world. I hope I have done justice to your perspectives. I am enormously grateful to Prof. Dr. Antonio Magalhaes, at the Porto Faculty of Education; to Prof. Dr. Salvato Trigo and the Fundacao Fernando Pessoa, for their help and support since the start of this project. I am indebted to all my friends and colleagues who have supported me and helped me in so many ways, especially Carla Fonte, Ana Costa, Miguel Diogo, and Miguel Ribeiro. Last, but not least, thank you to my friend and colleague, Allison Byrne, for proof reading the final thesis. Finally, I would like to express gratitude to my family, for putting up with me these long years. But most of all to my husband Rui, for his encouragement, questions, insights, comments and most of all for helping me to see Portugal from a Portuguese point of view. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Page Chapter 1 Higher education and work: expansion, struggle and subjectivities 9 PART ONE: TRANSITIONS TO WORK Chapter 2 Self, choices and the meaning of education 15 Chapter 3 Higher Education: whose meanings? 32 Chapter 4 Graduates' transitions to work 49 Chapter 5 The economic context and the policies for high-skills in Portugal 66 Chapter 6 The meaning of higher education in Portugal 82 PART TWO: METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES Chapter 7 Gaining insights into the meanings of higher education 106 PART THREE: THE CONSTRUCTION OF GRADUATES' VIEWS OF HIGHER EDUCATION Chapter 8 The construction of choices 137 Chapter 9 Trajectories of participation in university and work 155 Chapter 10 Private university graduate; identities and pathways to employment 177 Chapter 11 The changing meanings of higher education in the transition to work 190 PART FOUR: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Chapter 12 The meaning of higher education as understood by graduates 213 Chapter 13 Reflections on the conclusions and suggestions for change 238 References 254 6 List of figures Figure n° Title page 1.1. Comparative unemployment rates of graduates, youths and general 10 population in Portugal as % of group 4.1 Length of search for first job after graduation, by country 54 4.2 The impact of degrees on earnings three and a half years after 55 graduation, 5.1 Growth in Student enrolments in higher education in Portugal 68 5.2 Qualification levels of employers in Portugal in 2007 69 5.3 Highest level of educational achievement of adults in Europe 70 5.4 Education levels as a percentage of the active adult population in 71 Portugal 5.5 Percentage of the population participating in education and training, 72 5.6 Basic functional flexibility and teamwork at work 78 6.1 Unemployment rate (people aged 25-64) by levels of educational 84 achievement, 2007 6.2 Access to public higher education 94 6.3 The relative growth of the public and private subsystems of higher 95 education in Portugal 6.4 Changes in the subsytems of higher education in Portugal 95 6.6 Candidates and vacancies for technological degrees 101 6.7 Candidates and vacancies for degrees in law and social science 102 6.8 Candidates and vacancies for degrees in health 102 7.1 Influences on individual meanings of higher education 106 7.2 Model of theoretical approach 111 7.3 The total number of interviews in the study 119 7.4 The interview schedule 122 10.1 Paths to employment 183 10.2 Precariousness of employment 184 11.1 The perceived benefits of higher education, summary of results 191 7 A List of appendices Page Appendix 1.1 Active and unemployed population 293 Appendix 1.2 Unemployment (as a percentage of labour force) 294 Appendix 5.1 Highest levels of adult educational achievement 296 Appendix 6.1 Parental educational levels 296 Appendix 7.1a Covering letter, Portuguese 299 Appendix 7.1b Covering letter, English translation 300 Appendix 7.2 Written questionnaire, Portuguese 301 Appendix 7.3 Written questionnaire, English translation 304 Appendix 7.4 Interview with the Dean 306 Appendix 7.5 Sample interview transcript, English 316 Appendix 7.6 Sample interview summary, Portuguese 345 Appendix 7.7 Node listing 351 Appendix 7.8 Summary of participants 355 Appendix 8.1 Participants' expectations of higher education and work 356 Appendix 9.1 Portuguese ministry of higher education objectives 357 INTRODUCTION 9 1. HIGHER EDUCATION AND WORK: EXPANSION, STRUGGLE AND SUBJECTIVITIES 1.1 Introduction: Higher education and the context of knowledge This thesis is concerned with the values and meanings graduates ascribe to higher education and how these change in the transition from university to work. It focuses on a private university in North Portugal, and is based on longitudinal research with a small group of graduates before and after the transition to work. The objective was to ascertain what their higher education means to them, and how this changes in the transition to work. Higher education is supposed to get students to think critically, develop autonomy and change their relationship with knowledge (Barnett 1990, Scott 1995). However, the way that students act on educational provision (their studentship) depends on their experience, values, expectations and dispositions to knowledge and learning (Bloomer 1997, Hodkinson et al 2008). These values and dispositions are important, because they affect what and how students learn, the importance they give to their higher education and their later realization after the transition to work. Moreover, these values may affect how graduates take part in both the knowledge economy and the learning society. A "learning society" refers to society's capacity to become adept at learning so that it can adjust to continual transformations (Schon 1973: 28); the "knowledge economy" refers to the use of knowledge to produce economic benefits (Drucker 1969).

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