This article reports on a study investigating the link between education and work. Instead of looking at the labour outcomes of graduates, the study examined the qualifications held by workers in technician- and professional-level jobs from three types of occupational fields: regulated, applied, and general. The approach shifts the focus away from…

Very few organisations, even local firms, are insulated from global economic activity or the social and cultural consequences of widespread global migration programs such as international education. Nonetheless, established recruitment processes remain stubbornly local, privileging candidates who conform to the criterion of 'people like us' to…

Based on "First Job" surveys conducted six months after graduation among graduates from 2000 to 2007 and semi-structured interviews, this paper examines the recruitment and workplace integration of women and men graduates from EPF Ecole d'Ingenieurs. The study's findings show that women engineering graduates from EPF generally have more…

This article draws on a longitudinal qualitative study of graduate transitions from higher education programmes to the world of work. In the study, 23 physicians and 20 master's level engineers in information technology, recently graduated from four different universities in Sweden, were interviewed. The aim of this article is to explore the…

This article explores how contemporary professional associations employ discourses of knowledge as a means of promoting professionalism. By analysing policy documents from the Norwegian associations for teachers, nurses, engineers and accountants, we reveal dominant knowledge discourses and discuss how they serve to position the associations in…

Conclusions from case studies of technical work in four workplaces were as follows: (1) need for such skills as teamwork and problem solving varied by context; (2) despite their professed need for these skills, employers provided little training; and (3) employers were weakly connected with schools and had generally poor opinions of them. (SK)