In general educational theory and practice,Ivinson (2011) argued that the predominant “idea of knowledge is often accompanied by a picture of the mind as an empty vessel that has to be filled with content” (p.491). For opposing contours, popular ideas of skill are accompanied by imagery of the body as an empty shell that has to be shaped or filled with correct movement, (verbal/body) language, and postures. Connecting this idea of skill to the expansion of the term that includes anything that enhances employability (Payne, 1999) and the identified skills gap in the UK, vocational students are often seen to have the wrong bodies for employment. As occupational cultures are normally (re)created by those that have been within the trade for long time, this is a re-occurring cycle of perception.
Bourdieu (1984) noted that it is normal for ‘the old generation’ to complain that ‘the new generation’ lack the competencies needed and do not fit into the workplace; as they have had longer to conform and embody the cultural characteristics of that occupation. In relation to this, students’ bodies are perceived to rarely be presented, communicate, or behave, in a manner that it is closely bound with cultural capital in occupational settings. In turn, this might be reinterpreted as industry perceiving young people as lacking employability skills. However, adopting a corporeal perspective endorsed by sociologists such as Williams and Bendelow (1998), Wolkowitz, (2006), Shilling (2012), and Bourdieu (1984), bodies, rather than finite skills act as markers for social distinction, both within and between educational and occupational environments. This approach provides a frame in which the microscopic processes of social mobility and student transitions can be better explored. Bourdieu (1984) summarised this succinctly,
the real determinants of ‘vocations’, is less abstract and unreal than is presented by statisticians; it takes into account… secondary characteristics which are often the basis of their social value (prestige or discredit) and which, through the absence from the official job description, function as tacit requirements, such as age, sex, social or ethnic origin… members of the corps that lack these traits are excluded or marginalized (p.96-97)
It is not only crude biological bodily distinctions, such as, sex, age and ethnicity that demarcate individuals and groups whilst tacitly increasing, or decreasing, individuals’ chances of
employment within a certain sector. Employability skills are not only connected to narrow aspects of corporeality but are also anchored to wider aspects of embodiment (Chapter 7 develops the notion of embodiment in relation to student transition further). This statement is reflective of a what Leberman and Shaw (2015) referred to as the relational approach to employability and skill that goes beyond approaches that focus almost exclusively on the finite competencies required to secure employment. Relational approaches are less concerned with identified skills mismatches, instead reflecting on the relations between the individual and the work environment. In doing so, these approaches bring power relations between work, race, gender squarely into the frame. In considering the specific relations between (socialised) bodies and occupational cultures, different forms of embodiment, and presentations of the body, might be seen to command contrasting connotations with employability skills. Wolkowitz (2006) explored a number of these relations through what she presented as the “body/work nexus” (p. 32). In doing so she described a number of workplaces as laden with sets of gender and class conventions. In each of these environments, Wolkowitz argued that employees have to demonstrate the reflexive ability to accurately assess what kind of bodily presentations a particular situation requires and to act and present themselves accordingly. These embodiment processes are not only limited to succeeding in occupational spaces. Bathmaker et al., (2013) noted that vocational student fortune in HE relied upon their ability to fashion, and refashion, the self in order to present their bodies in a way that fits in and/or stands out appropriately. In both HE and the workplace, vocational students’ skill level and employability is therefore inextricably woven to their corporality and the occupational/educational cultures. The argument made here is that embodiment processes are directly entangled with particular forms of employability skills that vocational students require when making educational and occupational transitions.
It may well be possible to extrapolate generic forms of embodiment that are synonymous with what might be universally considered as an employability skill. However, being intimately entwined with the specific occupational culture the valued, employable and skilful body must also be located at a microscopic level. At this microscopic level, Vincent and Braun (2011) showed how corporeality was connected to notions of professionalism in the context of early childhood education and care. They argued that graduates’ bodies are scrutinised more than their
formal education or their repertoire of knowledge when beginning employment. They suggested that being considered professional is less about being familiar with specific bodies of professional knowledge and more about “what sort of person one is, and how one appears and conducts oneself, and how far all of these behaviours are deemed by others to be appropriate” (ibid, p.775). Within this context what is deemed to be professional can both advantage and disadvantage certain populations of young people. On professionalism in office work, Wolkowitz (2006) discussed how “the exercise of organisational power puts women in a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t position, whereby they are punished for being feminine (unprofessional) and for being professional (unfeminine)” (p.91).
With the body being heavily scrutinised in the world of work, the up and coming generation of young people have responded in becoming attentive to the importance of their embodiment in making the transition into work. The IPPR (2012) identified that students thought that successful transitions into employment required them to cultivate the appropriate body. Small proportions of young Londoners thought that ‘the gift of the gab’ and ‘looking good’ were the most important factors in securing employment (ibid). Although the manifestation of students’ embodiment in the mediation of education-to-work transitions might be a important issue in a range of industries and educational programmes, it is theme that might be more prevalent within certain subject areas and vocations.