Implementing the Employability Agenda: A Critical Review of Curriculum Developments in Political Science and International Relations in English Universities

This article draws on research commissioned by the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and conducted during 2013. It interrogates the ways in which the employability agenda has been fed through to the level of individual politics departments. The project was particularly concerned with establishing whether, and how, colleagues in politics and international relations (IR) had taken ownership of student employability at the level of the curriculum. In the article, the key findings of the research are summarised. There is also discussion of the (sometimes troubling) professional implications of infusing concern for graduate outcomes within a pedagogic framework that emphasises critical engagement with the underpinning political structures of the labour market

Integrating progress files into the academic process: A review of case studies

A literature review of published case studies reporting progress file implementation was conducted with the intent of discovering how this is being interpreted and implemented in higher education institutions. The three studies found were analysed using an ideal type categorization developed by Clegg and Bradley (2006), that is, professional, academic or employment. All three case studies are examples of academics learning through experience about the process of personal development planning and how this integrates with current educational provision. As this is not a static process, an activity theory perspective may be a more useful framework to research how this understanding develops in a particular context. Currently the progress file is a contested object, which has not yet fulfilled its potential to place the student and their individual learning needs at the centre of the educational process