Browsing by Author "Higdon, Rachel"

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    Creative Education and Creative Work
    (De Montfort University, 2015-05) Higdon, Rachel
    This research brings together the Creative Economy and Employability agendas, concerns of British government policy from the late 1990s to the current day. It interrogates the concept of employability in creative industries degrees from the viewpoint of contemporary students and graduates. It unpacks the meanings of employability and investigates employability’s place in the undergraduate experience from the undergraduate perspective. A grounded methodological approach is taken to ensure the research findings are rooted in the student voice. Participants in this research claim that generic university employability strategies are irrelevant to their creative practice. They want to learn how to develop meaningful communities of practice and gain access to the gatekeepers of creative work within the creative industry that they aspire to work. They want to be supported to access creative networks because without the necessary cultural, social and financial capital, these privileged circles remain closed, elitist and impenetrable. This research develops Creatour, a philosophy for creative work and life as a contemporary 21st century approach to creative employability. Creatour offers an alternative philosophy to the dominant models of skill acquisition to meet employers’ needs. It argues that ‘complexability’ describes what graduates should be developing for work in a global world. Creatour, adapted from the practice of Parkour, is a creative philosophy about finding your own path, overcoming obstacles, being resilient and living a ‘good life’. It supports participants to view employability in a holistic way both at university and after. Creatour is collaborative and co-produced with undergraduates, graduates and relevant others such as employers and practitioners. Creatour encourages students to regularly work in different ways, groups and spaces and to seek alternative actions or solutions that maybe more relevant, inclusive and commercial. Feedback from research dissemination shows Creatour as useful to other disciplines as a contemporary approach to learning and work.
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    A dramatic existence: Undergraduate preparations for a creative life in the performance industries
    (Sage, 2020-08-01) Chapman, Kate; Higdon, Rachel
    This paper focuses specifically on drama and theatre higher education (HE) programmes and preparation for potential graduate work. The article investigates working in the creative industries and in the performing arts (particularly within acting) and how HE students in the UK prepare for this life. The growth of the creative industries and successful applied drama in the public and private sectors has also brought business interest in how drama and theatre processes can benefit other workplaces, outside of the creative arts. The article addresses current policy, initiatives and partnerships to broaden inclusion and access to creative work. The research explores drama undergraduate degrees and the university’s role in supporting a successful transition from HE to graduate work. Students perceive the university world as safe and the graduate world as precarious and unsafe. The research findings have resonance with other undergraduate degrees, outside of the arts and the role the university plays in student transitions from the university to the graduate environment.
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    Education To Meet an Epistemological Crisis
    (De Montfort University, 2021-08-17) Higdon, Rachel
    We continue to witness the inability of the neoliberal marketisation of universities to meet the epistemological needs of both students and wider society. This epistemological crisis been amplified by the pandemic, leading to calls for complex problem solving, critical thinking and creativity that might usefully contribute to messy, global problems. Pushing beyond formulaic compulsory education, a post-pandemic University needs to support a conscious and supported unsettling, which enables more meaningful transitions between university life and the work that lies beyond.
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    Employability: The missing voice: How student and graduate views could be used to develop future higher education policy and inform curricula
    (Sage, 2016-06-06) Higdon, Rachel
    The student voice is currently absent from the employability agenda for higher education in the UK. A government-led neoliberal model of employability, claiming what employers want when employing graduates, has been uncritically adopted by many universities in Britain to inform higher education strategy and policy. Many undergraduates and graduates perceive this employability model as incongruent and disingenuous to their experiences in gaining and sustaining work. The dominant employability discourse masks inequalities in the contemporary labour market. In developing policies for the future of higher education, British government departments should recognise the student lens by researching students’ qualitative experiences and reflections of teaching, learning and work. Students should be a collaborative part of future planning and their voices should be continuously informing higher education practice. Student and graduate views can be used to inform higher education curricula and to develop meaningful, future policy relating to higher education.
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    From employability to ‘complexability’: Creatour – a construct for preparing students for creative work and life
    (2018-01-31) Higdon, Rachel
    Abstract Higher Education (HE) students and employers within the creative industries dismiss prevailing ‘employability’ skills as inadequate. The author discovers the ‘bottom up’ reality that entry into the creative world and onward survival requires access to contact networks, confidence and adaptability to cope with uncertainty, changing contexts for business, partnerships and innovative opportunities. ‘Complexability’, it is suggested, better describes such interactive competences. In close work with undergraduates, graduates and practitioners in two contrasting disciplines: Architecture and Dance, a set of interlocking briefs for such cyclical working emerges. A dance student’s passion for Parkour inspires the Creatour construct. To summarise Creatour’s 8 step construct visually, Escher’s faux staircase and tessalated interlocking patterns are ‘borrowed’. Unexpectedly Creatour has been cited as applicable to law, business and medicine.
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    More than your degree title: transferable skills, employability and diverse opportunities for education students.
    (Routledge, 2023-05-31) Higdon, Rachel; Barrow, Charlotte; Thompson, David
    This chapter is salient for current or potential students undertaking a degree in education, looking forward to their own employability after university. Education falls within the social sciences, which is a multi-discipline area and offers graduates diverse careers. There are many paths to take in potential employment, with teaching only one element. By broadening learners’ awareness of workforce shifts, graduate mind-sets and individual qualities, the chapter explores and emphasises creative approaches to career-building in the social sciences. It invites education students to see their holistic value, in terms of their transferable skills, assets and experiences which make them highly employable. It covers attributes that undergraduates may not know employers ask for, in every work setting, such as flexibility, creativity and complex problem solving. The authors support learners to understand their own unique worth and to be confident in identifying their individual assets and experiences to present assertively and positively to employers. This approach aims to help students flourish and find their own fulfilling careers
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    Prison Education: Beyond Review and Evaluation
    (Sage, 2022-03-01) Flynn, Nick; Higdon, Rachel
    Much is made of the potential of prison education to impart knowledge and skills and transform life chances. Prison education is tasked with delivering qualifications and effecting recidivism. In assessing current arrangements for the delivery of prison education and reviews and evaluations of its impact on recidivism in England and Wales, this article argues that prison education should be an inclusive activity. Specifically, prison education should focus less on individual development and more on whole class ‘domains,’ in particular, knowledge of (re)integration. Research, policy, and practice on civic/citizenship education provide models in this regard.
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    Redefining employability: Student voices mapping their dance journeys and futures.
    (Taylor and Francis, 2017-09-06) Higdon, Rachel; Stevens, Jayne
    This paper explores dance students’ understanding of employability and their views about their dance futures in order to inform higher education curricula and workforce development. The investigation focuses on the student experience on a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree course in Dance at an English university. First and final year undergraduate voices were sought, transcribed and analysed using grounded theory methodology. A key theme, explicit in the student data was that of journeying. Students referred to metaphors that related to journeys, travel, routes, roads and paths. The undergraduate students interviewed conceived of employability in dance as a journey from the beginning of the dance experience towards gaining and sustaining employment. The beginning stage of the journey was getting to university and in the liminal space of the first year, students focused solely on their dance experiences. By the final year, the students perceive their dance futures as diverse journeys of continuous development. The onward journey out of university for final year students is fuelled by a passion for dance, self-reliance and continuous learning. The student voice revealed a determination to forge a future in dance whilst recognising the obstacles; financial, emotional and physical that lay in their way.