Creative Education and Creative Work

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.