Out of time: (Re)working disabled graduate employability

As interest in disability employment increases across the world following the COVID-19 pandemic, understanding the employability of disabled graduates becomes an imperative for governments, universities and employers alike. This article investigates employability through the lens of the lived experi...

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Main Authors: Shona Edwards, Alexandra Sudlow-Haylett
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Deakin University 2023-10-01
Series:Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability
Online Access:https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/article/view/1802
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author Shona Edwards
Alexandra Sudlow-Haylett
author_facet Shona Edwards
Alexandra Sudlow-Haylett
author_sort Shona Edwards
collection DOAJ
description As interest in disability employment increases across the world following the COVID-19 pandemic, understanding the employability of disabled graduates becomes an imperative for governments, universities and employers alike. This article investigates employability through the lens of the lived experience of disabled graduates, with one author (Alexandra) serving as a case study. Alexandra’s experience in higher education has been defined by living in crip time, a unique disabled experience of time as non-linear. Alexandra’s story describes how surviving within institutions which operate on normative understandings of time as linear, chronological, and inextricably tied to productivity has caused harm to disabled students. Disabled students are made to feel as though they are ‘falling behind time,’ ‘wasting time,’ and ‘losing time,’ resulting in a struggle to ‘catch up time,’ which impacts upon their wellbeing, confidence, and their sense of self. This struggle disadvantages disabled students from spending time building their ‘employability skills’ throughout their degree. As disabled students complete their studies and seek graduate employment, they come into further contact with industry who further compound harm through placement experiences and the graduate hiring process by not accommodating for crip time. This case study poses conventional mentoring programmes as a site in which disabled students such as Alexandra face barriers to engagement. We argue for a co-designed model of accessible, non-hierarchical peer mentoring, where crip time is accommodated and supported. Such accessible mentoring may serve as an effective intervention and an opportunity for disabled students to develop essential employability skills.
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spelling doaj.art-17f72d3e053848488f42a3abef8bcba52023-10-20T13:12:00ZengDeakin UniversityJournal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability1838-38152023-10-0114210.21153/jtlge2023vol14no2art1802Out of time: (Re)working disabled graduate employabilityShona Edwards0Alexandra Sudlow-Haylett1University of AdelaideUniversity of AdelaideAs interest in disability employment increases across the world following the COVID-19 pandemic, understanding the employability of disabled graduates becomes an imperative for governments, universities and employers alike. This article investigates employability through the lens of the lived experience of disabled graduates, with one author (Alexandra) serving as a case study. Alexandra’s experience in higher education has been defined by living in crip time, a unique disabled experience of time as non-linear. Alexandra’s story describes how surviving within institutions which operate on normative understandings of time as linear, chronological, and inextricably tied to productivity has caused harm to disabled students. Disabled students are made to feel as though they are ‘falling behind time,’ ‘wasting time,’ and ‘losing time,’ resulting in a struggle to ‘catch up time,’ which impacts upon their wellbeing, confidence, and their sense of self. This struggle disadvantages disabled students from spending time building their ‘employability skills’ throughout their degree. As disabled students complete their studies and seek graduate employment, they come into further contact with industry who further compound harm through placement experiences and the graduate hiring process by not accommodating for crip time. This case study poses conventional mentoring programmes as a site in which disabled students such as Alexandra face barriers to engagement. We argue for a co-designed model of accessible, non-hierarchical peer mentoring, where crip time is accommodated and supported. Such accessible mentoring may serve as an effective intervention and an opportunity for disabled students to develop essential employability skills.https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/article/view/1802
spellingShingle Shona Edwards
Alexandra Sudlow-Haylett
Out of time: (Re)working disabled graduate employability
Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability
title Out of time: (Re)working disabled graduate employability
title_full Out of time: (Re)working disabled graduate employability
title_fullStr Out of time: (Re)working disabled graduate employability
title_full_unstemmed Out of time: (Re)working disabled graduate employability
title_short Out of time: (Re)working disabled graduate employability
title_sort out of time re working disabled graduate employability
url https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/jtlge/article/view/1802
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