Abstract
The author adopts a racialized lens to a generalizable framework of graduate recruitment and selection to explore race and employability. The generalizable framework highlights the inter-relatedness of work-readiness, graduate identity, and signaling at the individual (miso) level, with Tracey Yosso's conceptualization of community cultural wealth and Julia Evett's framing of ‘organizational professionalism at the institutional (meso) level. The adoption of a racialized lens to the generalizable framework enables the author to explain how structural and systemic racism within graduate and recruitment processes operates. Racism in graduate recruitment and selection is evidenced by longstanding inequitable outcomes for racially minoritized graduates. The chapter concludes with recommendations to enable colleagues to engage in compassionate action to mitigate racism in graduate recruitment and selection praxis and recognize institutional responsibility for change.
TopIntroduction
Despite people not racialized as white making up the global majority, this racially diverse population is homogenized into categories of BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) and BME (Black Minority Ethnic). These problematic monolithic categorizations are used to profile and analyze the varied experiences of people not racialized as white. This homogenization practice centers being white as the norm (Ugiagbe-Green & Ernsting, 2022) and makes comparisons of analysis across and between different racialized groups on that basis. Therefore, all people who are not racialized as white are racially minoritized. The antecedents of racialized categorizations of people are rooted in enforcing ideologies of social structures of power. Kent et al. (2001) contend that the best way to understand race is to view it as a social construct influenced by social and political factors.
This understanding of race explains why racism is much deeper than treating people differently because of the color of their skin. Racism operates as a system of advantage where opportunity and value are assigned based on socially constructed categories of race. A person is racially categorized as Black due to physical phenotypic genetic expression (e.g., higher level of melanin in the skin and their hair texture). The social construct of race is a purposeful categorization of people through social processes of power and domination that centers people racialized as white as the norm and those who are not racialized as white as the minoritized. Racism operates at and through various levels as a system of advantage that benefits those racialized as white. Racism also takes different forms. In some instances, it manifests itself in actions perpetrated by individuals whose behaviors are an action-based demonstration of their internalized biases and socialized norms that they associate with racially minoritized people. When these biases and prejudices interplay with power, discrimination is wielded. Of course, power is not only held by individuals but also binds groups and organizations of people together. Structural mechanisms (that operationalize racism) do not require the actions or intent of individuals (Bonilla-Silva, 1997). However, they can enable unfair policies and discriminatory practices of particular institutions, e.g. workplaces that reproduce racial inequalities in outcomes in ways that advantage one racial group over other racial groups (Boynton-Garrett, 2021).
Structural racism occurs when institutional practices systematically advantage those racialized as white over other racialized groups. It becomes systemic through its operationalization via organized systems, policies, laws, and structures that designate and maintain individuals' differential and unequal value based on their racial categorization. In doing so, interconnected institutions (e.g., universities and graduate employers) generate and perpetuate opportunities within society differentially based on racial hierarchy. A considerable body of evidence shows that social disadvantage (negatively) impacts student experience in higher education (HE) and the graduate labor market (O’Sullivan et al., 2019). There is persistent evidence of racial discrimination in the UK labor market (Zwysen et al., 2021).
Research shows how Black, Asian and other racially minoritized students experience social disadvantage and structural inequality (Arday, 2020) within education. For example, the ‘Closing The Gap Report’ (2019) reveals that a Black student entering UK higher education with AAA grades at ‘A’ Level is less likely to achieve a ‘good degree’ (2:1 or 1:1 degree award classification), than a white student entering UK higher education with BBC grades. Additionally, the ‘Access to What?’ project (Blasko et al., 2002) shows that relative chances of selection are not the same for all students with equivalent qualifications and that some groups face systematic labor market disadvantages. Concerning employability and career development, these disadvantages and inequalities are experienced in areas such as access to industry contacts, understanding how to articulate experience or being in a position to undertake an internship or placement (McGregor-Smith, 2017).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Signaling: The action of demonstrating observable features that can have signaling value that either cannot be changed by the applicant (gender, race, nationality, age); ’indices,’ and those that, in contrast, can be modified by a candidate; ‘signals.’ Judgments about work-readiness of a graduate is influenced by signaling.
Graduateness: Reflective thinking (the capacity to evaluate complex situations and apply skills and knowledge on the basis of personal judgement), scholarship (the capacity to link theoretical and functional knowledge in addressing complex problems), moral citizenship (acceptance of an individual’s responsibility towards society) and lifelong learning (the capacity to adapt to unanticipated situations and develop new skills).
Racism: Operates through a system of advantage that benefits groups racialized as white compared with other racialized groups (e.g. BAME or BME).
Work-Readiness Capitals: The embodiment of work-readiness attributes by the graduate considered to be of value to the person making judgments about the likelihood of future success in work of the graduate.
Graduate Identity: Socially constructed, ‘owned’ by the graduate and a mix of made up of four strands of values, intellect, performance, and engagement.
Racially Minoritized: Individuals who, based on phenotypic genetic expression are not racially categorized as white yet make up the global majority (i.e., majority of the world’s population) but are homogenized into one category (e.g., BAME or BME).
Identity Regulation: A form of organizational/occupational control to ensure that traditional forms of cultural capital within the organization are maintained.
Work-Readiness: The level to which graduate students are perceived as possessing attitudes and attributes that enable them to be prepared for success in the workforce.