When Training Is Not Enough: Preparing Students for Employment in England, France and Sweden

The proliferation of work placements and the rise of professionalisation in higher education are, in France, frequently condemned as evidence of a quest for greater employability, driven by a skills-based approach. A comparative analysis of the methods used to prepare students for employment shows the degree to which the social mechanisms are homogeneous in England (employability) and in Sweden (bildning). In France, the transition from higher education to employment entails a process of pre-professionalisation. This is characterised by the dominant role of professional skills and their incorporation into the structure of initial higher education itself. Rather than the outcome of a process of marketisation, this mechanism of pre-professionalisation is explained by the persistence of an idealised conception of “matching” that still profoundly marks the relations between education and employment in France.