1. Using the internet to explore employability in American and British HEIs: a discourse analysis DeeshaChadha & James Toner King’s College London

2. Background to the work • The employability agenda has shifted, but equally become more central to HEIs • The discourse has developed, but is it clear, complex, confusing? • How do we know what it is? • What might that understanding lead to?

3. Methodological approach: discourse analysis ‘How do Higher education institutions (HEIs) represent employability through the world wide web?’ • 40 HEIs were selected from a rankings table from both the USA and the UK • The term ‘employability’ was typed into the search engine • First 5 pages that came up were downloaded and printed off for analysis

4. Insights • In the UK, conscious effort is made to advertise the achievements of graduates • In the UK, a greater emphasis is placed on the engagement between students and the careers service (or equivalent) than is the case in the USA • Both in the USA and in the UK, there are indications of employability becoming increasingly synonymous with enterprise and entrepreneurialism • In the USA, there are a number of examples of the employability agenda being linked with community engagement

5. Playing with the data… • What if the data could be looked at in another way? • Disseminated more widely? Discussed? • What else could be learnt? • What other questions might arise? • http://hern.org.uk/exhibit/employ.html