Graduate dress code: How undergraduates are planning to use hair, clothes and make-up to smooth their transition to the workplace
Abstract
This article explores the relationship between students’ identities, their ideas about professional appearance and their anticipated transition to the world of work. It is based on a series of semi-structured interviews with 13 students from a vocationally-focused university in England. It was found that participants viewed clothing and appearance as an important aspect of their transition to the workplace. They believed that, if carefully handled, their appearance could help them to fit in and satisfy the expectations of employers, although some participants anticipated that this process of fitting in might compromise their identity and values. The article addresses students’ anticipated means of handling the tension between adapting to a new environment and ‘being themselves’. It is argued that the way this process is handled is intertwined with wider facets of identity – most notably those associated with gender.Citation
Cutts, B., Hooley, T. and Yates, J. (2015). Graduate dress code: How undergraduates are planning to use hair, clothes and make-up to smooth their transition to the workplace. Industry and Higher Education, 29 (4):271-282.Journal
Industry and Higher EducationDOI
10.5367/ihe.2015.0261Additional Links
http://openurl.ingenta.com/content/xref?genre=article&issn=0950-4222&volume=29&issue=4&spage=271Type
ArticleLanguage
enISSN
9504222ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.5367/ihe.2015.0261