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<p>This article conceptualises graduate employability as a classed and institutionally mediated process rather than a neutral accumulation of skills. Drawing on a decade-long longitudinal research project tracking rural students in China’s elite ‘985’ universities, the study analyses post-graduation interviews as an analytical anchor, systematically triangulated with participants’ first- and second-wave interview materials to reconstruct trajectories of employability development during university. Building on Tomlinson’s (<CitationRef CitationID="CR33">2007</CitationRef>) typology, we identify four employability orientations—careerists, adventurers, drifters, and ritualists—and refine these categories through inductive coding (e.g., established versus developmental careerists; structurally bound versus pragmatic ritualists). Patterns observed in the qualitative interview subsample suggest that rural graduates are more frequently located in the adventurer, drifter, and ritualist orientations, characterised by delayed career crystallisation, limited career literacy, and stronger reliance on university-provided institutional scripts, such as programme-based placements, mandated internships, and formalised career services. Compliance with prescribed employability activities does not necessarily translate into advantageous labour-market outcomes when participation is weakly connected to recognised signals and networks. At the same time, sustained engagement in high-impact enrichment experiences can foster reflexive sense-making, enabling some participants to shift from exploratory engagement toward more strategic career management over time. By centring graduates’ lived and longitudinally reconstructed experiences, this study contributes to cultural-matching scholarship by specifying how misalignments between rural habitus and elite institutional norms shape the learnability and convertibility of employability capital in a state–market hybrid context. The article concludes by outlining implications for universities and employers, including earlier career-literacy interventions and more integrated experiential learning.</p>

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Classed pathways to employability: rural undergraduates’ career Orientations in China’s elite universities

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年5月2日

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  • Ailei Xie,
  • Qunqun Liu

摘要

This article conceptualises graduate employability as a classed and institutionally mediated process rather than a neutral accumulation of skills. Drawing on a decade-long longitudinal research project tracking rural students in China’s elite ‘985’ universities, the study analyses post-graduation interviews as an analytical anchor, systematically triangulated with participants’ first- and second-wave interview materials to reconstruct trajectories of employability development during university. Building on Tomlinson’s (2007) typology, we identify four employability orientations—careerists, adventurers, drifters, and ritualists—and refine these categories through inductive coding (e.g., established versus developmental careerists; structurally bound versus pragmatic ritualists). Patterns observed in the qualitative interview subsample suggest that rural graduates are more frequently located in the adventurer, drifter, and ritualist orientations, characterised by delayed career crystallisation, limited career literacy, and stronger reliance on university-provided institutional scripts, such as programme-based placements, mandated internships, and formalised career services. Compliance with prescribed employability activities does not necessarily translate into advantageous labour-market outcomes when participation is weakly connected to recognised signals and networks. At the same time, sustained engagement in high-impact enrichment experiences can foster reflexive sense-making, enabling some participants to shift from exploratory engagement toward more strategic career management over time. By centring graduates’ lived and longitudinally reconstructed experiences, this study contributes to cultural-matching scholarship by specifying how misalignments between rural habitus and elite institutional norms shape the learnability and convertibility of employability capital in a state–market hybrid context. The article concludes by outlining implications for universities and employers, including earlier career-literacy interventions and more integrated experiential learning.