Educating society's future PR practitioners: An exploration of 'preparedness' as a qualitative indicator of higher education preparedness

In the context of debates about the performance of Higher Education (HE) in which quantitative measures proliferate, this chapter reports the top line observations of an initial exploration of the preparedness for practice of recent graduates of a Public Relations (PR) course at a post-1992 United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education Institution (HEI). Preparedness for practice is chosen as a conceptual lens (as preparedness for the uncertainty of practice) because HEIs frequently promise it.

Using a Bourdieusian framework, preparedness is considered in relation to habitus-field match and HE performance as capital-added in habitus transformation. The chapter offers a complementary way of considering the dynamic between educator and recent graduate agency and how that might be applied when studying course and student performance, designing curricula and developing appropriate “signature pedagogies”, especially for those HE actors tasked with delivering against the “promise” of graduate preparedness.

In considering preparedness for practice as a performative function of HE, the chapter is located in wider societal debates about the “worth” of HE and offers insight for educators of future PR practitioners.

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