Reconceptualising graduate resilience - an integrated multi-level framework for future research

This paper draws on Bourdieusian social theory to reconceptualise graduate resilience in post-industrial societies to provide a fresh perspective on a concept that has gained increasing prominence in recent years. Through a review of sociological critiques of resilience, this paper argues that graduate resilience is a complex social phenomenon shaped by a range of factors, including material and social resources. In response, we propose an integrated multi-level framework that identifies different stages of graduate resilience, in the context of early transitions into the labour market, and how these stages are shaped at the micro, meso, and macro levels. This framework places resilience in the context of neo-liberalism and highlights structural barriers that hinder the building and signalling of graduate resilience. We argue that the framework enables current representations and understandings of graduate resilience within research, policy, and practice to be problematised and provides a critical starting point for advancing understanding.