City Research Online

Abstract

Student employment (‘Earning while Learning (EwL)) is commonplace in the UK and globally. Previous research has typically focused only on higher education, conceiving of students as abstract economic actors. Drawing on focus group data with 83 women students in school, further and higher education in England, the article offers a retheorisation of EwL through the novel concept of ‘Constellations of Embeddedness’. The article makes several critical interventions. First, by disaggregating different educational levels, we complicate homogenising ideas about EwL and the student worker. Second, by synthesising theories from economic sociology and personal life, we propose a novel theorisation of the ways in which multilevel structures (education, the law, labour market) intersect dynamically and co-constitutively with the personal to shape practices and understandings across time. As a processual concept Constellations of Embeddedness offers a dynamic theory of structure and agency which can reveal change over time and space.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2026 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is the accepted manuscript of an article published by Taylor and Francis. Please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions for information on re-use.
Publisher Keywords:	Embeddedness; Employment; Family relationships; Part-time employment; Personal life; Student work
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB1603 Secondary Education. High schools L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs School of Policy & Global Affairs > Department of Sociology & Criminology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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