Beyond the compulsory: a critical exploration of the experiences of extracurricular activity and employability in a northern red brick university

There has been an increasing emphasis placed on the skills and attributes that university students develop whilst studying for their degree. These ‘narratives of employability’ often construct extracurricular activity (ECA) as an essential part of gaining post-graduation employment. However, these future-oriented drivers of engagement often neglect the role ECAs have within contemporary student life-worlds, particularly with respect to lower-income students. Drawing on a 3-year longitudinal study that tracked a cohort of 40 undergraduates throughout their student life cycle, this paper examines how students in a northern English red brick university understood the purposes of ECA, and how they chose to engage with it. The results suggest ECAs appear to be somewhat stratified in terms of timeliness of engagement and motivation to participate. By extension, the paper argues that those recent attempts to measure and use ECA to narrate future ‘global’ employability are likely to reproduce well-established inequalities. As such, any further pressure to engage with ECAs solely in terms of employability could result in the further marginalisation of lower-income students.