Search results

In the years following high school, youth, including youth with extensive support needs, aspire to pursue a range of personally important experiences, such as attending postsecondary education programs, obtaining competitive employment, and living independently. However, the level of disability continues to be a powerful predictor of the degree to which desired outcomes materialize in early adulthood. For most young adults with extensive support needs, valued outcomes are elusive. To support youth with disabilities, including youth with extensive support needs, to progress toward achieving their post-school goals, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990 mandated the provision of transition services. Despite the legal mandate for transition services, numerous factors continue to impact the outcomes experienced by youth with extensive support needs. However, research has identified numerous practices to support improved post-school outcomes. In this chapter, we address the transition mandates of the IDEA, identify and describe factors influencing the post-school outcomes of youth with extensive support needs, and provide strategies, practices, and interventions for improving these outcomes.

The chapter assesses the state of research and gender-specific data in maritime shipping and ports. This is crucial for implementing and promoting Sustainable Development Goal 5 ‘Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’ in the sector under study. Moreover, the present chapter examines whether progress has been made regarding the availability of gender-related data and research in the port sector.

An extensive review of the literature covering gender-related research in the shipping and port sectors going back to the pre-1990 period has been carried out. Next, data from the Port Performance Scorecard established under the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) TrainForTrade (TfT) Port Management Programme (PMP) is analysed, covering the 2015–2020 period. Last, this research is complemented by the results of a survey conducted in 2021 across UNCTAD’s TfT port network.

The literature review identified the main gender dimensions affecting maritime shipping and ports, namely health, empowerment, economic, and education. These results were completed by insights generated by the analysis of gender-related data obtained through selected member ports of the UNCTAD TfT PMP. Overall, the data provided information about the state of play and the existing data gaps and limitations relating to mainstreaming the gender dimension in maritime shipping and ports. It confirmed that traditional stereotypes about the type of job functions that can be fulfilled by women remain prevalent in these two sectors. In this context, the chapter concludes that improving data availability and accessibility in maritime shipping and ports is imperative to advance research and evidence-based policymaking that promote gender equality in maritime transport. Closing the data gap and refining data on gender across the maritime supply chain sector is therefore key. As available data are insufficiently accessible and highly aggregated and which in turn limits the analytical scope, the present chapter recommends that a framework for a Maritime Shipping and Port Gender Equality and Diversity Index be established while leveraging existing data and efforts, including by UNCTAD.

The UK government has suggested that women's inequality can be addressed through improved education and training. The aim of this paper is to explore the extent to which this is the case by examining the opportunities for learning in a range of low‐paid jobs in local government, which are predominantly but not exclusively occupied by women.

Drawing on a case study involving over 100 face‐to‐face interviews with low‐paid workers, their supervisors, managers, trainers and union representatives in one local authority, it uses Scherer's 2004 framework to examine whether low‐paid jobs and the opportunities they provide for training act as “stepping stones” or “traps” to job progression and better pay.

As a solution to the problem of low pay, the discourse of individual self‐improvement under‐estimates the structural problems facing low‐paid workers, their lack of resources and entitlements to learning. Moreover, it ignores the fact that many low‐paid workers in the public sector value their work as socially useful. This public service ethos should not be a justification for low basic pay.

This paper extends the theme of gender equality in UK public services by examining to what extent measures focusing on education and training can lift women workers off the “sticky floor” of low‐paid low status work.

In the next decade, over 500,000 students with autism spectrum disorder will graduate high school, over 60% with average to above-average IQs (Institutional Center for Special Education Research, 2011). Attention is rightfully drawn to the potent challenge of optimizing lifespan outcomes for Generation A. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) passed in 2014 calls for a unified and social model supports structure to help the education to pre-employment transition through “Required Activities.” This includes job exploration counseling, integrated work-based learning experiences, postsecondary educational programs at institutions of higher education, social skills, and self-advocacy training. WIOA aims to streamline Pre-Employment Transition Services and end the medical model, deficits-based approach from education to integrated, paid employment.

The authors of the bill realized the necessity to achieve its goals through “Authorized Activities” encompassing the implementation of effective strategies for integrated work and independent living, the dissemination of information and knowledge across multistate partnerships, and learning new skills to support students in vocational rehabilitation (VR) and educational settings. The 2019 interpretation of WIOA states the educational and VR systems cannot draw funding from “Authorized Activities” and must instead focus on “Required Activities” leaving a gaping hole in the provision of services through lack of training and partnerships.

Despite billions in government funding, systems remain siloed. Over 50% of autistic adults remain in segregated, subminimum wage jobs, and the 85% underemployment or unemployment rate for autistic graduates, with and without college degrees, remains. Generation A calls for the effective delivery of WIOA to enjoy integrated, meaningful employment and financial independence.

This chapter explores how hybrid organizations navigate the challenges (and opportunities) associated with advancing unconventional logic combinations. It draws from a study of the 180-year history of sheltered workshops in the United States. Sheltered workshops are hybrids that combine social and commercial logics to provide gainful employment to individuals with disabilities. This chapter theorizes a connection between the governance system – that is, country-based social norms and regulatory settlements – framing hybrids and the agency that allows them the discretion required to advance unconventional combinations. It introduces the term hybrid agency to describe this connection and identifies four types: upstream, midstream, downstream, and crosscurrent. Upstream agency draws from the entrepreneurial vision of charismatic founders. It allows hybrids the discretion to advance unconventional logic combinations in unsupportive times, but it also requires them to observe certain dominant cultural norms. Midstream agency draws from hybrids’ adaptation and advocacy skills and resources in periods of historical change. It allows access to resources and legitimacy for unconventional combinations. Downstream agency draws from organizational slack possible in supportive times. Slack eases tensions and tradeoffs between conflicting logics but may also fuel mission drift. Finally, crosscurrent agency also draws from hybrids’ adaptation and advocacy skills and resources. It provides hybrids with the opportunity to grapple with challenges in periods of contestation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of a significant group of retail employees, specifically the African‐American operations and service workers that worked behind the scenes in department stores during the Jim Crow era, defined here as 1890‐1965.

Department stores have rightly occupied a prominent place in business historiography. This wealth of scholarship can be explained partly by substantial archival resources, but especially by department stores' significance to US business, cultural, and social history. Yet, despite this rich historiography, a significant number of department store employees have been overlooked, and this omission has distorted the picture of the work culture and marketing strategies of these massive and influential retail institutions. Department stores employ a large number of operations and service staff, such as delivery people, housekeeping and maintenance workers, elevator operators, stock workers, packers, and warehouse workers. These positions make up roughly one‐fifth of all department store work. This paper presents a close study of the two most prominent department stores of early and mid‐twentieth century Richmond, Virginia – Thalhimers and Miller & Rhoads – to offer insight into the work culture and workplace experiences of these employees.

Ultimately, this paper shows that African‐American employees played an important role in the maintenance and image of Richmond department stores. Store managers place high demands for “loyalty” and “faithfulness” on their black staff to demonstrate their lavish services to the buying public. For black employees, this means that the work environment can be highly stressful, as they seek to meet competing demands from customers and co‐workers. However, department store work offers opportunities, in particular, steady employment among a close network of African‐American coworkers. Finally, the presence of segregated black employees undermines managements' attempts to convey their workforce as one “happy family.”

The research is entirely based on two high‐end department stores, Miller & Rhoads and Thalhimers, both based in Richmond, Virginia. Two store archives – available at the Valentine Richmond History Center and the Virginia Historical Society – are the primary resources for this project. Because, the papers in these archives are donated by store managers, a limitation to this study is the dearth of unmediated voices of the employees themselves.

This research adds to the historiography of department stores by shedding light on employees who are expected by employers to remain nearly invisible in their jobs, and unfortunately, have been fairly invisible in the historical record as well.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the relationship between “entrepreneurial segregation” – self‐employment in a gender typical or atypical sector – and social capital.

This paper is based on analysis of data from the 2006 wave of the European Social Survey (ESS). A sample of 2,214 male and female business owners is extracted from the dataset. The sample comprises four sub‐samples – females in female‐dominated industries (n=283); females in male‐dominated industries (337); males in male‐dominated industries (n=1,476) and males in female‐dominated industries (n=118). Regression analysis is used to determine the impact of business owners' gender and the sector of their firm upon their levels of social capital.

Women who operate firms in traditionally female sectors are found to have the highest levels of social capital. In stark contrast, those individuals – men and women – working in traditionally male sectors exhibit lower levels of social capital, measured in terms of trust, community engagement and social networks. Furthermore, self‐employment in a gender traditional or non‐traditional sector is found to be a significant predictor of social capital.

This paper adds to the literature on female entrepreneurship in general but also contributes to the embryonic body of work that is concerned with segregation in self‐employment. To date, very little research has been conducted on women in atypical enterprises, or on the nature of their activities. This paper is a preliminary step towards filling this academic gap. No prior study has assessed the social capital men and women entrepreneurs operating traditional and non‐traditional enterprises.

This paper maps gender‐related outcomes of the World Trade Organization Government Procurement Code (GPC) by highlighting the role of deskilling in changing labor market rewards for women employed in traditionally feminine service occupations.

The emergence of the “contract state” is examined as a major response to the GPC, one, that generates fragmentation and promotes deskilling in public service jobs. Fragmentation is examined by comparing average income in direct public employment and in public procurement contracts.

In the context of service procurement, previous collective agreements recognizing skill and experience are circumvented generating precarious employment for skilled employees.

The analysis unveils the ways in which the contract state through its prioritization of low‐cost bids, promotes women's deskilling in public services. It contributes to a better understanding of the importance of employees' representatives' active participation in tender committees as well as in long‐term auditing of service contractors.

Traditionally, participation in the local community has been considered a crucial component of community living for people with learning disabilities. Highlighted in Valuing People (DH, 2001) and in Valuing People Now (DH, 2007), this concept ‐ now appearing as ‘inclusion’ ‐ has retained its prominence, and is an important area for service development and monitoring. Monitoring of community activities was undertaken pre‐ and post‐closure of two small day service facilities. The findings indicate that for this group of people (generally older with higher support needs) the closure of the day service facilities did not, overall, result in a significant increase in community activities. The availability of the time that the person had previously spent in specialist day services was not, by and large, used to develop social inclusion. Even though, for some individuals, some gains were recorded, overall these gains were considered a poor return for the hours released from the closure of the day service facilities.

This paper examines the associations between obesity, employment status and wages for several European countries. Our results provide weak evidence that obese workers are more likely to be unemployed or tend to be more segregated in self-employment jobs than their non-obese counterparts. We also find difficult to detect statistically significant relationships between obesity and wages. As previously reported in the literature, the associations between obesity, unemployment and wages seem to be different for men and women. Moreover, heterogeneity is also found across countries. Such heterogeneity can be somewhat explained by some labor market institutions, such as collective bargaining coverage and employer-provided health insurance.