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Primary data based on 1,083 observations were analyzed to examine the reactions and perceptions of male and female employees across categories about workforce diversity status in Indian organizations. Results indicated the prevalence of gender and category (racial) discrimination in Indian organizations. Male employees rated female employees less qualified, less competent, and less productive than females rated themselves. General category employees perceived that minority and socially disadvantaged employees were less competent and productive. Almost all employees believed that minority, socially disadvantaged, and disabled employees were provided with comparatively less organizational support in terms of working facilities, promotions, and salary increases. Even females of the general category believed that they had less chance of receiving working facilities, promotions, and salary increases than males from the general category. Further, each category of employees believed themselves to be more important than others. Females from all the categories valued diversity more highly than males. Females from the general category and both males and females from minority, disabled, and socially disadvantaged categories placed higher value on employers’ efforts to promote diversity compared with general category males.

While supporting entrepreneurship through government intervention has become a global phenomenon, the OECD (2021) has identified that several communities (including women, youth, seniors, unemployed and immigrants) remain under-represented in terms of entrepreneurial activity. Inclusive entrepreneurship policies seek to enhance economic and social inclusion and emphasise the significant contribution that people from within these communities could make to local and regional development if appropriate support was offered. The purpose of this study is to examine how higher education institutions (HEIs) can co-create inclusive entrepreneurial training initiatives with local communities that support economic and social inclusion.

This in-depth qualitative study draws on the experiences of multiple stakeholders to highlight how an HEI can enhance entrepreneurial activity within under-represented and disadvantaged communities through its community engagement initiatives. The research was conducted through a revelatory case study of an Irish HEI that is newly constituted and is developing an inner-city campus with a focus on community benefit. Rich qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews and participant observation of an HEI community engagement initiative with disadvantaged communities. Thematic analysis methods were used in the processes of generating codes, categories and themes leading to the findings of this study.

The study identified that broadening the interpretation of entrepreneurial activity to value creation and developing enterprising behaviour has significant relevance for disadvantaged communities. These communities may not have the capacity to start a business yet might benefit from the personal development aspects of entrepreneurial education. Moreover, findings indicate how HEIs are uniquely positioned to develop inclusive entrepreneurial education initiatives to redress social inequalities in their regions.

As an original contribution to knowledge, this paper extends traditional education frameworks to identify individual, collective and system-level considerations in the design and development of inclusive entrepreneurial education initiatives. This study contributes an evidence-based framework to guide HEIs and their regional partners in the future development of inclusive, tailored support through entrepreneurial education.

Children from disadvantaged families often already show developmental deficits at the time of school entry. The goal of Schritt:weise, a preventive, easy-access early education program for children ages one to five is to avoid such deficits through a combination of home visits by semi-professionals as well as center-based group activities. The program has been translated and adapted from the Dutch program Opstapje and is now being implemented in different regions in Switzerland. To offer the program more readily in rural areas, four adapted models were developed. This paper aims to provide a mixed-method, combined process and outcome evaluation of these newly developed models.

For this combined process and outcome evaluation, standardized testing for child development outcomes and interviews with different stakeholders were conducted.

The evaluation found that implementation of all four models was feasible and children developed along the norm in all four of the models. This finding was confirmed one year after program completion.

Building an evidence-base to better understand success of early intervention programs is key to effectively supporting children from disadvantaged families in their development.

This early education program using home-visitation with semi-professionals is feasible and successful in reaching children from disadvantaged families.

It is possible to support children from disadvantaged families through the program Schritt:weise and prevent developmental deficits at school entry.

The finding that children developed along the norm in all four models means that the key program goal was achieved and that the specific implementation model can be chosen based on the specifics of the implementation context.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are tasked with driving economic recovery globally, particularly through knowledge diffusion and consequently, government policy-makers strive to encourage innovation activity to benefit their economies. Entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) are increasingly used as a framework through which such policies are funnelled, but an increased focus on high-growth, scale-up entrepreneurship risks overlooking the effects of entrepreneurship on social groups affected by multiple sets of disadvantage. This chapter identifies and analyses the existing research on disadvantaged entrepreneurship and the EE via a systematic review of the literature and then briefly outlines how the chapters contained within this book seek to address the gaps found.

The link between entrepreneurial intention and positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship for established and nascent entrepreneurs has been well documented in the extant literature, with the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) viewing entrepreneurial intention as a pre-requisite for entrepreneurial pursuit. Whilst scholars generally agree on these insights, little empirical evidence exists on how marginalised social groups can convert their intentions into action. This study aims to understand to what extent the elements of TPB, the attitudes towards entrepreneurship, self-efficacy and subjective norms, help explain the emergence of entrepreneurial activity amongst marginalised demographic groups.

This research focuses on unemployed women residing in social housing located in a deprived urban area of the United Kingdom to empirically examine how multiple layers of disadvantage faced by this group shape their motivations and intentions for entrepreneurial pursuit. A multi-source qualitative methodology was adopted, drawing upon inductive storytelling narratives and extensive fieldwork on a sample of unemployed ethnic minority women residing in social housing in a deprived urban area of the United Kingdom. Community organisation representatives and housing association employees within the social housing system were included to assess the interpretive capacity of TPB.

The findings display that TPB illuminates why and how marginalised groups engage in entrepreneurship. Critically, women’s entrepreneurial intentions emerge as a result of their experiences of multiple layers of disadvantage, their positionality and the specificity of few resources they can activate from their disadvantageous position for entrepreneurial activity.

By illuminating the linkages between marginalised women’s positionality and their associated access to the limited pool of resources using the TPB lens, this study contributes to emerging works on disadvantaged populations and entrepreneurial intention-action debate. This work posits that despite facing significant additional challenges through their positionality and reduced ability to mobilise resources, women in social housing can defy the odds and develop ways to overcome limited capacity and structural disadvantage.

Those most socially disadvantaged are at a greater risk of common mental disorder (CMD). The need to evaluate the health impact of social policy interventions that aim to reduce social inequalities between the disadvantaged and the better off is well recognised. This paper reports findings from a review to explore evidence on the health impact of UK policy interventions that aim to tackle the key social determinants of CMD. These were previously identified from the literature as cumulative socioeconomic deprivation, unemployment, psychosocial work characteristics, and poor social relationships. We identified some evidence of a positive impact on CMD of urban regeneration schemes, but evidence was sparse on interventions relating to the other determinants. The ability of research to inform policy designed to improve the lives of the disadvantaged could be assisted by a broader definition of what counts as evidence. This may include wider use of qualitative methodologies and a more deliberate focus on social processes known to be implicated in mental health.

This chapter explores the class identities of upwardly mobile and middle-class members of racial minorities in France and the United States. Through in-depth interviewing with African Americans and descendants of North African immigrants in, respectively, the United States and France, and comparing these with their counterparts of the racially dominant group, the chapter shows that racial processes significantly shape the mobility experiences and the range of dilemmas, challenges and identity negotiations faced by our minority respondents. Drawing on the Critical Race Theory and on the minority culture of mobility theory (Neckerman, Carter, & Lee., 1999), it suggests that the ongoing salience of racial discrimination coupled with the maintenance of ties with socially disadvantaged members of their groups significantly shape the ways in which our respondents make sense of their class location. The chapter further points to under-researched nation-specific ideological repertoires in shaping our respondents’ mobility experiences and class identities.