The role of informal networks in providing effective work opportunities for people with an intellectual disability

Being in paid employment is socially valued, and is linked to health, financial security and time use. Issues arising from a lack of occupational choice and control, and from diminished role partnerships are particularly problematic in the lives of people with an intellectual disability. Informal support networks are shown to influence work opportunities for people without disabilities, but their impact on the work experiences of people with disability has not been thoroughly explored. The experience of 'work' and preparation for work was explored with a group of four people with an intellectual disability (the participants) and the key members of their informal support networks (network members) in New South Wales, Australia. Network members and participants were interviewed and participant observations of work and other activities were undertaken. Data analysis included open, conceptual and thematic coding. Data analysis software assisted in managing the large datasets across multiple team members. The insight and actions of network members created and sustained the employment and support opportunities that effectively matched the needs and interests of the participants. Recommendations for future research are outlined.

Supervisory safety practices in the work-related driving context

Work-related driving crashes are the most common cause of work-related injury, death, and absence from work in Australia and overseas. Surprisingly however, limited attention has been given to initiatives designed to improve safety outcomes in the work-related driving setting. This research paper will present preliminary findings from a research project designed to examine the effects of increasing work-related driving safety discussions on the relationship between drivers and their supervisors and motivations to drive safely. The research project was conducted within a community nursing population, where 112 drivers were matched with 23 supervisors. To establish discussions between supervisors and drivers, safety sessions were conducted on a monthly basis with supervisors of the drivers. At these sessions, the researcher presented context specific, audio-based anti-speeding messages. Throughout the course of the intervention and following each of these safety sessions, supervisors were instructed to ensure that all drivers within their workgroup listened to each particular anti-speeding message at least once a fortnight. In addition to the message, supervisors were also encouraged to frequently promote the anti-speeding message through any contact they had with their drivers (i.e., face to face, email, SMS text, and/or paper based contact). Fortnightly discussions were subsequently held with drivers, whereby the researchers ascertained the number and type of discussions supervisors engaged in with their drivers. These discussions also assessed drivers’ perceptions of the group safety climate. In addition to the fortnightly discussion, drivers completed a daily speed reporting form which assessed the proportion of their driving day spent knowingly over the speed limit. As predicted, the results found that if supervisors reported a good safety climate prior to the intervention, increasing the number of safety discussions resulted in drivers reporting a high quality relationship (i.e., leader-member exchange) with their supervisor post intervention. In addition, if drivers reported a good safety climate, increasing the number of discussions resulted in increased motivation to drive safely post intervention. Motivations to drive safely prior to the intervention also predicted self-reported speeding over the subsequent three months of reporting. These results suggest safety discussions play an important role in improving the exchange between supervisors and their drivers and drivers’ subsequent motivation to drive safely and, in turn, self reported speeding.

Improvement through people for the emerging new work practices in manufacturing

This paper describes the changes occurring in manufacturing industries and their effect on knowledge and skills necessary to perform effectively in the new environments. The changes in knowledge and skills are presented as a summary to illustrate the extent of the change. The concept of multiskilling is used to conceptualise the emerging new knowledge and skills and finally some guidelines for designing training programs to acquire multiskilling are presented.

Children re-read and re-write their neighborhoods : critical literacies and identity work

This chapter considers the complex literate repertoires of 21st century children in multicultural primary classrooms in Adelaide South Australia. It draws on the curricular and pedagogical work of two experienced primary school teachers who explore culture, race and class, by positioning children as textual producers across a variety of media. In particular we discuss two child-authored texts – A is for Arndale – a local alphabet book co-authored by children aged between eight and ten, and – Cooking Afghani Style - a magazine style film produced by a multi-aged class of children (aged eight to thirteen) recently arrived in Australia. In the process of making these texts, primary children engaged in reading as a cultural practice – re-reading and re-writing their neighbourhoods and identities (both individual and collective). This involved frequent excursions to local key sites, both familiar and unfamiliar to the children. They investigated how diverse children experienced and lived their lives in particular places within changing communities.

Critical literacies in place : teachers who work for just and sustainable communities

This chapter draws upon theories of social justice, critical literacy and place-based pedagogies and two research projects to discuss how teachers are working ethically and creatively towards a sustainable and just society in their place(s).

The relative impact of work-related stress, life stress and driving environment stress on driving outcomes

Previous research has shown the association between stress and crash involvement. The impact of stress on road safety may also be mediated by behaviours including cognitive lapses, errors, and intentional traffic violations. This study aimed to provide a further understanding of the impact that stress from different sources may have upon driving behaviour and road safety. It is asserted that both stress extraneous to the driving environment and stress directly elicited by driving must be considered part of a dynamic system that may have a negative impact on driving behaviours. Two hundred and forty-seven public sector employees from Queensland, Australia, completed self-report measures examining demographics, subjective work-related stress, daily hassles, and aspects of general mental health. Additionally, the Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) and the Driver Stress Inventory (DSI) were administered. All participants drove for work purposes regularly, however the study did not specifically focus on full-time professional drivers. Confirmatory factor analysis of the predictor variables revealed three factors: DSI negative affect; DSI risk taking; and extraneous influences (daily hassles, work-related stress, and general mental health). Moderate intercorrelations were found between each of these factors confirming the ‘spillover’ effect. That is, driver stress is reciprocally related to stress in other domains including work and domestic life. Structural equation modelling (SEM) showed that the DSI negative affect factor influenced both lapses and errors, whereas the DSI risk-taking factor was the strongest influence on violations. The SEMs also confirmed that daily hassles extraneous to the driving environment may influence DBQ lapses and violations independently. Accordingly, interventions may be developed to increase driver awareness of the dangers of excessive emotional responses to both driving events and daily hassles (e.g. driving fast to ‘blow off steam’ after an argument). They may also train more effective strategies for self-regulation of emotion and coping when encountering stressful situations on the road.

Assurance of learning : the role of work integrated learning and industry partners

In the partnering with students and industry it is important for universities to recognize and value the nature of knowledge and learning that emanates from work integrated learning experiences is different to formal university based learning. Learning is not a by-product of work rather learning is fundamental to engaging in work practice. Work integrated learning experiences provide unique opportunities for students to integrate theory and practice through the solving of real world problems. This paper reports findings to date of a project that sought to identify key issues and practices faced by academics, industry partners and students engaged in the provision and experience of work integrated learning within an undergraduate creative industries program at a major metropolitan university. In this paper, those findings are focused on some of the particular qualities and issues related to the assessment of learning at and through the work integrated experience. The findings suggest that the assessment strategies needed to better value the knowledges and practices of the Creative Industries. The paper also makes recommendations about how industry partners might best contribute to the assessment of students’ developing capabilities and to continuous reflection on courses and the assurance of learning agenda.

Work integrated learning : an industry partners’ perspective

In recent years the Australian tertiary education sector may be said to be undergoing a vocational transformation. Vocationalism, that is, an emphasis on learning directed at work related outcomes is increasingly shaping the nature of tertiary education. This paper reports some findings to date of a project that seeks to identify the key issues faced by students, industry and university partners engaged in the provision of WIL within an undergraduate program offered by the Creative Industries faculty of a major metropolitan university. Here, those findings are focussed on some of the motivations and concerns of the industry partners who make their workplaces available for student internships. Businesses are not universities and do not perceive of themselves as primarily learning institutions. However, their perspectives of work integrated learning and their contributions to it need to understand more fully at practical and conceptual levels of learning provision. This paper and the findings presented here suggest that the diversity of industry partner motivations and concerns contributing to WIL provision requires that universities understand and appreciate those partners as contributors with them to a culture of learning provision and support. These industry partner contribution need to be understood as valuing work as learning, not work as something that needs to be integrated with learning to make that learning more authentic and thereby more vocational.

Young people’s aspirations for education, work, family and leisure

Young people are arguably facing more ‘complex and contested’ transitions to adulthood and an increasing array of ‘non-linear’ paths. Education and training have been extended, identity is increasingly shaped through leisure and consumerism and youth must navigate their life trajectories in highly individualised ways. The study utilises 819 short essays compiled by students aged 14–16 years from 19 schools in Australia. It examines how young people understand their own unique positions and the possibilities open to them through their aspirations and future orientations to employment and family life. These young people do not anticipate postponing work identities, but rather embrace post-school options such as gaining qualifications, work experience and achieving financial security. Boys expected a distant involvement in family life secondary to participation in paid work. In contrast, around half the girls simultaneously expected a future involving primary care-giving and an autonomous, independent career, suggesting attempts to remake gendered inequalities

Gender influences on the work-related stress-coping process

The increasing incidence of occupational stress is recognized as a global phenomenon that is having a detrimental impact on both individuals and organizations. This study aims to identify whether men and women adopt different stress and coping processes when subjected to stress in a work context. A total of 258 workers of various professions (males = 106, females = 152) participated in the study. Results indicated that men and women differ in their stress and coping processes, forming two very distinct groups and adopting specific process models when encountering a stressful situation at work. Limitations and implications from this study are discussed.

The work of women teachers in primary literacy education : knowing and doing

This paper provides a retrospective account of three decades of my work as a literacy educator and researcher. Taking key insights from feminist sociologist, Dorothy Smith, including women’s standpoint, the everyday world as problematic, institutional capture, a sociology for the people, I revisit my research on literacy, poverty and schooling. I argue that understanding better the effects of what we do in educational institutions, through collaborative research with teachers, can lead us to generate positive alternative equity-driven practices.

Sustaining the next generation of teacher-researchers to work for social justice

This chapter explores a research project involving teachers working with some of the most disadvantaged young people in South Australia, children growing up in poverty, in families struggling with homelessness and ill-health, in the outer southern suburbs. Additionally, there were particular children were struggling with intellectual, emotional and social difficulties which were extreme enough for them not be included in a mainstream class. The research project made two crucial interrelated moves to support teachers to tackle this tough work. First, the project had an explicit social justice agenda. We were not simply researching literacy outcomes, but literacy pedagogies for the students teachers were most worried about. And we wanted to understand how the material conditions of students’ everyday lifeworlds impacted on the working conditions of teachers’ schoolworlds. We sought to open up a discursive space where teachers could talk about poverty, violence, racism and classism in ways that would take them beyond despair and into new imaginings and positive action. Second, the project was designed to start from the urgent questions of early career teachers and to draw on the accumulated practice wisdom of their chosen mentors. Hence we designed not only a teacher-researcher community, but cross-generational networks. Our aim was to build the capacities of both generations to address long-standing educational problems in new ways that drew overtly on their different and complementary resources.

Teachers' work and pedagogy in an era of accountability

A great deal of educational policy proceeds as though teachers are malleable and ever-responsive to change. Some argue they are positioned as technicians who simply implement policy. However, how teachers go about their work and respond to reform agendas may be contingent upon many factors that are both biographical in nature and workplace related. In this paper we discuss the work of middle school teachers in low-socioeconomic communities from their perspectives. Referring to reflective interviews, meeting transcripts and an electronic reporting template, we examine how teacher participants in a school reform project describe their work - what they emphasise and what they down-play or omit. Using Foucaultian approaches to critical discourse analysis and insights from Dorothy Smith's (2005) Institutional Ethnography, we consider the 'discursive economy' (Carlson, 2005) in teachers' reported experiences of their everyday practices in northern suburbs schools in South Australia in which a democratic progressive discourse exists alongside corporate and disciplinary discourses.