This article is about those who need or want to make a living from working on online platforms. Moreover, questions of financial dependence are related to why this work is done and what social recognition the workers expect from it. Our mixed‐methods approach captures this heterogeneous field of online platform work by dividing it into three categories: (a) microwork, (b) mesowork, and (c) macrowork. Microwork involves offering short, repetitive tasks to an anonymous crowd, such as human intelligence tasks. Macrowork consists of market‐based freelance platforms offering highly skilled professionals complex and more extensive tasks. In between, mesowork covers platforms offering specialized tasks such as software testing or content creation. While income opportunities and working conditions vary widely between these platforms, common features include self‐employment and the ability to work from anywhere. Quantitative results show that only for a few highly skilled workers does income from platform work account for a crucial share of their household income. Surprisingly, workers’ household incomes do not differ by skill level. Qualitative results complement this picture by giving us a more contextual understanding of the significant variation among workers. We find cases in which monetary remuneration is not the only reason for doing platform work. So, despite all the criticism of precarious working conditions, platform work does have some positive aspects and can also hold the potential for the social inclusion of people who cannot participate in traditional labor markets. This article contributes to these discussions by providing workers’ perspectives on the risks and challenges of online platform work, acknowledging their different living situations, socioeconomic status, and health issues.
{"title":"Dependency and Social Recognition of Online Platform Workers: Evidence From a Mixed‐Methods Study","authors":"Dominik Klaus, Barbara Haas, Maddalena Lamura","doi":"10.17645/si.v11i4.7186","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v11i4.7186","url":null,"abstract":"This article is about those who need or want to make a living from working on online platforms. Moreover, questions of financial dependence are related to why this work is done and what social recognition the workers expect from it. Our mixed‐methods approach captures this heterogeneous field of online platform work by dividing it into three categories: (a) microwork, (b) mesowork, and (c) macrowork. Microwork involves offering short, repetitive tasks to an anonymous crowd, such as human intelligence tasks. Macrowork consists of market‐based freelance platforms offering highly skilled professionals complex and more extensive tasks. In between, mesowork covers platforms offering specialized tasks such as software testing or content creation. While income opportunities and working conditions vary widely between these platforms, common features include self‐employment and the ability to work from anywhere. Quantitative results show that only for a few highly skilled workers does income from platform work account for a crucial share of their household income. Surprisingly, workers’ household incomes do not differ by skill level. Qualitative results complement this picture by giving us a more contextual understanding of the significant variation among workers. We find cases in which monetary remuneration is not the only reason for doing platform work. So, despite all the criticism of precarious working conditions, platform work does have some positive aspects and can also hold the potential for the social inclusion of people who cannot participate in traditional labor markets. This article contributes to these discussions by providing workers’ perspectives on the risks and challenges of online platform work, acknowledging their different living situations, socioeconomic status, and health issues.","PeriodicalId":37948,"journal":{"name":"Social Inclusion","volume":"14 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135932816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Covid‐19 pandemic caused a digitalization boost, mainly through the rise of telework. Even before the pandemic, advancing digital transformation restructured the way of working and thereby changed the quality of jobs—albeit at a different pace across occupations. With data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we examine how job quality and the use of digital technologies changed during the first pandemic year in different occupations. Building on this, we analyze change score models to investigate how increased workplace digitalization connects to changes in selected aspects of employees’ subjective job quality. We find only a weak association between the digitalization boost in different occupational fields and the overall decrease in subjective job quality. However, telework—as one aspect of digitalization—is connected to a smaller decrease in work–family reconciliation and conformable working hours. Thus, it may buffer some detrimental pandemic effects on job quality. In addition, telework is connected to increased information overload, creating a new burden for specific employee groups.
{"title":"The Digitalization Boost of the Covid‐19 Pandemic and Changes in Job Quality","authors":"Teresa Sophie Friedrich, Basha Vicari","doi":"10.17645/si.v11i4.7082","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v11i4.7082","url":null,"abstract":"The Covid‐19 pandemic caused a digitalization boost, mainly through the rise of telework. Even before the pandemic, advancing digital transformation restructured the way of working and thereby changed the quality of jobs—albeit at a different pace across occupations. With data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we examine how job quality and the use of digital technologies changed during the first pandemic year in different occupations. Building on this, we analyze change score models to investigate how increased workplace digitalization connects to changes in selected aspects of employees’ subjective job quality. We find only a weak association between the digitalization boost in different occupational fields and the overall decrease in subjective job quality. However, telework—as one aspect of digitalization—is connected to a smaller decrease in work–family reconciliation and conformable working hours. Thus, it may buffer some detrimental pandemic effects on job quality. In addition, telework is connected to increased information overload, creating a new burden for specific employee groups.","PeriodicalId":37948,"journal":{"name":"Social Inclusion","volume":"5 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135933374","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How can integration education programs facilitate the more seamless inclusion of migrant newcomers into working life and civil society? Traditionally, integration policy and practice have been framed within a nation‐state discourse in which views of migrant incorporation are grounded within a bordered nationalism embodying a native–migrant dichotomy that reifies the view of the “migrant other” as a subject defined by its “lack” in competence and agency. In our qualitative multiple case study, we explored the bridging potential of integration programs in facilitating the inclusion of migrant students within working life in Helsinki and Edmonton. We examined the “inclusectionalities,” referring to the intersections of inclusion and exclusion that position adults enrolled in SFI (Swedish for Immigrants) and LINC (Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada) language integration programs in the liminal spaces between belonging and othering. Guided by an understanding of critical social inclusion where migrants set the boundaries for interactions with authorities based upon their own needs and interests, we propose a transformational approach. Here migrant learners participate in a structural process where the fluid nature of social, political, and economic arrangements is consistently renegotiated on principles of egalitarianism and the full exercise of critical agency, herein envisioned as deliberate action resisting the social domination of racialized minorities by challenging and redefining institutional structures.
{"title":"Critical Social Inclusion of Adult Migrant Language Learners in Working Life: Experiences From SFI and LINC Programs","authors":"Tobias Pötzsch, Sanna Saksela-Bergholm","doi":"10.17645/si.v11i4.7154","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v11i4.7154","url":null,"abstract":"How can integration education programs facilitate the more seamless inclusion of migrant newcomers into working life and civil society? Traditionally, integration policy and practice have been framed within a nation‐state discourse in which views of migrant incorporation are grounded within a bordered nationalism embodying a native–migrant dichotomy that reifies the view of the “migrant other” as a subject defined by its “lack” in competence and agency. In our qualitative multiple case study, we explored the bridging potential of integration programs in facilitating the inclusion of migrant students within working life in Helsinki and Edmonton. We examined the “inclusectionalities,” referring to the intersections of inclusion and exclusion that position adults enrolled in SFI (Swedish for Immigrants) and LINC (Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada) language integration programs in the liminal spaces between belonging and othering. Guided by an understanding of critical social inclusion where migrants set the boundaries for interactions with authorities based upon their own needs and interests, we propose a transformational approach. Here migrant learners participate in a structural process where the fluid nature of social, political, and economic arrangements is consistently renegotiated on principles of egalitarianism and the full exercise of critical agency, herein envisioned as deliberate action resisting the social domination of racialized minorities by challenging and redefining institutional structures.","PeriodicalId":37948,"journal":{"name":"Social Inclusion","volume":"2021 21","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135218345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this thematic issue, we present up‐to‐date research from authors who problematise the various links between adult migrants’ language learning, education, the labour market, and social inclusion. Some contributions are more focused on the relation between education and social inclusion, while others emphasise links between language learning, the labour market, and social inclusion. Together, authors in this thematic issue point to the multiple challenges migrants face when trying to establish themselves in a new country.
{"title":"Adult Migrants’ Language Learning, Labour Market, and Social Inclusion","authors":"Andreas Fejes, Magnus Dahlstedt","doi":"10.17645/si.v11i4.7583","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v11i4.7583","url":null,"abstract":"In this thematic issue, we present up‐to‐date research from authors who problematise the various links between adult migrants’ language learning, education, the labour market, and social inclusion. Some contributions are more focused on the relation between education and social inclusion, while others emphasise links between language learning, the labour market, and social inclusion. Together, authors in this thematic issue point to the multiple challenges migrants face when trying to establish themselves in a new country.","PeriodicalId":37948,"journal":{"name":"Social Inclusion","volume":"12 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135268130","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study recognizes the diversity and heterogeneous nature of a migrant group that long has been portrayed and perceived in a limited way, for instance in Norwegian media, without considering the multifaceted nature of the group in question. Drawing on data from focus group interviews, we apply narrative analysis to shed light on the impact stereotypes surrounding Poles have on Polish adult migrants’ striving for social inclusion and professional success in Norway. Being the largest migrant group in Norway, speaking a first language (L1) structurally different from Norwegian, and representing a former Eastern Bloc country, Poles constitute an important case to gain better knowledge of the interplay between language, labour, and social inclusion. Through our study, we aim to gain emic insights into parts of the process of settling in Norway. Our analysis centres on a case study of two focus group participants’ reactions to stereotypical portrayals of Polish (professionals) in Norwegian media, experiences with language learning, and the advice they would give to newcomers, as well as the importance of a sense of community for gaining the “small talk” competence necessary to ease social inclusion. The analysis draws on the key concepts of agency, investment, and well‐being. We show how the tension that occurs when second language (L2) participants are confronted with stereotypes may create a discursive space for empowerment and agency through the opportunity to contest and re‐create (professional) expectancies. The study also demonstrates that there most likely are ways forward to more inclusive practices for Polish migrants in Norway.
{"title":"No(r)way? Language Learning, Stereotypes, and Social Inclusion Among Poles in Norway","authors":"Anne Golden, Toril Opsahl","doi":"10.17645/si.v11i4.7112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v11i4.7112","url":null,"abstract":"This study recognizes the diversity and heterogeneous nature of a migrant group that long has been portrayed and perceived in a limited way, for instance in Norwegian media, without considering the multifaceted nature of the group in question. Drawing on data from focus group interviews, we apply narrative analysis to shed light on the impact stereotypes surrounding Poles have on Polish adult migrants’ striving for social inclusion and professional success in Norway. Being the largest migrant group in Norway, speaking a first language (L1) structurally different from Norwegian, and representing a former Eastern Bloc country, Poles constitute an important case to gain better knowledge of the interplay between language, labour, and social inclusion. Through our study, we aim to gain emic insights into parts of the process of settling in Norway. Our analysis centres on a case study of two focus group participants’ reactions to stereotypical portrayals of Polish (professionals) in Norwegian media, experiences with language learning, and the advice they would give to newcomers, as well as the importance of a sense of community for gaining the “small talk” competence necessary to ease social inclusion. The analysis draws on the key concepts of agency, investment, and well‐being. We show how the tension that occurs when second language (L2) participants are confronted with stereotypes may create a discursive space for empowerment and agency through the opportunity to contest and re‐create (professional) expectancies. The study also demonstrates that there most likely are ways forward to more inclusive practices for Polish migrants in Norway.","PeriodicalId":37948,"journal":{"name":"Social Inclusion","volume":"4 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135218344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Laura Wiesböck, Julia Radlherr, Mai Linh Angelique Vo
Previous studies show that gig economy‐based work opens up new ways in which inequalities are (re)produced. In this context, it is particularly important to look at female cleaners in private households, where gender inequalities intersect with other axes of disadvantage such as class, migratory experience, or ascribed ethnicity. This spatially and linguistically fragmented group presents challenges for scientific research, which is reflected in insufficient data available to date. The aim of the project GigClean—from which research for this article is drawn—is to address this gap. The guiding research question is: How do domestic cleaners in the informal labour market experience working in the gig economy? The methodological design consists of 15 problem‐centred interviews with platform‐based cleaning labourers in private households in Vienna, who predominantly operate in the informal economy. Our results suggest that undeclared domestic work via online plat‐forms is associated with increased power gaps between workers and clients as well as changing working conditions to the detriment of cleaners. Specifically, three recurring themes could be identified: reserve army mechanisms; lookism, objectification, and sexual harassment; and information asymmetry and control.
{"title":"Domestic Cleaners in the Informal Labour Market: New Working Realities Shaped by the Gig Economy?","authors":"Laura Wiesböck, Julia Radlherr, Mai Linh Angelique Vo","doi":"10.17645/si.v11i4.7119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v11i4.7119","url":null,"abstract":"Previous studies show that gig economy‐based work opens up new ways in which inequalities are (re)produced. In this context, it is particularly important to look at female cleaners in private households, where gender inequalities intersect with other axes of disadvantage such as class, migratory experience, or ascribed ethnicity. This spatially and linguistically fragmented group presents challenges for scientific research, which is reflected in insufficient data available to date. The aim of the project GigClean—from which research for this article is drawn—is to address this gap. The guiding research question is: How do domestic cleaners in the informal labour market experience working in the gig economy? The methodological design consists of 15 problem‐centred interviews with platform‐based cleaning labourers in private households in Vienna, who predominantly operate in the informal economy. Our results suggest that undeclared domestic work via online plat‐forms is associated with increased power gaps between workers and clients as well as changing working conditions to the detriment of cleaners. Specifically, three recurring themes could be identified: reserve army mechanisms; lookism, objectification, and sexual harassment; and information asymmetry and control.","PeriodicalId":37948,"journal":{"name":"Social Inclusion","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135219720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Language has gained increasing importance in immigration policies in Western European states, with a new model of citizenship, the ius linguarum (Fejes, 2019; Fortier, 2022), at its core. Accordingly, command of the (national) languages of host states operates both as a resource and as an ideological framework, legitimating the reproduction of inequalities among various migrant and non‐migrant groups. In this article, we analyse the implications of such processes in the context of state‐subsidised language teaching for refugees and migrants in Austria. Specifically, the article aims to explore labour migration, namely that of Central and Eastern European (CEE, including EU and non‐EU citizen) professionals—mainly language teachers who enter the field of adult language teaching in Austria seeking a living and career prospects that they cannot find in the significantly underpaid educational sectors of CEE states. This article shows that the arrival of CEE professionals into these difficult and precarious jobs is enabled first by historical processes linking the CEE region to former political and economic power centres. Second, it is facilitated by legal, administrative, and symbolic processes that construct CEE citizens as second‐order teachers in the field of migrant education in Austria. Our article, based on ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews, highlights nuanced ways in which historically, economically, and politically embedded language geographies contribute to the reproduction of hierarchies of membership, inclusion, and exclusion in present‐day immigration societies.
{"title":"Adult Migrants’ Language Training in Austria: The Role of Central and Eastern European Teachers","authors":"Ildikó Zakariás, Nora Al-Awami","doi":"10.17645/si.v11i4.7220","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v11i4.7220","url":null,"abstract":"Language has gained increasing importance in immigration policies in Western European states, with a new model of citizenship, the <em>ius linguarum</em> (Fejes, 2019; Fortier, 2022), at its core. Accordingly, command of the (national) languages of host states operates both as a resource and as an ideological framework, legitimating the reproduction of inequalities among various migrant and non‐migrant groups. In this article, we analyse the implications of such processes in the context of state‐subsidised language teaching for refugees and migrants in Austria. Specifically, the article aims to explore labour migration, namely that of Central and Eastern European (CEE, including EU and non‐EU citizen) professionals—mainly language teachers who enter the field of adult language teaching in Austria seeking a living and career prospects that they cannot find in the significantly underpaid educational sectors of CEE states. This article shows that the arrival of CEE professionals into these difficult and precarious jobs is enabled first by historical processes linking the CEE region to former political and economic power centres. Second, it is facilitated by legal, administrative, and symbolic processes that construct CEE citizens as second‐order teachers in the field of migrant education in Austria. Our article, based on ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews, highlights nuanced ways in which historically, economically, and politically embedded language geographies contribute to the reproduction of hierarchies of membership, inclusion, and exclusion in present‐day immigration societies.","PeriodicalId":37948,"journal":{"name":"Social Inclusion","volume":"20 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135273532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The aim of this study is to evaluate and explore the deployment of adult migrants’ first languages (L1s) by multilingual assistants (MAs) in additional language (AL) learning for the opportunities they afford to include students. The context is Sweden’s Swedish for Immigrants programme, in which a teacher team appointed MAs to support their students’ efforts to learn Swedish. In this context, MAs aremultilingual school personnel employed to support the students in their Swedish language development by, among other means, using the students’ L1s. The ensuing research study set out to investigate and develop MA and teacher roles in promoting Swedish language development through L1 use. The quest to include the students permeated this investigation. Action research provided a framework for the teachers to study their classroom interaction with MAs as a basis for professional development. Group interviews complemented video data. Different dimensions of inclusion and Bakhtin’s thinking about other‐orientedness offer theoretical support. The results are presented as four cardinal contributions made by MAs with significant potential to include adult migrants in AL education. The teachers’ conception of dialogic activity specifies inclusion as a transsubjective enterprise that, through instructional restraint and translingual space, allows students to explore language and achieve progressively coherent responsive understanding. The MAs’ socioemotional work of reassuring, affirming, and imparting faith in student capabilities to communicate in and learn Swedish posits inclusion as an equilibrium between the demands of instructional situations and the psychological fortitude to manage them. MAs key role in contextualizing content illustrates the way inclusion can be realized by transferring language form and content to the students’ personal experiences, extensive knowledge, and everyday communicative realities. The teacher’s plan to entrust the MAs with the task of making their formative feedback accessible to students projects inclusion as increasing students’ capacity to regulate their AL learning themselves.
{"title":"Social Inclusion Through Multilingual Assistants in Additional Language Learning","authors":"Oliver St John","doi":"10.17645/si.v11i4.7337","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v11i4.7337","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this study is to evaluate and explore the deployment of adult migrants’ first languages (L1s) by multilingual assistants (MAs) in additional language (AL) learning for the opportunities they afford to include students. The context is Sweden’s Swedish for Immigrants programme, in which a teacher team appointed MAs to support their students’ efforts to learn Swedish. In this context, MAs aremultilingual school personnel employed to support the students in their Swedish language development by, among other means, using the students’ L1s. The ensuing research study set out to investigate and develop MA and teacher roles in promoting Swedish language development through L1 use. The quest to include the students permeated this investigation. Action research provided a framework for the teachers to study their classroom interaction with MAs as a basis for professional development. Group interviews complemented video data. Different dimensions of inclusion and Bakhtin’s thinking about other‐orientedness offer theoretical support. The results are presented as four cardinal contributions made by MAs with significant potential to include adult migrants in AL education. The teachers’ conception of dialogic activity specifies inclusion as a transsubjective enterprise that, through instructional restraint and translingual space, allows students to explore language and achieve progressively coherent responsive understanding. The MAs’ socioemotional work of reassuring, affirming, and imparting faith in student capabilities to communicate in and learn Swedish posits inclusion as an equilibrium between the demands of instructional situations and the psychological fortitude to manage them. MAs key role in contextualizing content illustrates the way inclusion can be realized by transferring language form and content to the students’ personal experiences, extensive knowledge, and everyday communicative realities. The teacher’s plan to entrust the MAs with the task of making their formative feedback accessible to students projects inclusion as increasing students’ capacity to regulate their AL learning themselves.","PeriodicalId":37948,"journal":{"name":"Social Inclusion","volume":"17 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135274018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article presents a qualitative, empirical study of two educational programmes for immigrants that integrate language instruction and vocational training. In the context of migration, social inclusion is often conceptualised as access to social capital. Proficiency in the national language is considered key for employment and fast integration into working life has become a primary goal in Swedish migration policies. This article examines the two programmes from the perspective of inclusion into an (imagined) future professional community of practice (CoP), focusing specifically on the participants’ possibilities to invest in a professional linguistic repertoire. The article is dedicated to empirical analyses and positive factors, recognising the need for research. Data consists of interviews with students and teachers, observations, and video recordings of course activities. Organisational aspects of the courses, such as the teachers’ backgrounds and the courses’ proximity to future CoPs, as well as relational aspects of the learning environments, are considered essential for the participants’ inclusion in a future professional CoP. Analyses of the programmes’ content demonstrate that participants are assumed to lack context‐specific, vocational knowledge, including professionally related vocabulary. The article contributes to knowledge on how inclusion can be managed in practice in educational settings for adult immigrants and promotes an understanding of how vocationally adapted courses can assist immigrants in becoming members of a future professional CoP.
{"title":"“The Door You Can Walk Through to Society”: Social Inclusion and Belonging in Vocational Programmes for Immigrants","authors":"Hedda Söderlundh, Maria Eklund Heinonen","doi":"10.17645/si.v11i4.7087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v11i4.7087","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents a qualitative, empirical study of two educational programmes for immigrants that integrate language instruction and vocational training. In the context of migration, social inclusion is often conceptualised as access to social capital. Proficiency in the national language is considered key for employment and fast integration into working life has become a primary goal in Swedish migration policies. This article examines the two programmes from the perspective of inclusion into an (imagined) future professional community of practice (CoP), focusing specifically on the participants’ possibilities to invest in a professional linguistic repertoire. The article is dedicated to empirical analyses and positive factors, recognising the need for research. Data consists of interviews with students and teachers, observations, and video recordings of course activities. Organisational aspects of the courses, such as the teachers’ backgrounds and the courses’ proximity to future CoPs, as well as relational aspects of the learning environments, are considered essential for the participants’ inclusion in a future professional CoP. Analyses of the programmes’ content demonstrate that participants are assumed to lack context‐specific, vocational knowledge, including professionally related vocabulary. The article contributes to knowledge on how inclusion can be managed in practice in educational settings for adult immigrants and promotes an understanding of how vocationally adapted courses can assist immigrants in becoming members of a future professional CoP.","PeriodicalId":37948,"journal":{"name":"Social Inclusion","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135273882","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A great deal of the literature has underlined how job quality is a key element in individual well‐being. However, the rise in platform work challenges this issue, since not only do “plat‐firms” play an increasingly important role in job matching, work organization, and industrial relations, but they also increase the risks of a poorly inclusive socio‐technical system in terms of the quality of working conditions and accessibility. In this sense, the platform economy is intertwined with multiple forms of social exclusion by acting on pre‐existing inequalities that stratify workers within the labor market. This is particularly true in Italy, a country with a strongly dualistic labor market, which leads to a remarkable gap between insider and outsider workers. Therefore, the goal of our analysis is to evaluate the impact of the platform model on job quality in the Italian context. This will be accomplished by adopting an integrated and multidimensional perspective through the application of the OECD Job Quality Framework. The analysis identifies how job quality is differently affected by the type of platform work involved in terms of creating differentiated patterns of social inclusion/exclusion in the case of platform workers.
{"title":"Assessing Inclusivity Through Job Quality in Digital Plat‐Firms","authors":"Davide Arcidiacono, Giorgio Piccitto","doi":"10.17645/si.v11i4.7043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v11i4.7043","url":null,"abstract":"A great deal of the literature has underlined how job quality is a key element in individual well‐being. However, the rise in platform work challenges this issue, since not only do “plat‐firms” play an increasingly important role in job matching, work organization, and industrial relations, but they also increase the risks of a poorly inclusive socio‐technical system in terms of the quality of working conditions and accessibility. In this sense, the platform economy is intertwined with multiple forms of social exclusion by acting on pre‐existing inequalities that stratify workers within the labor market. This is particularly true in Italy, a country with a strongly dualistic labor market, which leads to a remarkable gap between insider and outsider workers. Therefore, the goal of our analysis is to evaluate the impact of the platform model on job quality in the Italian context. This will be accomplished by adopting an integrated and multidimensional perspective through the application of the OECD Job Quality Framework. The analysis identifies how job quality is differently affected by the type of platform work involved in terms of creating differentiated patterns of social inclusion/exclusion in the case of platform workers.","PeriodicalId":37948,"journal":{"name":"Social Inclusion","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135779365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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