Search results

Evidence from a variety of sources indicates that there is a correlation between environment, support structures and behavioural response for people with complex needs which affects the quality of life in living environments. As part of the shift from institutional living to community‐based options, an inclusive approach, working on a theoretical and practice‐based response, was established. The aim of the project was to achieve an inclusive package of support while encouraging development of individual skills of daily living, in a flexible and interactive environment. During the course of the project, 39 purpose‐built housing units were established using the approach described, and they are currently the subject of evaluation.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the need to expand current organizational studies to include positive experiences of non‐heterosexual workers while identifying, often covert, heteronormative workplace practices. Included in this is a reflexive analysis of author positionality.

A qualitative study utilizing participant observation, narrative interviews, and autoethnography are employed to begin understanding lesbian work experiences.

Three dominant strategies are used by participants to understand variant sexuality: strategies of discourse, strategies of resistance, and strategies of identity formation. Findings indicate that as awareness about lesbian identities increased so did understandings of difference and, in turn, resistance to heteronormative power structures increased.

Future research could include other sexually stigmatized groups.

The contributions of this paper include broader understandings of how sexuality organizes work, how researcher positionality impacts organizational climates and research processes, and practical suggestions for organizations expanding diversity efforts and researchers aiming to increase diversity awareness.

Every year several thousand female cadets participate in the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) in the UK, but little is known about the impact that this experience has on the subsequent employability of the female cadets. This study aimed to understand the perceptions of academic teenage girls from one all-female unit of their participation in CCF and the personal benefit or otherwise in relation to their ultimate employability.

This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews to explore the experiences of 10 young women who had participated in CCF for at least three years. Data were analysed using a thematic analysis.

Participants were effusive about the transformative effects of CCF in relation to personal confidence, recognising transferable skills and raising personal aspiration, all key elements to employability, particularly for women. They also considered they had gained future workplace advantage having had opportunity to trial leadership strategies in mixed gender teams, an experience unavailable elsewhere to them. Loyalty to the contingent pervaded every discussion and the importance of team goals, although this level of selfless commitment may be detrimental to employability, subsuming their personal interests to the greater good.

Research into the benefit or otherwise of teenage girls' extra-curricular activities is scarce, and this is the first study, to the authors' knowledge, that explores the perceptions of the impact their time in CCF had on their graduate employability skills.