Defining Social Inclusion for Children with Disabilities: A Critical Literature Review

Social inclusion is a complex and often misunderstood concept. For children with disabilities, research has documented the degree of loneliness, bullying and exclusion they often experience in their social lives. This paper presents the findings of a critical literature review on the social inclusion of children with disabilities. Study methods comprised rigorous criteria for study selection followed by established protocols for evaluating studies. Reputable rating scales were used to examine peer‐reviewed research published within the last 10 years. Fifty‐four studies were analyzed for essential themes. Findings reflect a broad range of stakeholder perspectives and factors that promote or inhibit social inclusion, including child‐specific variables as well as environmental influences. Additional research should focus on the perspectives and experiences of children in inclusive settings, particularly those with disabilities, as a means of safeguarding their future social and emotional well‐being.     

Negative attitudes,nonverbal behavior and self-fulfilling prophecy in simulated therapy interviews

This research investigated if interpersonal expectancies in a psychotherapeutic context were mediated through nonverbal behavior. Beginning (male) therapists served as interviewers and interacted with (male) subjects who were introduced as clients (who were treated for psychological problems) or normal students. It was hypothesized that the therapists would have a more negative attitude toward the supposed clients than toward the nonclients and show more arm position symmetry and less forward lean toward the supposed clients. The interviewees were predicted to show more ah-filled pauses, speech disturbances, and less looking at the interviewers in the client condition than in the nonclient condition. The results demonstrated that therapists had more negative expectancies toward supposed clients than toward nonclients. Support was shown for the hypothesis that more arm position symmetry would be shown in the client condition than in the nonclient condition. The results also indicated that supposed clients used more ah-filled pauses and speech disturbances than nonclients. The therapists used this information when they attributed more discomfort to the supposed clients. It is suggested that the findings of this study have implications for understanding the process of self-fulfilling prophecy in a therapeutic context.     

Work, family, and managerial attitudes and practices in the European workplace: comparing Dutch, British, and Slovenian financial sector managers

Managers are key actors shaping employees’ capabilities to utilize work–life policies. However, most research on managers’ implementation of these policies has been conducted in liberal welfare states and ignores the impact of institutional context. In this study, we situate managers within specific workplace and national layers of context. We investigated how managers in financial organizations in the Netherlands, UK, and Slovenia talk about the utilization of work–life policies. Managers’ discourses stressed disruption and dependency considerations in these case studies, as in the US research. However, a further management discourse of the moral case or right thing to do also emerged. The lack of resources for replacing staff on leave creates disruption and reduces managers capability to support the use of work–life policies, even when they are statutory or if managers are inclined be supportive (dependency or moral argument). This is likely to impact on parents' capabilities.     

Confused and Confusing: Services for Mentally Handicapped Children

Fifty-two families with mentally handicapped children under five describe their confusing experiences with a variety of professionals and officials. Such confusion can be explained partly by the reluctance of different agencies and government departments to co-operate with one another and by the dominance of the medical profession in services for the handicapped. But the main cause of the chaotic health and welfare arrangements lies in politicians' indifference, as expressed by their apparent free-for-all, private-market attitudes to the planning of services.     

‘Not worth mentioning’: The implicit and explicit nature of decision-making about the division of paid and domestic work

The aim of this qualitative study of 31 Dutch couples is to help us understand why the division of paid and unpaid work between women and men remains stubbornly unequal, despite women's gains in the workplace and rising educational levels. This study expands on other research by documenting daily implicit and explicit decision-making about the division of paid and domestic work by couples during a unique period of their lives: the formative years of their relationship, until they are expecting their first child. Our findings indicate that in general, these Dutch couples do not look explicitly at their division of paid and domestic work, and that this often perpetuates a gendered division of work. More explicit decision-making occurs when couples have a very strong preference for equal sharing, or when the partners disagree or feel frustrated with their current situation. One important finding of this study is that even the couples who prefer to divide the work equally often end up following traditional patterns. This has to do with the decision-making strategies they apply, which seem to be grounded in ambivalent feelings about roles and responsibilities and often romanticizing relationships. Such ambivalence functions as a barrier to more effective decision-making processes. Data from this study seems to suggest that couples wanting to share household responsibilities should, as a minimum, engage in explicit decision-making until they have developed egalitarian routines.     

Income dynamics in couples and the dissolution of marriage and cohabitation

Several studies have shown that a wife's strong (socio)economic position is associated with an increase in the risk of divorce. Less is known about such effects for cohabiting relationships. Using a unique and large-scale sample of administrative records from The Netherlands, we analyze the link between couples' income dynamics and union dissolution for married and cohabiting unions over a 10-year period. We find negative effects of household income on separation and positive effects of the woman's relative income, in line with earlier studies. The shape of the effect of the woman's relative income, however, depends on the type of union. Movements away from income equality toward a male-dominant pattern tend to increase the dissolution risk for cohabiting couples, whereas they reduce the dissolution risk for married couples. Movements away from income equality toward a female-dominant pattern (reverse specialization) increase the dissolution risks for both marriage and cohabitation. The findings suggest that equality is more protective for cohabitation, whereas specialization is more protective for marriage, although only when it fits a traditional pattern. Finally, we find that the stabilizing effects of income equality are more pronounced early in the marriage and that income equality also reduces the dissolution risk for same-sex couples.     

Teachers’ multicultural attitudes and perceptions of school policy and school climate in relation to burnout

ABSTRACT

There is a growing number of ethnically and culturally diverse students in Dutch junior vocational high schools. This article examines teachers’ multicultural attitudes, their perceptions of cultural diversity related to school policy and school climate, and the chance of general and diversity-related burnout. The present research also characterises teachers in terms of their multicultural attitudes and perceptions of school policy and climate through cluster analysis. Results are based on questionnaire data of 120 teachers, working at five locations of a multicultural junior vocational high school in a highly urbanised part of the Netherlands. Correlational, regression, and variance analyses indicated that the highest levels of general and diversity-related burnout were found among teachers categorised as assimilationist in attitude and who perceived their school as pluralistic. Teachers could be divided into three types of profiles: (1) relative assimilative attitude, (2) no pronounced assimilative attitude, and (3) moderate assimilative attitude. Teachers with the second profile showed the highest chance for burnout.     

Housing and Property Restitution and IDP Return in Kosovo1

La création de la Direction des logements et des biens (DLB) et de la Commission des demandes de dédommagement (CDD) au Kosovo reflète un intérêt croissant de la part de la communauté internationale pour le rétablissement des droits sur les logements et les biens au lendemain du conflit. En quelque trois années de fonctionnement, ces institutions ont réussi àétablir les droits de propriété concernant la quasi-totalité des 30.000 habitations dont la propriétéétait contestée. La DLB et la CDD font aujourd'hui figure d'exemple pour de nombreuses autres régions ayant traversé une période de conflit. Si l'efficacité de ces institutions est louable, l'un des objectifs initiaux essentiels - le retour des personnes déplacées dans leur lieu d'origine - a dans une large mesure été laissé de côté. L'auteur met surtout l'accent sur deux échecs distincts de la communauté internationale concernant le fonctionnement de la DLB/CDD et de leurs effets possibles sur les retours: un manque de coordination entre les deux institutions d'une part et les autres organismes œuvrant dans le domaine des retours d'autre part, et l'isolement des décisions concernant le droit à la propriété par rapport à d'autres aspects d'une culture de respect du droit à la propriété au Kosovo.