Making a Move: Next Steps for Women. A Follow-up Study of Women Onto Work Students (original) (raw)

Women, Education and Training. Barriers to Access, Informal Starting Points and Progression Routes

1993

A study identified the factors that assi.st or impede women's access, participation, and progression within education and training in Britain. The project rationale was as follows: women face continuing inequalities in the labor market, there are signs of a diminishing concern with equal opportunities, and women's position and experiences in education and training have been underanalyzed and underreported. Difficulties participants identified in relation to gaining access to education, training, and employment fell into three broad clusters: personal and domestic, dispositinnal or psychological, and structural constraints. Course components that help women move to employment or other levels of education or training were core or basic skills, study skills, educational and vocational guidance, planning for change, job search and acquisition skills, accreditation, and assessment of prior experiential learning, experience, and skills. The most effective reentry or threshold learning activities for women shared features common to all good community education: sensitive recruitment, informal venues, flexibility, and empathetic staff. Problems women experienced in moving from an informal to a formal education or training environment arose largely due to lack of information and guidance, lack of coherent learning routes, and lack of support and practical assistance. (Appendixes include descriptions of courses and initiatives that have assisted women's access and progression.) Contains 109 references. (YLB)

Women, lifelong learning and transitions into employment

2010

This paper reports on research on the employment effects of lifelong learning for a cohort of British women. Responsibility for caring for children and other dependent family members continues to be borne mainly by women, and they frequently have spells out of paid employment as a consequence. Lifelong learning is often regarded as playing a key role in maintaining and enhancing the employability of women returners. It is argued that lifelong learning can prevent skills depreciation for women who have had long breaks from paid employment and that those who missed out on initial education may require lifelong learning in order to obtain essential basic skills To date, however, the evidence on whether lifelong learning really does have beneficial employment effects has been very sparse.

Getting Out of the House: an Examination of the Experience of a Group of Women Returning to Education

Irish Journal of Academic Practice, 2012

Using a qualitative case study method, this research focuses on a group of adult "returning" students completing a childcare course. The study does not focus on the academic merits of the students, but rather on the experience returning to education has on the lives of the students. Methods used included the hosting of three focus groups, a questionnaire and observations. Using a holistic analysis approach a number of key issues and themes emerged. These themes include motivation to return to education; family; identity; education as a facilitator of positive risk taking behaviour; education and perspective transformation; impact of teaching on learning, and impact on peer relationships. This study concludes that there is significant impact on the families of the students with routines and issues around children and childcare prevalent. The study also noted the impact on the identities of the students as well as the impact on the peer relationships as a result of engaging in adult learning. In addition the study noted the relationship between teaching methods and student learning, with students feeling more involved in the teaching/learning process compared to previous experience. Significant also was the level of critical refection and critical self-reflection the students engaged in as part of their learning experience. This study concludes with some recommendations that include greater participation with the student group in the organization of classes and curricula and more formal and informal dialogue between students and tutors.

A Risky Business? Mature Working-class Women Students and Access to Higher Education Correspondence : Diane Reay, Kings College London, UK. E-mail: Diane.reay@kcl.ac.uk

Gender and Education, 2003

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Women, lifelong learning and employment

2004

This paper reports on research on the employment effects of lifelong learning for a cohort of British women. Responsibility for caring for children and other dependent family members continues to be borne mainly by women, and they frequently have spells out of paid employment as a consequence. Lifelong learning is often regarded as playing a key role in maintaining and enhancing the employability of women returners. It is argued that lifelong learning can prevent skills depreciation for women who have had long breaks from paid employment and that those who missed out on initial education may require lifelong learning in order to obtain essential basic skills To date, however, the evidence on whether lifelong learning really does have beneficial employment effects has been very sparse.

Women's Perceptions of Training and Employment

Despite institutional declarations, women still rank second in key areas of society related to employment. The goal of this study was to analyse the perceptions of Spanish women taking occupational training courses and of gender equality experts with respect to the relationship between initial formal education, occupational training, continuing education and employment, as well as the role played by the family in this relationship, in order to elucidate conceptions of women's social reality in the fields of education and employment. A qualitative methodology was employed, consisting of semi-structured, in-depth individual and group interviews with women taking occupational training courses. Interviews were also conducted with experts in gender equality. Working women's conception of the relationship between training and employment is heavily influenced by the effect of gender socialisation, which leads them to assume the role of carer in the family. Women's choice of training presents a clear gender bias that directly influences the jobs they hold. In many cases, these comprise subsistence activities that coincide with traditional female roles. However, women with a higher education present less dependence on gender roles. Socialisation in gender stereotypes is evident in working women's discourse, and generates frustration at the impossibility of reconciling all the areas of responsibility assigned to them, leading them to relinquish any expectations of professional or personal development.

An analysis of gendered attitudes and responses to employability training

Training programmes for unemployed people are often designed to meet the identified vocational skill needs of businesses. We describe research across a number of projects in Leeds (United Kingdom) providing training to unemployed and marginalised adults. The focus was on those with multiple barriers to accessing and sustaining training and employment (including disability, mental illness, homelessness, substance abuse, refugee or immigration status, language, religion and culture). We found substantial gender differences in attitudes towards (un)employment, training and education, including 'employability' skills training. Women in our study were more likely to explain their unemployment in terms of 'self' or intrinsic failures: inadequacy, weakness or lack of requisite skills. For men, unemployment was seen as a consequence of extrinsic circumstances: bad luck, the failure of others or lack of support. Women were more likely to cite their barriers to training as social, personal or attitudinal, compared with men who saw them predominantly as structural and practical. Men most valued the acquisition of 'hard' skills, while women valued gains in confidence , reflective learning and teamwork. These results have implications for the design and delivery of employability training, particularly the need to support women to develop the requisite self-competencies that create individual autonomy.

Widening Horizons: Improving the role of women in the workplace

The ' Barriers' research (Green et al., 2004) took place in 2003 and aimed to document the existing barriers to women's employment in the North East by exploring diverse groups of women's experiences of employment entry and progression. It adopted a mixed methodological approach, combining both quantitative and qualitative methods. A large amount of statistical data was gathered through a workplace survey with 648 male and female employees from 7 different case study companies covering topic areas such as employment issues, work/life balance, community and social networks. In addition, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 35 of the female case-study respondents, 12 of whom also took part in a life-grid interview. A further 23 semi-structured interviews were carried out with women from 3 geographical communities in the North East region, 16 of whom first took part in a life-grid interview.