Journal Article

This article presents an analysis of the labour market earnings of university graduates with bachelor's degrees in information and communication technology (ICT) programs using a dataset that links information on students from the University of Ottawa to tax records held at Statistics Canada. We track each cohort of graduates from 1998 through 2010, thus covering the dot-com boom and subsequent bust in 2001. We compare ICT graduates with engineers from non-ICT fields as well as with all other graduates. ICT graduates and non-ICT engineers generally earned a premium over graduates from all other disciplines taken together. However, ICT graduates' earnings fell sharply after the dot-com bust, after which they partially recovered and then remained relatively stable. The number of graduates continued to rise through 2005, reflecting the lag between entering and graduating from an ICT program, and then continued to fall through 2010.

There is a long-standing debate over the value of certain postsecondary programs in facilitating employment after graduation. The National Graduate Survey (2005) was used to examine how graduates of various programs differ in their pursuits of higher education, employment status, job-program relatedness and job qualifications. Results suggest that graduates from humanities are more likely to pursue higher education, are less likely to be employed full time, are more likely to have jobs unrelated to their program, and are more likely to be overqualified for their jobs. These findings highlight that humanities programs may not provide the knowledge and skills that are in current economic demand.

There is a long-standing debate over the value of certain postsecondary programs in facilitating employment after graduation. The National Graduate Survey (2005) was used to examine how graduates of various programs differ in their pursuits of higher education, employment status, job-program relatedness and job qualifications. Results suggest that graduates from humanities are more likely to pursue higher education, are less likely to be employed full time, are more likely to have jobs unrelated to their program, and are more likely to be overqualified for their jobs. These findings highlight that humanities programs may not provide the knowledge and skills that are in current economic demand.

Fluke et al. (2010) analyzed Canadian Incidence Study on Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS) data collected in 1998 to explore the influence of clinical and organizational characteristics on the decision to place Aboriginal children in an out-of-home placement at the conclusion of a child maltreatment investigation. This study explores this same question using CIS data collected in 2003 which included a larger sample of Aboriginal children and First Nations child and family service agencies. The decision to place a child in an out-of-home placement was examined using data from the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect-2003 and a reanalysis of CIS-1998 data (Fluke et al., 2010). The CIS-2003 dataset includes information on nearly 12,000 child maltreatment investigations from the time of report to case disposition. The CIS-2003 also captures information on the characteristics of investigating workers and the child welfare organizations for which they work. Multi-level statistical models were developed to analyze the influence of clinical and organizational variables using MPlus software. MPlus allows the use of dichotomous outcome variables, which are more reflective of decision-making in child welfare and facilitates the specific case of the logistic link function for binary outcome variables under maximum likelihood estimation. Final models revealed the proportion of investigations conducted by the child welfare agency involving Aboriginal children was a key single agency level predictor of the placement decision. Specifically, the higher the proportion of investigations of Aboriginal children, the more likely placement was to occur. Contrary to the findings in the first paper (Fluke et al., 2010), individual Aboriginal status also remained significant in the final model at the first level. Further analysis needs to be conducted to further understand individual and organizational level variables that may influence decisions regarding placement of Aboriginal children. There is also a need for research that is sensitive to differences among, and between, Métis, First Nations and Inuit communities. Results are not generalizable to Québec because data from this province were excluded.

This paper develops theory about the conditions under which cultural diversity enhances or detracts from work group functioning. From qualitative research in three culturally diverse organizations, we identified three different perspectives on workforce diversity: the integration-and-learning perspective, the access-and-legitimacy perspective, and the discrimination-and-fairness perspective. The perspective on diversity a work group held influenced how people expressed and managed tensions related to diversity, whether those who had been traditionally underrepresented in the organization felt respected and valued by their colleagues, and how people interpreted the meaning of their racial identity at work. These, in turn, had implications for how well the work group and its members functioned. All three perspectives on diversity had been successful in motivating managers to diversify their staffs, but only the integration-and-learning perspective provided the rationale and guidance needed to achieve sustained benefits from diversity. By identifying the conditions that intervene between the demographic composition of a work group and its functioning, our research helps to explain mixed results on the relationship between cultural diversity and work group outcomes.

This article presents the findings of a critical discourse analysis study of the constructions of people with disabilities within the Canadian immigration system and how this shapes the immigration experiences of people with disabilities, especially those from countries in the Global South. Findings suggest that dominant discourses of opportunities not only construct Canada as aland of dreams' for immigrants and newcomers but are also used to hide, justify, normalize and facilitate the operation of ableist, racist and colonial discourses that immigrants and newcomers with disabilities experience during their immigration. Recommendations for settlement workers involved in facilitating the settlement and integration process for immigrants and newcomers with disabilities are also presented. The article concludes by emphasizing the actual and potential contributions of postcolonial and critical disability lenses for a social justice-oriented practice at the intersection of disability and immigration.

This editorial describes recent research about the perception of peer achievement in the undergraduate biology classroom. The research, along with statistical data about female retention, provides insight into gender disparities and provides opportunities to address gender bias in the classroom.

Providing companies and managers with knowledge about the inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace is important since they often face significant obstacles such as discrimination and high unemployment rates. Poor workplace inclusion also has detrimental effects for companies, such as discrimination litigation, untapped personnel resources and missed business opportunities. Yet, empirical research on the topic of disability is extremely limited, especially in top-tier management journals. Although this shortcoming in research has often been mentioned by scholars, few explanations for it have been put forward. I propose that specific methodological challenges for quantitative research in the field are an important contributor to this shortcoming. In this paper, I identify and outline specific challenges through expert interviews, identify underlying issues and provide first suggestions on how to address these. The goal is to help increase the number of high-quality research studies in the organizational sciences and thereby advance our knowledge of the inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace.

This study examined the differences in high school and post-secondary characteristics for both university and college cooperative and non cooperative education students using longitudinal data from the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS, Statistics Canada). A total of 11,383 cases were examined from the 18-20 year-old cohort. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to determine the relationship between the dependent variable (co-op and non co-op in college and university) and a series of independent variables which included: high school grades, career training courses, homework habits, interest in school, sense of belonging, attendance, volunteerism and SES. Results indicated that university co-op students demonstrated higher academic grades in high school than students in the other programs (university non co-op, college co-op and non co-op). College and university students who had taken work experience courses during high school were more likely to be in a co-op program. University co-op students were more interested in high school than their college counterparts, and less likely to have skipped classes. They were also more likely to have had good relationships with teachers and more likely to have made connections between classroom learning and real-life experience.