Andjela考尔, professor of rehabilitation and human services, presents information on book manuscript focusing on history of vocational rehabilitation counseling and disabled labor force.
宾州中央谷. — A 十大网赌靠谱网址平台 professor is taking a closer look at the history of vocational rehabilitation in the United States. 在一个计划好的图书项目中, Andjela考尔, professor of rehabilitation and human services, said her goal is to tell a social history of vocational rehabilitation as a story about the relationship between disabled workers and the professionals who help them get employed.
Tentatively titled “Disabled Labor: An Untold History of Vocational Rehabilitation in the United States”, offers a new understanding of both work and disability in the United States by retelling the history of rehabilitation counseling — a crucial yet understudied profession.
《十大网赌靠谱网址平台》展示了如何做到这一点, 自19世纪以来, 这个国家的专业人士, 雇主, and legislators have been reinventing disability, defining disability unemployment for the U.S. labor market, and making disabled workers into a largely invisible labor force. Possessing a strong work ethic any employer would envy, these dedicated employees were historically given the most undesirable tasks, working long hours for painfully low wages.
据考尔说, 纵观历史, professionals who hire and help others hire disabled individuals have come to be more valued than the workers themselves. “The book is written in the scholarly tradition of what we would call the ‘political economy of disability’. Part of this approach is to analyze how labor markets and societies at large value professionals more than disabled workers themselves. It’s sort of a critical take on the history of vocational rehabilitation,” she said.
Kaur shared some of her work with her fellow PSU-LV faculty members at a recent Work in Progress (WIP) session. “I feel it’s a story that needs to be told,” Kaur said. “We perpetuate the message that vocational rehabilitation is unquestionably a good thing for people with disabilities, 但如果你仔细看, 你会看到它阴暗的一面. 作为教育者, 我们也要暴露这一面, 尤其是在21世纪, when we’ve come to value hearing multiple sides of each story.”
The WIP session was Kaur’s first step toward publication. It was helpful to share some of her work and receive feedback from colleagues, which is the goal of the WIP speaker series. 教师 members present research findings, 书中摘录, and other works still in the developmental stage, not yet ready to be shared with a larger audience. WIP was a great platform, according to Kaur.
“I’ve been working on the book for three years now. Then I got stuck — I wondered, ‘What would people want to know about?’ My colleagues asked some good questions — things I hadn’t thought about,” Kaur said. “These are faculty members who understand scholarly work, but don’t think about vocational rehab at all. This was a winning combination for me because the topic of my research is not a common or a popular one. 我的同事问了一些重要的问题.”
演讲结束后, 考尔开始考虑她的提议, 以及这本书本身, 以一种稍微不同的方式. “It got me thinking in a more problem-solving manner, 并且是可操作的, 这不是我的初衷吗. [My colleagues’ suggestions] of including more personal narratives in the proposal, 也可能是这本书, really helped me gauge what the expectations are.”
