Sean Lauer

Foreign Visitor, Exchange Student, or Family Member? A Study of Au Pair Policies in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia

Approaches to state provision of childcare have typically focused on the relative weight of state or market provision. In this article we follow a new institutional approach to the relationship between states and markets to examine the au pair industry, emphasising the role of states in the creation of markets for childcare. Research on the market provision of childcare has focused on the ambiguity in defining caring as work, which has led to the low value of care work. In this article we propose that those ambiguities also exist at the state level and impact the creation of the market for foreign childcare. Examining the development of au pair policies in the US, UK, and Australia, we find three strategies that involve defining au pairs not as employees, but rather as foreign visitors, exchange students, or family members. These strategies allow for by passing restrictions on immigration, increasing the supply of care providers, and circumventing compliance with labour regulations, thereby reducing the cost to families.

Social Capital and Ethno-Cultural Diverse Immigrants: A Canadian Study on Settlement House and Social Integration

ABSTRACT With ethno-culturally diverse immigrants arriving in constantly increasing numbers, connecting newcomers to residents in the local community is a growing challenge. Settlement houses have traditionally been the “machinery of connection” that bridges such diverse groups. This article reports the results of a study on settlement houses in an urban center located in western Canada. The results show that by embracing bridging as their mission, promoting volunteering, and providing holistic services to meet needs, settlement houses have successfully helped newcomers build cross-group social ties and integrate into the community.

The School-to-Work Transitions of Newcomer Youth in Canada

Over half of all migrants to Canada are under 29 years of age and one quarter arrive as refugees. Studies on occupational achievements and labour market status have been largely ignored in favour of studies on adult migrants rather than on youth. This paper uses data collected from two sources: a national study of newly-arrived newcomer youth living in Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg and Vancouver using qualitative interviews, and a quantitative analysis of the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC). The focus of this paper is to use these datasets to better understand the high school trajectory of recently arrived newcomer youth and compare their experiences. We are particularly interested in the influence of education attained in Canada compared to education attained outside of Canada and the differences, if any, in labour market outcomes. The findings reveal distinctly slower trajectories through high school among those arriving as refugees, those lacking English or French language instruction prior to arrival, and issues with grade placement. These are identified as significant barriers to entering post-secondary education and to subsequent labour market success. Parmi les immigrants au Canada, plus de la moitié ont moins de 29 ans et un quart sont des réfugiés. Les études sur ce qu’ils ont réalisé sur le plan professionnel et sur leur statut dans le marché du travail ont été largement laissées pour compte en faveur de celles portant sur les émigrés adultes plutôt que sur les jeunes. Cet article s’appuie sur une collecte de données provenant de deux sources : une étude nationale sur les jeunes nouveaux arrivants qui vivent à Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg et Vancouver et reposant sur des entrevues qualitatives, et une analyse quantitative de l’Enquête longitudinale sur les immigrants au Canada (ELIC). Notre objectif est de se servir de ces données pour mieux comprendre la trajectoire scolaire au niveau secondaire de jeunes récemment arrivés et de comparer leurs expériences. Nous nous intéressons particulièrement à l’influence de l’éducation acquise au Canada par rapport à celle reçue à l’étranger et les différences, s’il y en a, pour les possibilités d’emploi. Ce qui se révèle nettement, c’est une scolarité secondaire à un rythme plus lent parmi les réfugiés et ceux qui n’ont pas eu d’enseignement en anglais ou en français avant de venir ici, et des problèmes de niveau scolaire. Ce sont là des obstacles significatifs pour le passage au niveau post-secondaire et pour des chances de succès sur le marché du travail.

Double Jeopardy: An Exploratory Study of Youth From Immigrant Families Entering the Job Market

This article reports the findings of an online survey and 16 in-depth interviews that show family and friends are neither the predominant nor most useful social resource for young jobseekers from immigrant families. Instead, they tend to use more formal job-search strategies. In our sample, the employment outcomes of ethno-racial minority immigrant youth were less desirable than those of their counterparts from the dominant group. Based on the studys findings, this article argues that being an ethno-racial minority and being from an immigrant family become a double jeopardy for this group of new generation youth when they enter the competitive job market.

The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP): A Tool for Teaching With an International Perspective

gists teaching Swiss students, we had to broaden our U.S.-centered sociological perspective in the classroom. In courses on statistics and research methods, social inequality, economic sociology, sociology of the family, and sociology of work, we needed to find international examples and data that we could use to illustrate points made during lectures, in small-group and seminar discussions, and for statistics examples and assignments. At a Workshop on Comparative Analysis of Longitudinal Data held in NeuchAtel, Switzerland in February 1999, James A. Davis introduced us to his work in developing the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). Since this workshop, we have used the ISSP extensively in our teaching. We find it an invaluable tool for increasing global literacy and scientific literacy in our sociology lectures and class activities.

Incorporating individual community assets in neighbourhood houses: Beyond the community-building tradition of settlement houses

As a global movement, neighbourhood houses (NHs) are found in urban communities all over the world. Following the community-building tradition of early settlement houses, NHs have been actively nurturing and mobilizing community assets to serve the local community, but it is not known whether NHs have incorporated these assets in their infrastructure. This article reports the findings of a clearinghouse survey of 15 NHs in Metro Vancouver, Canada, which indicate that they nurtured community assets and incorporated them into their infrastructure as paid staff. Yet at the leadership level, the incorporation falls short of ethno-racial minority members from the community.