Occasional Online Seminar Series
To help connect the project with other research happening on disability and youth transitions we have an online seminar series to bring researchers, practitioners, advocates and disabled young people together. This page captures the sessions we are hosting,
If you would like to participate in a session do let us know!
Information about forthcoming sessions will be shared online, particularly, through our twitter accounts@disyoutransit
Helga Fasching, 5th June, 2024, 12pm
Maximizing Partnerships in Educational Transition Research: Involving Young People with Disabilities in Post-school Transitions through Reflecting Teams.
In this presentation I show a participatory method to involve young people with disabilities in research by using reflecting teams. In the course of the longitudinal project “Cooperation for Inclusion in Educational Transitions” on the transition from school to work of young people with disabilities, we examined ways to increase the participation of these people in the design and content of reflecting team sessions. In this regard, the reflecting team, more often used in a counseling context, was adapted to provide a special form of group discussion for participatory research with young people with different disabilities. The presentation describes and discusses the adaptations that were made in the reflecting team research process. These adaptations included giving these young people, rather than a researcher, a role as moderator, inviting increased visualization within the reflecting process, and using an outsider-witness approach. Finally, we discuss the potential of the reflecting team for our participatory research with young people with disabilities.
This presentation starts with a short overview of the research context, which includes the theoretical framing and the research design of the project. I then continue with a discussion of participatory research methodology and show how and why I use the reflecting team as a special form of group discussion for our participatory research with young people with different disabilities. Next, I describe the process of reflecting on team sessions with young people with disabilities. We then reflect on the method of the reflecting team for participatory cooperation and describe the adaptations which were made (young people as moderators, increased visualization, and using the outsider-witness approach). Finally, I discuss the potential of the reflecting team for our participatory research with young people with disabilities for participative cooperation.
References
Fasching, H., Felbermayr, K. & Todd, L. (2023). Involving Young People with Disabilities in Post-school Transitions through Reflecting Teams. Methodological Reflections and Adaptions for more Participation in a Longitudinal Study. In: International Journal of Educational and Life Transitions, 2(1): 19, pp. 1–15. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/ijelt.44 (peer reviewed).
Fasching, H. & Felbermayr, K. (2022). Participative cooperation during transition: experiences of young people with disabilities in Austria. In: Journal of Social Inclusion, special Issue “Challenges in the school-work-transition, 10(2), https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v10i2.5079 www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/5079 (peer reviewed).
Husny, M. & Fasching, H. (2020). The consulting of executive practitioners in participative cooperation: how professionals view the inclusive transitional process of youths with disabilities in Austria. In: European Journal of Special Needs Education, 7:2, 206-219, DOI:10.1080/08856257.2020.1862338 (peer reviewed).
Helga Fasching, Department of Education, University of Vienna (Austria)
Helga Fasching is an Associate Professor at the Department of Education, University of Vienna, Austria. She led the five-year Research Project “Cooperation for Inclusion in Educational Transitions” Project Website (https://kooperation-fuer-inklusion.univie.ac.at/en/); she is the scientific director of the Advanced Study in Psychotherapy: Systemic Psychotherapy/ Systemic Family Therapy (University Master course), Postgraduate Center (PGC) at the University of Vienna. Advanced Study in Psychotherapy: Systemic Psychotherapy/Systemic Family Therapy (postgraduatecenter.at); she is a Psychotherapist (systemic family therapy), in her former work she was a leader of a Vocational Inclusion Project for young People with Disabilities.
Her research interests are: Inclusive transitions from school to work; Collaborations between young people with disabilities, their parents and professionals (participative transition planning); Vocational participation experiences of persons with intellectual disabilities; Intersectional research/research on inequality (disability, gender, migration and family background); Qualitative transitions and family research (systemic approach); Systemic concepts in inclusive educational, psychosocial, and therapeutic fields of work; Qualitative research methods (ethics in qualitative research, narrative/intensive interviews, grounded theory, longitudinal studies; Participatory research, transdisciplinary research.
Email: helga.fasching@univie.ac.at
Kjersti Wessel Jevne - June 1, 2023
Growing up with Down Syndrome in Norway: The Transition to Adulthood
On June 1, 2023, we hosted the first seminar in our occasional seminar series. Kjersti Wessel Jevne, a lecturer and researcher at the Inland University of Applied Sciences in Lillehammer, Norway, presented on her PhD research exploring the transition experiences of young people with Down Syndrome.
Kjersti identified three types of transitions that the young people experience:
(1) the transition from school to work life
(2) the transition from the parental home to independent living, and
(3) the transition from living as a young person to living as an adult.
In her reflections, Kjersti advocated for young adults to be involved as agents in their transition process and for new perspectives on help and support to be developed.
You can access the PowerPoint slides here.
Kjersti has an undergraduate degree as a kindergarten teacher and a postgraduate degree in Special Education. Her field of lecturing and research is in disability studies, especially disabilities in children and youth. She also lectures on the influence of the educational system on young people’s development and capabilities.
You can contact Kjersti at kjersti.jevne@inn.no
Angharad Butler-Rees and Stella Chatzitheochari - October 18, 2023
Disability, Social Class, and Educational Transitions: Insights from the Educational Pathways and Work Outcomes Qualitative Longitudinal Study
The second seminar in our occasional seminar series took place on October 18, 2023. Angharad Butler-Rees and Stella Chatzitheochari from the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick reported findings from the Educational Pathways and Work Outcomes of Disabled Young People in England research project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust (2020-2023). Angharad and Stella focused on an ongoing qualitative longitudinal study of 35 autistic, dyslexic, and/or physically disabled pupils in mainstream schools in England. Their presentation explored intersectional inequalities in school experiences and post-16 trajectories, with a particular focus on differences by condition/disability type and social class. Their findings also reveal the interplay of structure and agency in the co-construction and experience of disability, along with the importance of a longitudinal lens to understand educational trajectories and transitions of disabled children and young people.
You can access the PowerPoint slides here.
Recording of the presentation available below: