Marquita Walker

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https://hdl.handle.net/1805/11719

Reviewing State and Federal Policies on Reintegration of Displaced Workers

Dr. Walker's research seeks new ways of looking at the state and federal policies associated with the reintegration of workers into the workforce after they have been displaced or separated from their jobs. Currently, there exist hundreds of thousands of workers who are unemployed because their firm or corporation downsized or closed due to effects of globalization and economic downturns. The state and federal polices currently in place to help dislocated workers reintegrate into the workplace are designed to put the worker back to work as soon as possible without regard to the worker's human value, dignity, or wishes. Looking at dislocation from the worker's perspective, Dr. Walker's research will be able to determine the direct and indirect costs of job loss and assess the difficulty the workers had in moving through the current process of reintegration as outlined by current policy. This information will be helpful to policymakers, the business community, labor organizations, and academics interested in maintaining the value and dignity of the worker as well as reintegrating the worker into the workforce in a position most beneficial to the worker and the broader community.

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Now showing 1 - 3 of 3

Experiences of Dislocated Workers, Trade Adjustment Assistance, and Advanced Manufacturing
(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2011-04-08) Walker, Marquita
This paper explores the lived experiences of one group of dislocated workers in a hybrid advanced manufacturing training course in one large Midwestern city who became dislocated through the downsizing of a large manufacturing facility and who took advantage of Trade Adjustment Assistance. The research questions relate to these workers perceptions about the ease/difficulty of accessing the program, barriers to implementation of the program, and the effectiveness of the program in their own lives. Current adjustment policies for dislocated workers lend themselves to recreating and widening the wage inequality in the United States. By promoting policies that encourage rapid reintegration into the workforce and discouraging the education, training, and self-employment of dislocated workers, dislocated workers are forced into lower paying jobs in the service sector, which typically pay lower wages. Consequences of these policies are not only decreased standards of living for these workers, who are typically eligible for government transfer payments, but emotional, social, and mental and physical health problems as well. Serious consideration for policy changes should be deemed of utmost importance.
E-learning is learning, too
(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2011-04-08) Walker, Marquita
Abstract: Grounded in constructivist/cognitive learning theory, this paper explores the assessment of student learning in one learning module in one Labor Studies class in one Midwestern university using alternative assessment which integrates teaching and learning activities with assessment through writing activities, the prominent means of communication in an online environment. The purpose of this study, grounded in the most positive and powerful aspects of cognitive learning theory, social learning theory, and adult learning theory, is to assess student learning at the higher order thinking of the cognitive domain based on a pedagogy of learning-teaching-assessment (Speck, 2002). The study’s population is 29 students in one online class L100, Survey of Unions and Collective Bargaining in one large Midwestern university and focuses on one learning module, Federal Labor Law and Agencies. Speck (2002) suggests alternative assessment, which measures student abilities to use higher level thinking skills such as synthesis, analysis, and evaluation and includes team activities, peer evaluation, self-evaluations, and portfolios, provides instructors a more accurate measure of student learning. By providing students with alternative learning activities based on different learning styles and relating to subject content, the student shifts from passive to active engagement with the content, shifts from focusing on information to communication, and shifts from being an individual learner to a learner in a socially situated learning environment (Conole, 2010). The findings from this study suggest that students prefer a written lecture format or some combination of written, video, and interactive lecture format over a video or interactive format. These findings may reflect that students’ time on task is shorter when engaging with the written format versus a video or interactive format.
Women in trades: Barriers and challenges
(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2016-04-08) Walker, Marquita
This research addresses the implicit bias women seeking to enter and remain in the male-dominated building trades experience as a result of their gender. Implicit bias within masculine dominated workplaces has a deleterious effect on the hiring and retention of women in trades, so it is important for policy makers, employers, stockholders, and union officials to address these deficiencies through a strategy for decreasing masculine dominance in the workplace. As skill shortages and a weakened labor supply loom for the construction industry, it is important to seriously consider why women’s participation in the construction industry remains below legal and necessary limits. Hiring and retaining more women in the building trades would fill the predicted future construction vacancies. Situated in political economy theory, this study surveyed 29 women in union-sponsored apprenticeship programs. Analysis of data collected from survey instruments and personal interviews reveal gatekeeping barriers and covert discriminatory practices to women seeking to enter the building trades. Recommendations for addressing these barriers include enforcing government policies which mandate more women in the trades, changing the masculine culture of union/employer construction workplaces through the promotion of mentoring components in apprenticeship programs which provide to women one-on-one support, and making concerted efforts within the firm toward implementation of more gender neutral, family-friendly, and work-life balance policies.

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