The Economic Casualties of Retiring Because of Unemployment

This research reports on one aspect of a multimethod study which investigated the effect of involuntary retirement on retirement income. Using the Survey on Ageing and Independence 1991, a secondary data analysis was carried out which examined the economic effects of retiring because of unemployment. This analysis was followed by interviews with 33 men and women whose retirement was induced by unemployment. In the secondary analysis, when the respondents who retired for reasons of unemployment were compared to those who retired for other reasons, there was little doubt that the unemployment retirees were disadvantaged on human capital variables, in terms of their work history, and ultimately, in their retirement income, whether personal or household. Returning to work part-time after retirement did not appear to raise their incomes which were lower than the incomes of those who retired for other reasons. Furthermore, they were more likely to receive government transfer payments such as disability benefits or social assistance. When the factors that significantly contributed to their income in retirement were considered they were a function of personal wealth such as investments and a private pension. The public pension system did not have a significant influence on their retirement income. In the convenience sample, all respondents reported that unemployment lead to a drop in retirement income. For those most severely hit by unemployment, the transition period was extremely stressful with people reporting high levels of anger, depression, and sadness and constant worry about their straitened circumstances. People coped with their drop in income by changing their lifestyle, giving up valued assets like their homes and dipping into their savings and RRSPs. These strategies, in turn, depleted their resources for retirement and caused considerable consternation about what they saw as an uncontrollable and unforeseeable future. People also relied heavily on social assistance and disability benefits to survive until the age where they were eligible to draw down their retirement benefits. When they had to draw down their retirement pensions earlier than expected, they were frustrated because they had to accept lower pensions, a feeling that was compounded when they discovered that, if they were lucky enough to secure part-time work, this resulted in further reductions in their pensions. The incongruity of government retirement policy threats of cutbacks to pensions or raising the age of retirement -- did not escape most retirees in our sample and served to create more uncertainty and stress for an already economically distressed group of Canadians.retirement income; SAI; unemployment

The Economic Casualties of Retiring Because of Poor Health

This multimethod study investigated the effect of involuntary retirement on retirement income. Using the General Social Survey 1994, a secondary data analysis was carried out which examined the economic effects of retiring because of poor health. When the men and women who retired for reasons of poor health were compared to those who retired for other reasons, there was little doubt that the health retirees were disadvantaged on human capital variables, in terms of their work history, and ultimately, in their retirement income, whether personal or household. The men who retired because of ill health did not appear to benefit from government transfer payments and were less likely to receive income from a private pension or from interest and dividends. The women retirees suffered from the same disadvantages as the men, however, when they reached retirement they were more likely to rely on government transfer payments as a major source of income. Like the men, they were more likely to believe that their retirement income had gotten worse since the day they retired, and, over two-thirds believed that their financial situation had become much worse. In the multivariate analyses, however, any effect that poor health might have had on household income was offset by the benefits associated with marriage, and their own sociodemographic characteristics. This is further confirmed when personal income is considered, since marriage has the strong and negative influence on personal income. The interviews with the retirees indicated that retiring for reasons of poor health was seen by most people as a somewhat unpleasant transition that had long lasting and negative effects on retirement income.GSS; poor health; retirement

Better Together: From Siloed to Relational Organizational Design

The impacts of historical inequities continue to limit access to quality outcomes for all learners in British Columbia. Organizational structures that separate and isolate efforts to create equity persist in BC school districts. Riverstone School District has attempted to disrupt the norm of siloed and discoordinated efforts by merging several central office support departments to offer increasingly wholistic and effective support to schools and the families they serve. However, despite the best intentions and despite now sharing physical space with one another, the departments have not yet merged effectively; isolated, conflicting efforts persist. This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) offers a vision for an interconnected and coordinated support services unit, one better positioned to offer wholistic and effective support and leadership to schools as they strive to create environments where every learner thrives. Through the collective leadership of meso-level leaders, members of the Learning Services Collective (LSC) will focus efforts on increasing their relational coordination—that is their mutual respect, shared knowledge, shared goals, and accurate communication and problem solving. The change implementation plan follows the relational model of organizational change which embeds a monitoring process throughout as members co-construct their way forward, checking in periodically with an evaluation tool. Throughout, LSC members mobilize their knowledge through a collaborative inquiry process. This OIP serves Riverstone School District’s goal of enabling all students to thrive and the district’s core values of collective responsibility, integrity, connection, well-being, and diversity

Purposeful Reflection: Experiences in Introducing Mindfulness in an Online Environment

While this poster represents foundational data from an empirical study conducted earlier, the work is primarily targeting special education practitioners, positing ways to foster critical reflection as a means towards building culturally responsive practices. Developing critical reflection in special educators is important because, as a school leader, they must advocate for diversity to be recognized and valued (Howard, 2003). Historically marginalized students need culturally responsive educators to meet their needs. If special educators are not aware of their own cultural biases, they may fail to advocate for or individually provide appropriate interventions and supports, thus leading to disproportionate representation (Klingner et al., 2005)

Revealing the Ideology of Normal: Using CHAT to Explore the Activity of School

The idea of “normal” in schools is problematic. It arbitrates the way educators think about ability, achievement, and behavior. Normal implies a hierarchy of student abilities, suggesting that some can achieve and some cannot. For students who cannot achieve at the same rate as their peers, they are blamed as many assume the problem is the child. Students who deviate from normal are often characterized as different by race, language use, socioeconomic status, or perceived ability. This has historically led to educational inequities. Equating difference with deficits is problematic as US schools are growing in diversity daily. Drawing from Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), I argue that revealing the historical and cultural practices inherent in the activity of US schooling will help us find productive ways to change the activity of schools. I share findings from a qualitative case study conducted with 10 practicing educators who explored how an ideology of normal functions in their own schools. Through their work to make the ideology of normal visible, they acknowledged the importance of radically altering heritage practices that label and marginalize difference. Then, the conceptualization of what normal means can change to something more encompassing of the diversity of learners

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThere remain many unanswered questions regarding the structure and behavior of water, particularly when cooled below the melting temperature into water's supercooled region. In this region, liquid water is metastable, and rapid crystallization makes it difficult to study experimentally the liquid and the crystallization process. Computational studies are hindered by the complexity of accurately modeling water and the computational cost of simulating processes such as crystallization. In this work, the development and validation of mW, a monatomic water model, is presented. This model is able to quantitatively reproduce the structure, dynamic anomalies and phase behavior of water without hydrogen atoms or electrostatics by reproducing water's propensity to form locally tetrahedral structures. Using the mW water model in molecular dynamics simulations, we show the evolution of the local structure of water from 300 - 100 K. We find that the thermodynamic and structural properties studied, density, tetrahedrality and structural correlation length, change maximally or are maximum at 202 ± 2 K, the liquid-liquid transformation temperature. Shifting to water confined within cylindrical nanopores, we present the development of a rotationally invariant method, the CHILL algorithm, to distinguish between liquid, hexagonal and cubic ice. We analyze the process of homogeneous nucleation, growth and melting within hydrophilic pores, as well as the effect of water-pore interaction strength on the melting of ice and liquid-ice coexistence within pores

Effects of Audiobooks and Group Discussion in Inclusive Special Education

Research has shown us that reading while listening has potential benefits. With the popularity of audiobooks growing along with technology advances, it is much easier to implement audiobooks in the classroom than in past years. There have also been indications of positive effects from social interactions on student reading skills and habits, such as those occurring during group discussions and literature circles. This action research study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of using both of these techniques in conjunction with one another to improve reading comprehension among a small group of students identified as struggling readers receiving special education support within the general education English language arts classroom. Data will also be gathered to assess the effect of audiobooks on the participants’ voluntary engagement in independent reading activities

Supporting Written Scientific Explanations of Middle-School Students with Learning Disabilities

This study examined written scientific explanations of 66 middle-school students with learning disabilities (LD) compared with a matched control group of students without LD following instruction in a science unit with embedded supports for writing explanations. Post unit written explanations of students with LD were statistically significantly higher. There were no differences between post-unit written explanations of students with or without LD demonstrating matched gains, yet students without LD demonstrated more growth in overall content knowledge