Providing a Bare Minimum or Building a Unique Team? a Comprehensive Participatory Study of Social Inclusion and Diversity Management in Russian Public Career Centers

The participatory research is dedicated to a complex investigation of employees’ with disabilities (EwDs’) labor conditions in the Russian public sector and focuses on the public career centers by investigating social inclusion for EwDs, EwDs’ career paths, talent management models, and other related concepts. Despite being a significant contributor to national welfare, the Russian public sector currently provides little information on EwDs’ labor conditions. The authors claim that the social inclusion of EwDs in contemporary Russia may be seen not only as a field of future theoretical elaborations but also as a potential area of essential social work and targeted policymaking.

The research utilizes the strategy of multiple case study, semi-structured interviews, and qualitative questionnaires within the framework of a complex institutional ethnographic study to reach several Russian public career centers as examples of public institutions for an in-depth EwDs’ labor conditions analysis. Using the results of the previous pilot study and Weick’s sense-making optics together with inclusive leadership conception as theoretical frameworks, the authors introduce an adopted research technique that overcomes the observed pilot study difficulties and tailors the methods to the specifics of the field. The initial context for the research proposal was explored with the help of disability rights activists and study participants, as well as study results were presented as media awareness-raising projects.

Cultural practices, models of disability, and the compliance between the claims of legislative institutions of inclusive policymaking and their actual practices will be particularly highlighted. Based on a literature review and empirical data, the authors discuss a range of interrelated phenomena for future investigation to achieve intersectional analysis and participation and practical implications, including precarity, corporate image, and cooperation of the state, scholars, and NGOs.
The results of the long-term research project are aimed at developing the guidebooks and workplace inclusion assessment tools.