On Relationships Between Social Capital And College Students With Disabilities

Recent years has seen a sharp increase in the number of college students with a continuous enrollment expansion, which indicates that more jobs are needed than ever before. For example, in the year 2013, 6,990,000 students graduated, which was 190,000 more than in 2012. An indisputable fact is that more and more students are not able to get a position after they finish their undergraduate programme. For students with disabilities, the situation is getting much worse. To deal with the severe situation, this study attempts to call attention to the society to take effective measures for the employment of disabled college students.Based on the qualitative approach, the study gets the first-hand data from three universities in Wuhan. 10 disabled students are selected and interviewed face to face. A series of questions are asked concerning their family background, social capital and so on. The investigation shows that family social capital, individual social capital and the university social capital have profound influence on employment for disabled students. The research also finds that for some disabled college student s, social capital is insufficient, and some of them lack of positive attitude towards their employment. Meanwhile, factors such as major setup for college students, job advisory service system, and standards for employments add up to the disadvantages for disabled students.China is a nation which relies heavily on relationships. This can be easily found in nearly all walks of life, and it is the same case in job finding, which puts most disabled college students into an unfavorable position. In order to improve the situation, the paper makes suggestions from the perspectives of the society, the university and disabled students themselves, which include opening of labour market, optimization of job advisory system, reinforcement of professional training, as well as development of market-oriented employment mechanism. Colleges, on the one hand, should set up their majors according to requirements for disabled students, on the other hand, should offer special services fit for them. At the same time, disabled college students should try their best to build up social capital and be active in job application.