One sociological definition of social exclusion is as follows:
Social exclusion is a multidimensional process of progressive social rupture, detaching groups and individuals from social relations and institutions and preventing them from full participation in the normal, normatively prescribed activities of the society in which they live.
An inherent problem with the term, however, is the tendency of its use by practitioners to define it to fit their argument . It is a term used widely in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
and
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
, and was first utilized in
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
It is used across disciplines including
educationEducation in its broadest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual...
,
sociologySociology is the scientific or systematic study of human societies. It is a branch of social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, often with the goal of applying such...
,
psychologyPsychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the systematic, and sometimes scientific, study of human or animal mental functions and behavior...
,
politicsPolitics is a process by which groups of people make decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic and religious institutions...
and
economicsEconomics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
.
Juridical concept
There are countries, Italy for example, that have a legal concept of social exclusion
. In Italy "esclusione sociale" is defined as povertyPoverty is the condition of lacking basic human needs such as nutrition, clean water, health care, clothing, and shelter because of the inability to afford them. This is also referred to as absolute poverty or destitution...
combined to social alienationIn sociology and critical social theory, alienation refers to an individual's estrangement from traditional community and others in general. It is considered by many that the atomism of modern society means that individuals have shallower relations with other people than they would normally...
, by the statuteA statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs a country, state, city, or county. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. The word is often used to distinguish law made by legislative bodies from case law and the regulations issued by...
n. 328 (11-8-2000), that instituted a state investigation commission named "Commissione di indagine sull'Esclusione Sociale" (CIES) to make annual report to the government on legally expected issues of social exclusion.
Overview
Most of the characteristics listed in the following paragraphs are present together in studies of social exclusion, due to exclusion's multidimensionality. One of the best descriptions of social exclusion and social inclusion are that they are on a continuum on a vertical plane below and above the 'social horizon'; they have a ten-phase modulating ("phase" because they increase and decrease [modulate] with time) social structure: race, geographic location, class structure, globalization, social issues, personal habits and appearance, education, religion, economics, and politics. The following descriptions are very limiting and do not cover the whole gamut of social exclusion and social inclusion.
Social exclusion relates to the
alienationIn sociology and critical social theory, alienation refers to an individual's estrangement from traditional community and others in general. It is considered by many that the atomism of modern society means that individuals have shallower relations with other people than they would normally...
or disenfranchisement of certain people within a society. It is often connected to a person's
social classSocial classes are the hierarchical arrangements of people in society as economic or cultural groups. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political economists and social historians...
, educational status, relationships in childhood and living standards and how these might affect access to various opportunities. It also applies to some degree to people with a
disabilityDisability is defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 as "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities."...
, to minority men and women of all races, to the elderly, and to youth (
Youth ExclusionYouth Exclusion is a form of social exclusion in which youth are situated at a social disadvantage in joining institutions and organizations in their societies...
). Anyone who deviates in any perceived way from the norm of a population may become subject to coarse or subtle forms of social exclusion. Additionally, communities may self-exclude by removing themselves physically from the larger community, for example, in the
gated communityIn its modern form, a gated community is a form of residential community containing strictly controlled entrances for pedestrians, bicycles, and automobiles, and sometimes characterised by a closed perimeter of walls and fences. Gated communities usually consist of small residential streets and...
model.
Causes
Whilst recognising the multi-dimensionality of exclusion, policy work undertaken at
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
level focuses on
unemploymentUnemployment occurs when a person is available to work and seeking work but currently without work. The prevalence of unemployment is usually measured using the unemployment rate, which is defined as the percentage of those in the labor force who are unemployed...
as a key cause of, or at least correlate with, social exclusion. This is because in modern societies, paid work is not only the principal source of income with which to buy services, but is also the fount of individuals' identity and feeling of self-worth. Most people's social networks and sense of embeddedness in society also revolve around their work. Many of the indicators of extreme social exclusion, such as poverty and homelessness, depend on monetary income which is normally derived from work. Much policy to reduce exclusion thus focuses on the labour market:
- on the one hand to make individuals at risk of exclusion more attractive to employers - more "employable"
- on the other hand to encourage (and/or oblige) employers to be more inclusive in their employment policies
The EU's
EQUAL Community InitiativeEQUAL is the ‘Community Initiative’ within the European Social Fund of the European Union. It concerns “transnational co-operation to promote new means of combating all forms of discrimination and inequalities in connection with the labour market”...
investigated ways to increase the inclusiveness of the labour market. Work on social exclusion more broadly is carried out through the
Open Method of CoordinationThe open method of coordination or OMC is a relatively new and intergovernmental means of governance in the European Union, based on the voluntary cooperation of its member states.- Overview :...
(OMC) among the Member State governments.
In some circumstances transport may be a factor in social exclusion - for instance if lack of public transprt or access to a vehicle prevents a person from getting to a job, training course, job centre or doctor's surgery. Some schemes therefore promote accessibility, for instance:
- by ensuring public transport is available, which is particularly relevant for women
- by subsidising the purchase of a scooter, which is relevant to young peope living in rural areas
Quotations
“Social exclusion is about the inability of our society to keep all groups and individuals within reach of what we expect as a society...[or] to realise their full potential."
"Whatever the content and criteria of social membership, socially excluded groups and individuals lack capacity or access to social opportunity..
To be "excluded from
societySociety or human society is the manner or condition in which the members of a community live together for their mutual benefit. By extension, society denotes the people of a region or country, sometimes even the world, taken as a whole....
" can take various relative senses, but social exclusion is usually defined as more than a simple economic phenomenon: it also has consequences on the social, symbolic field.
"Women of PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located at the crossroads of South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia...
i, BangladeshiA British Bangladeshi is someone of Bangladesh origin who resides in the United Kingdom having emigrated to the UK and attained citizenship through naturalisation or whose parents did so; they are also known as British Bengalis...
and CaribbeanThe Caribbean is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands , and the surrounding coasts...
descent [in Britain] are doing well in schools but are still being penalised in the workplace...80-89% of 16-year-olds from those ethnic groups wanted to work full-time...but they were up to four times more likely to be jobless."
PhilosopherPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
Axel HonnethAxel Honneth is a professor of philosophy at the University of Frankfurt, Germany and director of the Institut für Sozialforschung in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.-Biography:...
thus speaks of a "struggle for recognition", which he attempts to theorize through Hegel's philosophy. In this sense, to be socially excluded is to be deprived from social recognition and social value. In the sphere of
politicsPolitics is a process by which groups of people make decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic and religious institutions...
, social recognition is obtained by full
citizenshipCitizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, or national community.Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
; in the economic sphere (in
capitalismCapitalism is an economic and social system in which the means of production are privately controlled; labor, goods and capital are traded in a market; profits are distributed to owners or invested in technologies and industries; and wages are paid to labor...
) it means being paid enough to be able to participate fully in the life of the community.
This concept can be gleaned from considering examples of the
"social integration crisis: poverty, professional exclusion or marginalization, social and civic disenfranchisement, absence or weakening of support networks, frequent inter-cultural conflictsThe Clash of Civilizations is a theory, proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world....
," These relate not only to gender, race and disability, but also to
crimeCrime is the breach of one or more rules or laws for which some governing authority, via mechanisms such as police power, may ultimately prescribe a conviction...
:
"Social exclusion is a major cause of crime and re-offending. Removing the right to vote increases social exclusion by signalling to serving prisoners that, at least for the duration of their sentence, they are dead to society.The additional punishment of disenfranchisement is not a deterrent. There is no evidence to suggest that criminals are deterred from offending behaviour by the threat of losing the right to vote.....(and) the notion of civic death for sentenced prisoners isolates still further those who are already on the margins of society and encourages them to be seen as alien to the communities to which they will return on release"
Links between exclusion and other issues
The problem of social exclusion is usually tied to the problem of
equal opportunityEquality of opportunity, sometimes known as Equal Opportunity, is a term which has differing definitions and there is no consensus as to the precise meaning...
, as some people are more subject to such exclusion than others. Marginalisation of certain groups is a problem even in many economically more developed countries, including the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
(UK) and the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
(US), where the majority of the population enjoys considerable economic and social opportunities..
Since social exclusion may lead to one being deprived of one's citizenship, some authors (
Philippe Van ParijsPhilippe Van Parijs is a Belgian philosopher and political economist, mainly known as a proponent and main defender of the basic income concept.-Education:...
,
Jean-Marc FerryJean-Marc Ferry is a French philosopher who is best known for his book Les puissances de l'expérience , described by Paul Ricoeur as "one of the most important works recently published in the field of social and political philosophy"...
, Alain Caillé,
André GorzAndré Gorz , also known by his pen name Michel Bosquet, was an Austrian and French social philosopher. Also a journalist, he co-founded Le Nouvel Observateur weekly in 1964...
, Axel Wolz) have proposed a
basic incomeA basic income is a proposed system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen with a sum of money that allows the receiver to participate in society with human dignity. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional...
, which would impede exclusion from citizenship. The concept of a Universal Unconditional Income, or social salary, has been disseminated notably by the Green movement in Germany.
In the last few years there has been research focused on possible connections between exclusion and brain function. Studies published by the University of Georgia and San Diego State University found that exclusion can lead to diminished brain functioning and poor decision making. Such studies corroborate with earlier beliefs of sociologists. The effect of exclusion may likely correlate with such things as substance abuse and crime.
Social inclusion
Social inclusion, its converse, is
affirmative actionThe term affirmative action refers to policies that take race, ethnicity, or gender into consideration in an attempt to promote equal opportunity or increase ethnic or other forms of diversity. The focus of such policies ranges from employment and education to public contracting and health programs...
to change the circumstances and habits that lead to (or have led to) social exclusion.
Social Inclusion is a strategy to combat social exclusion, but it is not making reparations or amends for past wrongs as in Affirmative Action. It is the coordinated response to the very complex system of problems that are known as social exclusion. The notion of social inclusion can vary according to the type of strategies organisations adopted.
Social exclusion is a concept that is used in many parts of the world outside of the United States to characterise contemporary forms of social disadvantage. Dr. Lynn Todman, director of the Institute on Social Exclusion at the Adler School of Professional Psychology, suggests that social exclusion refers to processes in which individuals and entire communities of people are systematically blocked from rights, opportunities, and resources (e.g., housing, employment, healthcare, civic engagement, democratic participation, and due process) that are normally available to members of American society and which are key to social integration.
See also
- Basic income
A basic income is a proposed system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen with a sum of money that allows the receiver to participate in society with human dignity. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional...
- Caste
A caste is a combined social system of occupation, endogamy, culture, social class, and political power. Caste should not be confused with class, in that members of a caste are deemed to be alike in function or culture, whereas not all members of a defined class may be so alike.Although Indian...
- Guaranteed minimum income
Guaranteed Minimum Income is a proposed system of social welfare provision that guarantees that all citizens or families have an income sufficient to live on, provided they meet certain conditions. Eligibility is typically determined by citizenship, a means test and either availability for the...
- Marginalization
In sociology, marginalization is the social process of becoming or being made marginal ; "the marginalization of the underclass"; "marginalization of literature" and many other are some examples. in its most extreme form can exterminate groups...
- Ostracism
Ostracism was a procedure under the Athenian democracy in which a prominent citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the victim, ostracism was often used pre-emptively...
- Poverty
Poverty is the condition of lacking basic human needs such as nutrition, clean water, health care, clothing, and shelter because of the inability to afford them. This is also referred to as absolute poverty or destitution...
- Racism
Racism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or get preferential treatment...
- Social Re-exclusion
- Second-class citizen
Second-class citizen is an informal term used to describe a person who is systematically discriminated against within a state or other political jurisdiction, despite their nominal status as a citizen or legal resident there...
- Social alienation
In sociology and critical social theory, alienation refers to an individual's estrangement from traditional community and others in general. It is considered by many that the atomism of modern society means that individuals have shallower relations with other people than they would normally...
- Social firm
A Social Firm is a business created for the employment of people who have a disability or are otherwise disadvantaged in the labour market. The commercial and production activities are undertaken in the context of a social mission, with profits going back into the company to further its goals...
- Social rejection
Social rejection occurs when an individual is deliberately excluded from a social relationship or social interaction. The topic includes both interpersonal rejection and romantic rejection. A person can be rejected on an individual basis or by an entire group of people...
- URSPIC
URSPIC Urban Redevelopment and Social Polarisation in the City is a European Commission, DG XII research project conducted in 1997-1999 and coordinated by Frank Moulaert.- Project thesis :...
: An EU Research Project to measure impacts of urban development projects on social exclusion
- Waithood
Waithood refers to the period of stagnation in the lives of young unemployed college graduates in the Middle East and North Africa region, "a kind of prolonged adolescence", "the bewildering time in which large proportions of Middle Eastern youth spend their best years waiting.It is a phase in...
- Youth Exclusion
Youth Exclusion is a form of social exclusion in which youth are situated at a social disadvantage in joining institutions and organizations in their societies...
External links
Wikipedia in other languages
- :fr:Exclusion sociale
- :it:Esclusione sociale