Issue Details

THE RISKS OF SOCIAL EXCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR ITS POLICY ISSUES

ABSTRACT

‘Social Exclusion’ is multidimensional, encompassing social, political, cultural and economic dimensions, and operating at different social levels affecting in different ways to differing degrees at different social levels over time. On the one hand, it focuses on exclusion as the rupture of relationships between people and the society resulting in a lack of social participation, social protection, social integration and power. It has been conceptualised as a continuum across society, or as affecting a segment of the population outside mainstream social systems and relationships. This paper focuses significantly to knowledge of social exclusion - especially as manifested through backwardness in education and its counterpart - behaviour problems and criminality in adolescence. This paper tries to examine firstly the concept of social exclusion and how it relates to ideas of risk and protection. It concludes about the social exclusion process and considers some implications for policy. Social exclusion is most commonly used in a policy context to describe a state of extreme disadvantage experienced by particular groups in a society. This limits the global relevance of the concept and restricts its value as a way of understanding the problems of inequality and developing policies and action to address these problems.What is particularly important to study is the linkage between exclusions in different spheres of interindividual and interfamily interactions, involving both overlap and causal linkages. Many illustrations have been given to exemplify the type of social, economic, and political analyses that can be used to apply the “social exclusion perspective” in investigating deprivations of different kinds. The real issue is not whether the idea of “social exclusion” deserves a celebratory medal as a conceptual advance, but whether people concerned with practical measurement and public policy have reason to pay attention to the issues to which the idea helps to draw attention.

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