Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T12:29:56.697Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Concepts of social exclusion

from Part 1 - What is social exclusion?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2018

Jed Boardman
Affiliation:
King's College London
Get access

Summary

Before any consideration of what it means to be socially included can be made it is important to start with a consideration as to what is social exclusion? Social exclusion and its related concepts are mainly to be found in the social policy literature. This chapter does not intend to provide a complete review of the field but rather to give a brief outline of the concepts of social exclusion so that we may consider in subsequent chapters how this might be applied to people with mental health problems and those with learning disability. It also gives some brief consideration to three areas of political philosophy: citizenship, justice and human rights.

What is social exclusion?

Social exclusion has emerged as a concept relatively recently. It is thus not surprising that there is still a lack of clarity about its definition. Some believe that this lack of clarity has certain advantages: ‘The expression is so evocative, ambiguous, multidimensional and elastic that it can be defined in many different ways [therefore] it can serve a variety of political purposes’ (Silver, 1994: p. 536).

The modern use of the term social exclusion appears to have originated in France in the 1970s (Burchardt et al, 2002a; Morgan et al, 2007), referring to les exclus, people who have slipped through the net of the social insurance system and are thus administratively excluded by the state, such as those who are disabled, lone parents and the unemployed. Other versions of the concept have focused on it being an inherent characteristic of capitalism (Byrne, 1999), a lack of recognition of basic rights (Gore & Figueiredo, 1997) and the existence of an underclass (Murray, 1999). In distinction to the first two versions, the last version tends to place responsibility for being excluded on individuals themselves. In the political field some see the term social exclusion as providing an alternative means of speaking of poverty when this term has not been acceptable to politicians (Berghman, 1995). A widely held characterisation of social exclusion is that it refers to the extent to which individuals are unable to participate in key areas of the economic, social and cultural life of society.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Royal College of Psychiatrists
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×