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FORMS OF DIFFERENTIAL SOCIAL INCLUSION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 June 2017
Abstract:
Advocates of social equality need to develop an account of the society they favor. I have argued elsewhere that social equality should be conceived negatively: in terms of opposition to asymmetric and alienating relations such as hierarchy, domination and social exclusion, rather than in terms of a positive model of equality. This essay looks in detail at social exclusion, or rather “differential social inclusion,” and especially at the mechanisms that create exclusion and bind excluded groups together, and the consequent effects these mechanisms have on the reinforcement of inequality of opportunity and failure of social solidarity. Possible policies, such as improved social mobility, assertive self-affirmation, validation of subcultures, integration, and the creation of a large public sector are considered as possible responses to differential social inclusion in order to move closer to the idea of a society of equals.
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- Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 2017
Footnotes
I am very grateful to Shepley Orr and Michael Stewart for discussions of the themes of this paper, and Andrea Sangiovanni and Gry Wester for their written comments. I’d also like to thank Robin Celikates, Tamar de Waal, Roland Pierik and others who contributed to a discussion of this paper in Amsterdam, as well as audiences in Cambridge and London. I would especially like to thank an anonymous referee for excellent, encouraging, comments as well as the other contributors to this volume.
References
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14 In the 1980s on the standardized UCAS forms, which were the basis for undergraduate university admissions throughout the UK, candidates were required to state their father’s name and occupation. Possibly this was a well-meaning attempt to allow universities to give special consideration to those from what are now called “nontraditional” backgrounds. But of course it need not have been used — consciously or unconsciously — in that way.
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39 Ibid, 17.
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41 Ibid, 112.
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43 See, for example, Shakespeare, Tom, Disability Rights and Wrongs Revisited (London: Routledge, 2013).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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