Problems Of Social Exclusion Research Articles

Collective empowerment: A comparative study of community work in Mumbai and Stockholm

Mumbai and Stockholm are worlds apart in terms of public services, infrastructures and standard of living. However, both cities have known common problems of social exclusion and marginalisation related to neo‐liberal globalisation. Social workers are facing similar challenges regarding collective empowerment as a strategy for community work. This comparative study explored how collective empowerment is undertaken by community workers. The research participants were 13 informants from community‐work organisations in the two settings. Semi‐structured interviews were used and were analysed with the help of Atlas‐ti 6.2 (ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development GmbH D‐10623 Berlin Germany). Social work in Mumbai is in a context of extreme poverty and mainly within the informal sector, whereas in Stockholm most social work is done in relation to a public welfare model. In Stockholm, interventions are aimed towards strengthening social networks, without direct aim at social change. In Mumbai, community workers organise people for collective empowerment to strengthen marginalised groups and achieve social change.

Revisiting the EU’s social exclusion discourse: Residential segregation, Greek Roma and the participatory governance lock in

In this paper, we discuss the controversy over the EU’s social policy goals and the vibrant debate about the means through which they are promoted. In particular we explore the “citizenship rights” and the “participatory governance” pillars of the EU’s “social exclusion” approach. The paper examines the Roma population in Greece; a de facto minority experiencing multidimensional, material and discursive exclusion that has recently attracted the attention of the EU’s social policy makers. We interrogate the Greek city of Komotini’s attempts to administer an integrated intervention aimed at ameliorating the disadvantaged state of the city’s Roma community. The EU’s interpretation of “social exclusion”, it is argued, examines the ways in which citizenship rights are exercised and brings to the surface longstanding social exclusion problems. The EU’s mode of anti-exclusion intervention, however, based on participatory governance schemes, is primarily concerned with improving the effectiveness of policy delivery. In the case of minorities, it overlooks discrimination as the root cause of exclusion. In the absence of provisions mitigating power asymmetries among participants, underprivileged groups are often left with no alternative but to scale up political pressure against governing institutions or risk being ignored.

Social Exclusion through the Prism of Social Capital

This article attempts to bring out the linkage between the concept and issues of ‘social exclusion’ and ‘social capital’. To put it more exactly, the concept and issues of social exclusion are interpreted in terms of ‘social capital’. The argument of this article is constructed by reviewing the literatures and is presented with suitable illustrations. As there is a necessity to understand the concepts before explaining the link between these two ideas, concepts have been probed as exhaustively as possible. By taking into account the implicit connections between these two ideas traced from the works of classical thinkers such as Durkheim, Marx and Weber to notable thinkers associated with the concept of ‘social capital’ such as Bourdieu, Coleman and to some extent Glenn Loury and the idea of link and co-variation between social capital and social exclusion as presented in the article entitled ‘Social Exclusion and Social Capital: A Comparison and Critique’ by Mary Daly and Hilary Silver, the article here brings out how the issues of social exclusion appear through the prism of social capital. ‘Cyber social capital’ as the new form of social capital and ‘digital divide’ as the new form of exclusion are also identified and explained. Linking these ideas also offers the direction for a potential area of research in these dimensions. It makes inference that ‘social capital’ is one of the effective antidotes for the problem of social exclusion. ‘Social capital’ becomes effective inclusive resources especially by considering the present neo-liberal policy framework.

Drug prevention, politics and knowledge: Ideology in the making

The quest for rational and effective methods for political action has long been at the forefront of Swedish drug policy and prevention. This article focuses on the ideological dimension of Swedish drug prevention policy during the years 1981–2011 by examining the knowledge utilisation in the construction of drugs as a political problem. Ten public reports have been analysed in terms of how drugs are constructed as problems in policy proposals, including an analysis of how knowledge is used in proposals for preventive measures. There was a marked shift in the 1990s in how the drug issue was constructed as a problem and what preventive measures should be taken. What used to be an issue of social exclusion that should be managed politically on a structural level now became a behavioural concern and a matter of liberal drug values. Values, then, were to be addressed by methods aimed at modifying individual behaviour. The analysis suggests that drug prevention today has been constructed in a way that precludes reading drugs as a problem of social exclusion. Drugs are constructed as a problem to be handled by experts rather than politics, which helps to circumvent demands for political accountability and the very possibility of constructing drugs as a political problem.

Social participation and social capital with equity and efficiency: An approach from central-place theory

A great deal of attention has been paid to the efficiency of the analysis of sustainable urban and regional growth. This includes social participation and social capital, which require a consideration of equity. In this paper, an approach from central-place theory for sustainable urban and regional growth is examined, taking into consideration relevant variables such as ageing, social interaction and accessibility. A lack of consideration of equity could cause several social exclusion problems, and these problems could develop into spatial consumer exclusion. Solutions for these problems would not only improve equity but also efficiency, and the outcome would addresses the necessity of an alternative spatial formation based on a wider-regional rural central-place system according to given economic, social and spatial configurations.

The Meaning of Health, Well-Being, and Quality of Life Perceived by Roma People in West Sweden

Many Roma people in Sweden are on the margins of society and face problems of social exclusion, institutional discrimination, low education, unemployment, and poor health. The aim is to describe how a group of Roma people, in West Sweden, understand health, well-being, and quality of life within the Roma context, and how they cope with their life-situation. Data consisted of qualitative interviews. The data were analyzed qualitatively using a phenomenological hermeneutic approach. The respondents mainly understood the concept of Health as “being healthy” and “feeling good”. Elements that were crucial part of the respondents’ health perception were being employed, having an education, social support from family and friends, freedom and security, and the extent of involvement in society. The results indicate that the respondents perceive their health and life situation as good, despite of their marginalized situation and discrimination.

Knowing Your Place and Minding Your Own Business: On Perverse Psychological Solutions to the Imagined Problem of Social Exclusion

We draw on ancient Greek philosophy and contemporary psychosocial theorists to analyse the ethical implications of social policies implemented through the welfare state with the espoused objective of achieving social inclusion. We argue that many such policies establish a boundary between domains of inclusion and exclusion that perversely maintains the very problem such policies are designed to solve. They then also provide ‘rationalisations’ for social exclusion which imply that such states can be explained—that they are ethical, and so legitimate. We illustrate our argument with reference to a specific area of social policy—Improving Access to Psychological Therapies—and discuss how it impacts on our own area of practice as state employed psychotherapists. We analyse how this policy frames aspects of social exclusion (un(der)employment?) as a ‘psychological’ problem: a move that grants the excluded a specific kind of identity and then locates the problem of exclusion in this identity. We invoke Plato's Republic to show how this offer of psychological ‘help’ subliminally suggests that these mental disorders result from individuals' failures to ‘know their place’ and to ‘mind their own business’, rather than as a consequence of complex networks of social (dis)orders, exclusions and injustices within which we are all embedded.

The problem of social exclusion of the elderly in rural areas

The problem of social exclusion of the elderly in rural areas

Considering the Negative Impacts of Globalization on the Social Sphere and the Alternative of the New Governance

The aim of the article is to reveal negative impacts of globalization from the social perspective and to present the alternative of the New Governance in an attempt to solve the problem of social exclusion. The article analyses social risk and the syndrome of “speaking winners” and “silent losers,” which result from the modern capitalism and affect and distort the social sphere. The article questions the New Public Management as the means of increasing the efficiency of the administration in the social sphere and analyses the possibilities of the method of “Open Coordination” and the alternative of the New Governance in an attempt to solve social problems.

Editorial

The authors in this issue highlight crucial issues facing Commonwealth local governments today − ensuring national influence, maximising revenue generation, encouraging probity in staffing appointments, or dealing with problems of social exclusion and alcoholism, are some of the varied challenges faced by local administrations.

Neoliberalism and the marginalisation of social justice: the making of an education policy to combat social exclusion

The paper analyses how the establishment of neoliberalism, as the new global orthodoxy, in the field of education implies a substantial subjugation and marginalisation of policies and practices informed by the values of social justice and equity. The evidence from a case study on an inclusive education policy enacted to combat social exclusion and dropout in a disadvantaged inner-city area in the south of Italy are presented. The study shows how neoliberalism is increasingly re-defining the domains of validity, normativity and actuality according to an economic rationale; within these domains the actors frame the problems of social exclusion and dropout and choose the solutions to address them. It is argued that the overall framework of discourses of human capital, individualisation, school improvement, performativity and standardisation impedes any contextualised, multidimensional and critical approach to social exclusion as well as the pursuing of any egalitarian outcomes, be they (re)distributional, cultural or associational outcomes.

Tourist activity: international and domestic diversification and the problem of social exclusion

This article presents the international and domestic diversification of tourist activity. In the former case, it focuses on analyses of the general level of tourist activity, expressed in the ‘tourist activity rate’, while with regards to the inhabitants of Poland, analyses were conducted on the diversification of tourist activity across various socio-demographic categories. For international comparisons, the wide-ranging research conducted by EUROSTAT in 2011 on representative samples of the inhabitants of 32 European countries was used. The diversification of Polish tourist activity in the context of social exclusion, on the other hand, is presented on the basis of the author's research and calculations. Statistical analyses were employed: Kendall's Tau-b rank correlation coefficient and cluster analysis.

Соціологічні підходи до вивчення проблеми соціального виключення людей з особливими потребами

Соціологічні підходи до вивчення проблеми соціального виключення людей з особливими потребами

Biopsychosocial factors related to the length of hospital stay in older people

This study aimed to know what variables influence increased length of hospital stay. A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted through an integrated geriatric assessment of 81 people over 65 years of age, admitted to a tertiary acute care hospital. Data were collected through the Pfeiffer Scale, Barthel Index, Goldberg Questionnaire, Family APGAR and Gijón Scale. The length of hospital stay increased in people over 80 years, people living alone or in a retirement home, patients with great physical dependence and those with a risk or problem of social exclusion. The most influential variable for longer hospitalization was cognitive impairment (p<0.05), due to greater collaboration or desire to overcome the acute stage of the pathology that led to the hospital admission among patients without this condition.

Leaving family care: Transitions to adulthood from kinship care

Kinship care represents 46% of all out-of-home care placements in Spain and 80% of all foster care placements. Therefore, the role of fostering relatives, most of whom (about 70%) are grandparents, is particularly relevant in the Spanish child care system. In 1998 we carried out a descriptive study on profiles of kinship care in Spain, including children, birth parents, fostering relatives and patterns of process and intervention, with a sample of 568 cases. This paper presents a follow-up study of a part of this group who were adults in 2006, aimed at assessing their transition to adulthood. A subset of 143 young adults was eligible for this follow-up study, which consists of a personal interview and questionnaires. We were able to assess a sample of 67 young adults in this way, and collect some relevant information on another 56 cases. The results show that only a small part of the sample present serious problems of social exclusion (9%), whilst 70% have found employment or are in higher education and with a relatively stable life, even though, in general, their jobs are of a low-skilled nature. We also discuss other important aspects, such as the frequent loss (through death) of grandparent foster carers and the lack of help and support from the authorities for their kinship carers perceived by the young people themselves.

How To Shape Up Conservation-Led Regeneration Initiatives Regarding Community Needs?

Over the last three decades, historic housing areas with problems of social exclusion and urban deprivation have become one of the major concerns in urban regeneration, housing renovation and conservation projects. While the urban regeneration and conservation policies in the 1980s and 1990s were primarily based on the idea of property-led regeneration and mainly addressed economic and physical decline, the debate on urban regeneration and conservation policies has moved to social and community-related issues in the urban renewal process since the late-1990s (Healey et al., 1992; Turok, 1992; Imrie and Thomas, 1993; Cameron and Doling, 1994; Berry and McGreal, 1995; Jones and Watkins, 1996; Hill, 2000; Pagonis and Thornley, 2000; Roberts and Sykes, 2000; Audit Commission, 2001; Nelson, 2001; Vicari, 2001; Birch, 2002; European Union, 2002; Adair et al., 2003; Imrie and Raco, 2003; Madanipour et al., 1998). Despite the shift in the emphasis of the policies towards social and community-related issues, it is still questionable how far the recent regeneration efforts in historic housing areas address the community needs and integrate the aspirations, preferences and values of local residents living in or adjacent to these project areas.

Social Exclusion of Muslims in India and Deficient Debates about Affirmative Action

Many nations today grapple with problems of social exclusion along ethno-religious lines and face demands for some kind of affirmative action by disadvantaged ethnic, racial and religious groups. In India, caste inequalities among Hindus have long been recognised and substantive measures for redressing disadvantages of lower castes have been in place for decades. Since India’s Muslims, too, are faced with various types of social exclusion, there have been ongoing debates about the necessity of state intervention in the form of affirmative action for Muslims. The article interrogates various strands of this debate. While relative socio-economic disadvantages among Muslims cannot be denied, how Muslims are currently presented as a marginalised and excluded community is shown to be too simplistic and actually leads to isolation. In view of the multi-dimensional nature of group disadvantage for Muslims, particularly spatial patterns observable across India, more careful understanding is needed to develop effective affirmative action policies. While deeply flawed reasoning grounds prevailing current arguments in favour of separate affirmative action for Muslims, the article suggests that the aim should be to achieve better development for all disadvantaged people from all communities in any particular space.

Conversation in the afternoon

It’s about a reflection resulting of the practice philosophy with children I had in about four years work, with kids and young people between 4 and 18 years old, immigrants and sons of immigrants from Cape Verde, in “Cova Moura” suburbs, being around Lisbon. One says that the habitants form this neighborhood form a community alike those there are in some places away the Islands and the geographic space in there makes as another Island between other suburbs of the city. Being different by one another due to the practice of Cap Verdean traditions during their daily life, along these values and practices related to the culture of Cap Verde exists several difficulties or economic or related to violence which can be caused by the traffic of drugs as well as the evasive way of police acting. There are many problems of social exclusion that affect the children and young. One of the main objectives in place has been to make more value of their origin culture and mother’s language, Kriol, another one was to, develop the reflection and question based in the context of exclusion. For that, it’s necessary to investigate children’s talking to make clear their context and to reinforce how important it is for them to have a space where they can think about their situation. Also to analyze problems related that comes with practice or the way that we should connect child´s experience and their philosophical questions and how important is for them to reflect upon their world, to develop their critical thinking about the world and also recognize the right inclusion. Therefore, beyond its psychological effects philosophy for children is different practice from psychology. Keywords: philosophy childhood; experience; exclusion; inscription.

Social Exclusion in the Welfare State: The Implications of Welfare Reforms for Social Solidarity and Social Citizenship

Despite the fact that most European countries have well established welfare systems, social exclusion is a growing problem in most modern Western societies. It is a problem that affects not only the individual but society as a whole. At individual level, exclusion refers to the failure to participate in social activities and to build social relations. At societal level, exclusion reflects inadequate social cohesion and integration. All forms of social exclusion point to a decline of social solidarity. The article addresses the problem of social exclusion in the welfare state from the perspective of legal and social theory. It examines the theoretical foundations of the welfare state by virtue of an analysis of different concepts of solidarity. This analysis will help to reveal a paradigm shift which was prompted by recent welfare reforms and which has affected the foundations of the welfares state. The aim is to show how this paradigm shift has changed the concepts of social solidarity and social citizenship in the welfare state and, ultimately, facilitates social exclusion

Study on building plan for enhancing the social health of public apartments

Mass-produced in a short period of time, Korea's public apartments contributed to easing the housing anxiety of the common people. Nonetheless, they also gave rise to problems of social exclusion and conflict, becoming undesirable facilities that weakened social health. This study examined ways of producing an improved building plan that can raise the level of social health of public apartments, which were consistently built in the past but will no doubt continue to be developed in the future. For this study, the survey method was employed through a questionnaire with visual contents especially developed to raise the level of social health based on two ideas. One was to increase the possibility of social interaction among residents, and the other was to increase opportunities for residents to interact with society as well as for their social integration. The results showed that residents had mostly favorable views on the proposed plans: in particular, they favored highly the formation of a lobby in each apartment building as a venue for social interaction. They also responded very favorably to the plan of creating within the buildings spare space that will be used not only to promote a communal culture, but to open to outside society as well for integration. This study showed vital ideas to ensure the recovery of the residential function of promoting social health in the public apartments of Korea. It has significance in inspiring an innovative approach to allow social mixture in a relatively different feasible manner from the conventional approach.