Elements Of Social Exclusion

Question 2
Since it has no precise definition, the exact meaning of social exclusion is not always clear. Therefore, A. B. Atkinson uses the three elements to provide a basis for considering the mechanisms of social exclusion and social inclusion. The first is that of “relativity”. People are excluded from a particular society: it depends on a particular place and time (p.13). The concrete implementation of any criterion for exclusion has to take account of the activities of others since social exclusion often manifests itself in terms of communities rather than individuals. The second element is “agency” since exclusion implies an act, with an agent or agents. For instance, people may refuse jobs preferring to live on benefit; or they may

By drawing attention to the patriarchal structure of the welfare state, Pateman (1988) discusses the feminization of poverty. Since citizenship rights are based on labor and employment, women who do not work remain as possessing secondary citizenship. Therefore, they depend on men in terms of protection, property, and government. This dependency should be considered in the social exclusion debates. In fact, she argues that “[w]omen have never in reality been completely excluded from the public world, but the policies of the welfare state have helped ensure that women’s day-to-day experience confirms the separation of private and public existence” (Pateman, 1998, p.236). Therefore, we can say that unintended consequence of policies can cause the social exclusion as well. She exemplifies this situation; the welfare state leads to “to exchange dependence on individual men for dependence on the state” which does not “challenge patriarchal power relations” (255). It is the Wollstonecraft’s dilemma that faced by women in their attempt to win full citizenship. Women who gain additional assistance from the state by remaining as “woman” are empowered in a certain level, yet; the traditional division of social roles is reproduced and the social exclusion of women continues in this

Wacquant discusses the urban exclusion on the issue of “new urban poverty” by taking xenophobic attitudes and increasing the urban inequalities into consideration. He addresses urban exclusion on the base of degradation, high rates of unemployment and a low morality (p.370). These elements also enable us to reconsider urban exclusion in post-1980s. For example, immigrant Kurdish population settling in gecekondu areas in Turkey expose not only the exclusion from labor market, but also intense racial stigma and degradation of their sui generis moral standards and