Abstract

Social Inclusion: Identifying Priority Areas for Continued Research

Professor Anver Saloojee
Department of Politics & School of Public Administration
Ryerson University

The utility of the concept social inclusion will depend on the extent and degree to which it successfully deals with social exclusion and the extent to which it promotes social cohesion in a society that is fractured along numerous fault lines. It is important to distinguish between weak and strong versions of the social inclusion discourse. The former, focus simply on integration of the excluded – primarily into the labour market, while the latter take a structural approach that focuses on historical processes that continually reproduce oppression, discrimination and exclusion. Strong approaches to the social inclusion discourse therefore are intimately concerned with rights, citizenship and restructured relations between marginalized communities and the institutions of the dominant society. The focus is on valued recognition and valued participation by those excluded from full participation in society and from the benefits of society.

Without undertaking an analysis of the “political economy of exclusion/inclusion”, the attraction of the current discourse is that it focuses attention on social exclusion as failure to integrate into the labour market. But the contemporary discourse on social exclusion is too narrowly focused on poverty and integration into the paid labour market, and it potentially obscures a bigger debate about exploitation and the extent to which various forms of oppression and marginalization increase the social distance between and among groups of people in society. Broadening out the analysis of social exclusion to include the discourse on discrimination and conversely broadening out the concept of social inclusion to embrace an anti-discrimination discourse then requires an analysis of rights and responsibilities in society.

In the Canadian context then there are innumerable areas of research that can be identified. This presentation will focus on three such areas:

1. Research on barriers to effective labour market integration for marginalized communities;
2. Research on the racialization of poverty; and
3. Research on inclusive political participation.

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Sarah Zgraggen
The Willow Group
Tel: (613) 722-8796;
Fax: (613) 729-6206;
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