forms of social exclusion

Causes and forms of social exclusion

Exclusionary processes can have various dimensions:

• Political exclusion can include the denial of citizenship rights such as political participation and the right to organise, and also of personal security, the rule of law, freedom of expression and equality of opportunity. Bhalla and Lapeyre (1997: 420) argue that political exclusion also involves the notion that the state, which grants basic rights and civil liberties, is not a neutral agency but a vehicle of a society’s dominant classes, and may thus discriminate between social groups.
• Economic exclusion includes lack of access to labour markets, credit and other forms of ‘capital assets’.
• Social exclusion may take the form of discrimination along a number of dimensions including gender, ethnicity and age, which reduce the opportunity for such groups to gain access to social services and limits their participation in the labour market.
• Cultural exclusion refers to the extent to which diverse values, norms and ways of living are accepted and respected.

These relationships are interconnected and overlapping, and given the complexity of influences on individuals, it is impossible to identify a single specific cause in the context of social exclusion. People may be excluded because of deliberate action on the part of others (e.g. discrimination by employers); as a result of processes in society which do not involve deliberate action; or even by choice. However, more generally, the causes of social exclusion that lead to poverty, suffering and sometimes death can be attributed to the operations of unequal power relations.