Social inclusion and participation

This book arose from an interest in exploring, with respect to children and young people, the connections between two key concepts that became prominent in social policy during the 1990s and early years of the new millennium: social inclusion and participation. At a superficial glance, these two terms appear to have virtually identical meanings. Social inclusion is about being allowed or enabled to take part, while participation entails taking part. The former suggests a more passive stance and the latter a more active mode, but in each case it is possible to consider processes and factors that act as barriers or facilitators to inclusion/participation, at individual, local and societal levels. Of course, both beg the question – taking part in what?

Potentially, participation and inclusion can apply to any of a sizeable set of life domains: social activities and relationships; the labour market; consumption; education; recreation and leisure; decision making of various kinds that may be collective (for example, political voting; school councils) or personal (for example, where to live after parental divorce). The addition of the qualifier ‘social’ to inclusion implies a somewhat more restricted sphere, omitting some other types of inclusion, such as political inclusion. In practice, though, social inclusion and participation have mostly been used in narrower ways. For instance, participation has been most closely linked with decision making, while inclusion has more often referred to economic and social relationships and well-being. In the rest of this chapter, we first consider separately how each has been conceptualised and applied, then indicate potential connections. Later chapters examine some of the issues that emerge in greater depth.

Poverty and exclusion/inclusion

In policy and academic circles, social inclusion was adopted to describe in positive terms policy measures to combat social exclusion, regarded largely as an outcome of socioeconomic processes (Percy-Smith, 2000; Pierson, 2002). With roots in continental European usages (Hantrais, 1995), social exclusion became popular in the UK under New Labour as a means of describing and also redefining poverty. It referred to individuals or families having incomes and resources that are inadequate in the context of an advanced economy.