Social+Exclusion

References: Webster, Frank, Raimo Blom, Erkki Karvonen, Harri Melin, Karrle Nordenstreng, and Puoskari Ensio. __The Information Society Reader__. 2nd ed. London: Rouledge Student Readers, 2002.p.142-143.
 * Social Exclusion
 * US and UK at the top of the scale, present powerful trends towards increasing inequality, social polarization, and social exclusion
 * There is increasing accumulation of wealth at the top, and of poverty at the bottom.
 * Social exclusion creates pockets of dereliction with various entry points, but hardly any exits.
 * It may be long-term unemployment, illness, functional illiteracy, illegal status, poverty, family disruption, psychological crisis, homelessness, drugs, crime incarcerations, etc.
 * Black holes of information capitalism, the proportion of people in the black holes is staggering, and rapidly growing.
 * The info. Age does not have to be the age of stepped-up inequality, polarization and social exclusion.
 * The info. Age does not have to be the age of stepped-up inequality, polarization and social exclusion.

=**Brief Definition:**= - Individuals or groups that are prevented from participation in their society and in aspects of cultural and community life (Alternative Planning Group, 2). Consisting of a wide variety of social misfits, factors leading to this state include..... - Social Exclusion was first coined by french theorist Rene Lenoir, who popularized the term by highlighting the historical disregard of others. Lenoir points out in his theory that an individual can only be excluded in comparison to other members in society (4). As the term evolved it expanded to include groups that were prevented from participation in society due to the factors stated above (5). =**In Depth Overview:**= Social Exclusion involves examining a person's life chances or opportunities based on the community they live in. Some Individuals are unable to acquire or use their countries' resources to their full potential for numerous reasons. In relation to everyone else these individuals are socially excluded because they haven't had equal opportunity. Issues like this occur more commonly in developed, technologically advanced countries such as the US and UK. These countries, specifically, are more advanced in terms of their technology and they are constantly changing and adapting to different wordly advances. Consequently, people find it much harder to keep up with these constant changes, resulting in a wider gap between the technologically aware and unaware. The issue has gained so much wide spread popularity that a [|Social Exclusion Unit (SEU)] was created in the UK in order to deal with all the issues that come about when people are effected from Social Exclusion.
 * 1) - low income
 * 2) - racism
 * 3) - racial profiling
 * 4) - affordable housing
 * 5) - access to employment (2)

Social exclusion is portrayed as an unfair distribution of resources and opportunity. In a Capitalistic society such as that of the United States, social exclusion is inevitable. In every society it would be utopian to have resources distributed equally, however as long as their are classes there is an unequal distribution. Capitalism thrives on opportunity, and as long as there is the opportunity to make an extra buck at the expense of someonelse there will be the poor classes and the extremly rich classes. Social exclusion is therefore prominant in the poorer classes. The rich stay rich by making profit of others; this is essentially what Capitalism stands for. And on the basis of Capitalism social exclusion happens often, especially when the poor have such a hard time breaking through their social classifications due to a lack of opportunity.

=What can be done:= - Many cities that have been experiencing social exclusion at large have shifted their attention to focus on more of a positive approach entitled "social inclusion". Social Inclusion can be defined as; Societal elements that would include active partcipation by citizens, equality in opportunities, and working on basic levels of well-being. Aspects of social inclusion that have been applied to cities (ie. Toronto) have been social planning activities organozed through teh city and implementation of inclusive policies (9).

=Work Cited=

Alternative Planning Group. "Social Inclusion and the City". Toronto: APG Canada, 2003.