SOCIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL DISCOURSES ON SOCIAL EXCLUSION

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SOCIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL DISCOURSES
ON SOCIAL EXCLUSION

• Lynn C. Todman, PhD
• Director, Institute on Social Exclusion
• Adler School of Professional Psychology
• Prepared for
• Psychology and Social Justice Conference
• New School for Social Research
• Department of Psychology
• April 19th, 2008

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A Sociological Perspective

• What is Social Exclusion?
• A dynamic process of progressive multidimensional
  rupturing of the social bond at the individual
  and collective levels (Silver 2007).

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A Sociological Perspective

• Major Analytic Focus
• Agents of Exclusion
• (e.g., the excluders as opposed to objects of
  exclusion)
• Laws, Regulations, Public Policy
• Behaviors of Public and Private Institutions
• Popularly held Attitudes, Values, and Beliefs
• Macrotrends

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A Sociological PerspectiveMechanisms of
Exclusion

• abandonment
• exile
• ostracism
• extermination
• discrimination
• shame
• marginalization
• segregation
• eviction
• exploitation

• confinement
• imprisonment
• extermination
• genocide
• pathologize
• expulsion
• ineligibility
• resource hoarding
• deportation

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A Sociological Perspective Bases of Exclusion

• race
• ethnicity
• religion
• national origin
• citizenship status
• caste
• gender
• sexual identity/orientation
• geography
• language

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A Sociological PerspectiveMultiple Levels of
Analysis

• Individual
• Community
• Regional
• National
• International

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A Sociological Perspective Exclusion from What?

• Exclusion is a broadly defined experience,
• condition, or process which occurs
• vis-à-vis participation in/access to normatively
  expected social, economic, political, cultural
  or other rights, resources, and opportunities.

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Summary A Sociological Perspective

• Agents of Exclusion
• Multiple Levels of Analysis
• Vis-à-vis normatively expected (for any given
  society) social, economic, political, cultural or
  other rights, resources, and opportunities.

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A Social Psychological Perspective

• Analytic focus The object of exclusion
• Level of analysis The individual
• Exclusion occurs vis-à-vis relatively
  circumscribed activities, opportunities,
  resources
• Mechanisms of exclusion narrowly defined
• Bases of exclusion narrowly defined

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A Social Psychological Perspective What does
Social Exclusion do to individuals?

• Catalyzes a series of inner processes that
• Give rise to certain unproductive attributes
  behaviors.

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Social Psychological Literature Inner Processes
Catalyzed by Social Exclusion

• Emotional numbness (DeWall and Baumeister 2006)
• Loss of empathy, sympathy, helping, and other
  prosocial behaviors (Twenge et al. 2007 DeWall
  et al. 2006 Gailliot, et al. 2007)

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A Social Psychological Perspective Inner
Processes Catalyzed by Social Exclusion

• Decline in intelligent thought (e.g., IQ,
  reasoning Baumeister et al. 2002)
• SE impairs controlled processing functions (e.g.,
  logical reasoning, extrapolation)
• SE impairs self-regulation (manifestations
  aggressiveness, impulsive selfishness,
  self-defeating behaviors, shortsightedness
  Baumeister, et al. 2005, 2007)

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A Social Psychological Perspective

• Sociologists have observed that excluded classes
  of persons in many societies exhibit various
  undesirable patterns of behavior, including
  aggression, poor intellectual or academic
  performance, lack of pro-social behavior,
  self-destructive indulgences, and poor
  self-control. Our research suggests that these
  are not necessarily inner traits of societys
  downtrodden, so much as normal reactions that all
  sorts of people exhibit when they find themselves
  to be excluded by others. (Baumeister et al.
  2007)

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Implications for Public Policy, Community
Development, and Social Change

• Education - A
• key input to community development
• and social change efforts
• Employment
• Income
• Income-dependent resources
• (e.g., housing, healthcare, food, clothing)
• Neighborhood Stability
• Neighborhood Safety
• Social Capital Formation
• Civic Engagement
• Local Economic Development
• Local Property Tax Base
• Local public services
• Jobs
• Employment
• ..

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Implications for Public Policy, Community
Development and Social Change

• Education reform efforts often focuses on the
  childrens .
• attributes (e.g., intelligence levels) and
• behaviors (e.g., violence, aggression,
  self-defeating)

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Implications for Public Policy, Community
Development and Social Change

• Reflected in education policies such as
• Tracking
• Punitive disciplinary and control procedures and
  processes

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Implications for Public Policy, Community
Development and Social Change

• BUT, if the work of social psychologists reveals
  that social exclusion causes
• declines in intelligent thought
• aggression, violence, and other kinds of
  anti-social and self-defeating behaviors

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Implications for Public Policy, Community
Development and Social Change

• AND, if the work of sociologists tells us that
  social exclusion is caused by structural agents
  

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Implications for Public Policy, Community
Development and Social Change

• THEN, I suggest we rethink the appropriate the
  point of intervention in education reform
  efforts.

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Implications for Public Policy, Community
Development and Social Change

• The implications of the combined work on social
  exclusion
• of sociologists and social psychologists suggests
  that the
• appropriate point of corrective intervention in
  education
• reform efforts are the structural agents of
  exclusion not
• the children in the schools but the laws,
  regulations,
• policies, institutional practices, and popularly
  held beliefs
• that produce the spatially and socially
  segregated, isolated,
• that is, excluded communities in which these
  children
• reside.

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SOCIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL DISCOURSES
ON SOCIAL EXCLUSION

• Thank you!
• Lynn C. Todman, PhD
• Director, Institute on Social Exclusion
• Adler School of Professional Psychology