Review of French-Language Literature on Concepts Related to Social Inclusion

Introduction

La Coopérative de consultation en développement La Clé (La Clé) was asked by the Canadian CED Network (CCEDNet) to produce a review of French-language literature on social inclusion for its Pan-Canadian Community Development Learning Network project. The review was to highlight current uses of the expression as well as prevalent closely related concepts. Unfortunately, albeit not surprisingly, our search found very few documents where the expression “social inclusion” is used in French. Moreover, most of these documents were translations of English-language works and hence, not representative of usage in French. This review thus focuses almost exclusively on what the authors consider to be analogous or related concepts.

The word “inclusion” does, however, exist in French, but the numerous dictionary definitions, such as in Le petit Robert1, as well as terminology recommendations of the Office québécoise de langue française (Québec’s language board), make no reference to the specific inclusion of people. Moreover, the word is completely absent from specialised sociology and social science dictionaries2. Instead of inclusion, Québec and European French-language literature focuses on its opposite, exclusion, and the concept of exclusion is thus the focal point of this review. This paper begins by an examination of the main, and occasionally, contradictory definitions currently applied to the term. This includes a discussion on who is excluded, what types of exclusion exist and what the processes are that result in exclusion. The second part of this paper highlights the different strategies described in the literature to prevent, block or combat exclusion, both socially and economically, with a particular emphasis on approaches focussing on integration and reintegration.

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pdf Review of French-Language Literature on Concepts Related to Social Inclusion William A. Ninacs and Francine Gareau 2004

William A. Ninacs, Review of French-Language Literature on Concepts Related to Social Inclusion, avec Gareau, F., document de travail produit pour le Réseau canadien de développement économique communautaire, non publié, 34 pages, 2004