The language of social exclusion in applications to early programmes

Transcription

1 Contents The language of social exclusion in applications to early programmes By Michael Clegg & James Killeen, December 2000 Executive Summary 1. Introduction and Methodology 2. The language of applicants: social exclusion and related terms 2.1. Excluded, disadvantaged, deprived or poor? 2.2. The language of applicants and local conditions 3. The dimensions of social exclusion described by applicants 3.1. Causes and co_sesants 3.2. Domains of exclusion 3.3. Programme Comparisons 4. Eliciting information from applicants Executive summary We analysed application forms submitted to the Fund s first three grant programmes with the aim of developing an understanding of how our applicants use and understand social exclusion and related terms. Key findings are: Applicants explicitly address issues of exclusion and local conditions only rarely Exclusion is associated by applicants with social and psychological issues (such as attitude and motivation) whilst disadvantage and deprivation are associated primarily with economic conditions Overall applicants are quite uncertain in using exclusion. Healthy living centre applicants are more confident, probably because of extensive research and discussion of exclusion within the public health field

2 Exclusion is seen by applicants primarily as a property of social groups (such as young people or minorities) not geographical areas despite the area focus of the Social Exclusion Unit, Neighbourhood Renewal Fund and related initiatives On the Fund s existing application form, questions about need are relatively successful in eliciting clear responses with supporting evidence. 1. Introduction and methodology Combating social exclusion, and its mirror image promoting inclusion, are at the core of the Fund s values - as expressed in our mission statement and Strategic Plan. These notions usefully capture a range of social policy intentions relevant across the fields of education, health and environment, and align the organisation with a broader agenda, including, for example, activities flowing from the reports of the Social Exclusion Unit. However, this expressiveness and breadth of the term exclusion, along with its recency, also means that it may be understood in different ways; a problem magnified by its frequent use in political discourses which have added further layers of connotation. The research reported here aimed to uncover how social exclusion - and related terms such as disadvantage and deprivation are used by practitioners; that is, by the Fund s applicants. Our intention is that this should inform our future publications, in particular by highlighting areas of potential misunderstanding. We also gave attention to how meaningful information on these issues is best elicited through application forms. The report summarises work undertaken by James Killeen from August to October A random sample of 312 healthy living centre applications were considered (out of 519 received at the time of analysis), along with 129 (out of 855) out of school hours learning applications. All 147 out of school hours childcare applications (at the time of analysis) were analysed. This data covers the whole of the UK (samples were insufficient to compare the constituent countries). We analysed both successful and unsuccessful applications: no patterns emerged along this dimension, and further discussion applies to both types. Applications were first read to uncover common ideas and usages relating to social exclusion. Each such grouping was then assigned a code, and areas of text expressing this idea or usage tagged with the relevant code. We were then able to perform a quantitative analysis of patterns, and to search for relationships between different codes. This was performed with the assistance of the Ethnograph v.5.0 (Scolari Software) textual analysis package. Across programmes, almost half of all the applications examined yielded no relevant data. Discussion below is limited to the subset which did address issues of exclusion and disadvantage. This should not mask a key finding, that many applicants were either unaware of this theme in the Fund s work, or unsure how to address it.

3 2. The language of applicants: social exclusion and related terms 2.1. Excluded, disadvantaged, deprived or poor? Our first approach looked to uncover any relationships between the issues being stressed by applicants and the terms they chose to describe their communities. Analysis gave us five descriptor terms (exclusion, disadvantage, deprivation, poverty and need) and a set of eight issues: economic conditions, local services, transport, educational achievement, health, family structure (including single parenthood and teenage pregnancy,) minorities, and psychological attitudes. We were not looking only for statements which claimed causal relationships, but more broadly for statements that linked an issue and a particular descriptor (see the examples below). Findings were surprising, with applicants using different terms in different contexts. Exclusion was associated with social issues (such as educational achievement, family structure and culture) but its strongest relationship (accounting for 30 per cent of usages) was with what we have termed attitude. This covered issues of low self-esteem, and of general disaffection. Examples include: The project will reduce social exclusion by increasing their self-esteem, hopes and aspirations by developing their confidence to vocalise needs The project will work with young people reducing social exclusion and increasing self-esteem Particular emphasis on supporting the youth in developing social skills and engendering a positive contribution will assist in addressing social exclusion, crime and substance abuse All the other terms were predominantly associated with economic conditions (accounting for 56 per cent of the usages of poverty, down to 37 per cent of the usages of need). Differences between these terms are weak, though there is some suggestion that disadvantage shares the association with attitude The language of applicants and local conditions The data was analysed in relation to the relative economic deprivation of applicants communities (established through the District level rankings of the Index of Local Deprivation (1998) i.e. a fairly broad brush approach). Though the nature of the sample meant interpretation was largely impressionistic, it appears local conditions made little difference to the absolute or relative frequency with which our six terms were used.

4 A trend of a slightly different kind emerged: with applicants in the most deprived areas likely to make comparison with the national picture (e.g. High levels of social exclusion mean that Lambeth has the third highest intensity of deprived wards of any authority in England;) whilst applicants from less deprived areas were more likely to make local comparisons (e.g. the most deprived part of an otherwise affluent area of Chelmsford). The terms deprivations and disadvantage, in particular, were often qualified in our data by hidden or pockets of, particularly in applications from rural areas. These local comparisons make any absolute assessment of the claims made difficult. 3. The dimensions of social exclusion described by applicants 3.1. Causes and consequences We looked in more detail at the data where the terms exclusion or inclusion were used to establish how they were interpreted by applicants. In many cases (39 per cent) these were used in a general or unspecified way. However, some specific dimensions of meaning emerged. 1) Exclusion is related to isolation and exclusion from social networks (this was evident in 19 per cent of usages). For example: The project will Reduce social isolation key to achieving social inclusion and improving mental health Teachers may identify early warning signs in children who are becoming increasingly more socially excluded the withdrawn, quiet children 2) Exclusion is related to disaffection from mainstream society (this was evident in 11 per cent of usages overall, and was slightly more common in the out of school hours programmes, relating to young people). Improved motivation and attitudinal change, at an individual and a community level, was also the most frequently mentioned strategy for combating exclusion. For example: The project will address social inclusion of young people: engage young people where they are (i.e. the street) establishing regular contact to encourage them to be involved in positive social, educational and recreational activities Improvements in mood, self-esteem and self-efficacy will break down the barriers of social exclusion

5 3) Exclusion represents a barrier to accessing services (accounting for just 5 per cent of usages). For example: The project will promote the inclusion of the most socially excluded groups into mainstream provision 4) Two further causes of exclusion picked out by applicants are disability (e.g. Severely disabled groups may be considered just as socially excluded as people suffering poverty) and unemployment (e.g. Exclusion from the mainstream labour market fuels wider social exclusion). Our earlier conclusions are reinforced: applicants understand exclusion as referring both to social conditions (exclusion from networks, poor services,) and to attitudes (disaffection). Though the evidence is not that clear, it seems applicants are somewhat confused by the term, tending to use it in general and unspecified ways, or for a very wide variety of circumstances. There is also a sense that its definition is open to debate see the quote on disability above Domains of exclusion Recent initiatives to tackle social exclusion have concentrated on the neighbourhood as a key unit (hence the Social Exclusion Unit s strategy for neighbourhood renewal and the resultant Neighbourhood Renewal Fund). Unexpectedly, applicants rarely saw exclusion as the property of local areas or neighbourhoods. In part, the relevance of descriptions to particular areas may have been considered implicit, given the local focus of most projects. However, neighbourhoods were rarely seen as contributing to exclusion in themselves, and no applicant described an area itself as excluded. Just 7 per cent of the data referring to social exclusion did so in the context of describing an area (e.g. High levels of social exclusion mean that Lambeth has the third highest intensity of deprived wards of any authority in England). A further 17 per cent related to the description of a community, both in its geographic sense, but also as a social grouping (e.g. Africans resident in the five inner-south London boroughs are socially excluded communities within the most deprived local authorities in the country). All the remaining data referring to social exclusion related to particular social categories. The most frequent of these was age (e.g. the project will reach out to excluded young people; the project will tackle isolation and exclusion amongst older people). Also commonly mentioned were ethnic and cultural groups (e.g. the project will reach Somali people experiencing social exclusion) and families (e.g. by supporting families the project will aim to prevent family dysfunction and breakdown and enhance social inclusion). Less frequently mentioned groups were the homeless, women and the unemployed.

6 3.3. Programme comparisons The analysis revealed some suggestive differences in the way applicants to different programmes used the language of social exclusion, though interpretation should be cautious. Healthy living centre applicants were more likely to use exclusion than any of the other terms (deprivation, etc) listed in (2.1). A number of these applicants also made explicit links between health and exclusion (both as cause and consequence): Healthy living is a prerequisite to achieving social inclusion The project will improve the health and wellbeing of local people by reducing their social exclusion. There is clear evidence of higher morbidity and mortality amongst socially excluded young people. Both childcare and learning applicants, on the other hand, made most frequent use of disadvantage. It seems likely that the relatively rich evidence-base linking health and exclusion, and the length of time for which this has been discussed within the public health field, has given at least some healthy living centre applicants greater confidence in using the concept. It also seems likely that the perception of disadvantage as a term more closely related to economic issues encouraged its use by applicants to the learning programme, where free-school meal levels are used to define target schools. 4. Eliciting information from applicants Returning to four of our terms from (2.1), exclusion, deprivation, disadvantage, and need, our analysis indicated that applicants associate each with different degrees of specificity. In particular, deprivation and need were used relatively more frequently in contexts where some evidence for the assertion of poor conditions was put forward (e.g. Newham is the second most deprived borough in the UK, with 10.3 per cent of the registered population claiming unemployment benefit and 30 per cent of the children claiming free school meals - from an HLC application). Turning to the questions used on the application form, and the extent to which they produced meaningful responses regarding exclusion and local conditions, we would again emphasise that conclusions are impressionistic. In addition our analysis covered a time when both learning and HLC forms were revised. Overall, questions that asked about need elicited relatively focussed answers, and relatively high amounts of supporting evidence. Examples of such questions on the learning form were:

7 How have you identified the need for this project How will the project meet the needs of disadvantaged people However, in both these cases there was some ambiguity about whether responses should focus on specific potential beneficiaries, or the characteristics of the local area. In the revised form, the second of these questions was replaced with, Which pupils will you target and how will you reach them? (along with some suggested indicators, such as free school meals and English as a Second Language). Again responses were relatively rich in supporting evidence. Surprisingly, a similar question on the HLC (stage 1) form, How do you know there is a need for your project? (along with subsidiary questions such as In what way(s) is the target community suffering poor health or disadvantage and why?) received relatively general answers with little evidential support. A full explanation of this is unclear, but it does suggest that the overall shape of the form, as well as individual questions, determines the meaningfulness of particular responses. A preceding question had provoked quite detailed answers, including evidence on local area conditions, despite having no obvious trigger for this: State up to five specific things you expect your project to achieve. It appears applicants may approach the form with a particular narrative framework in mind, using early questions to do broad, introductory scene setting, then looking for an opportunity to give full details, and then tending to repeat in a bland way if these details are specifically requested later. Questions on the learning form discussing accessibility and equality of opportunity seemed difficult for applicants to answer, and produced little data for this study.