Rebecca Taylor, Postdoctoral Fellow,

School of Sociology, ANU,

Larry Saha Room, Haydon Allen Building #2175

‘Social inclusion’ is increasingly identified within key policy documents as a desired outcome for people with disabilities. Consequently, service providers are looking for methods which can be used to benchmark and monitor the efficacy of their services in relation to this outcome. However, the ability to do this is limited by a lack of understanding of the conceptual scope of social inclusion when applied to the field of disability. Through an extensive study of the literature it is apparent that there are multiple ways of approaching social inclusion. To understand these approaches we traced the origins of this ‘movement’ and its various manifestations. The reference to social exclusion, and later social inclusion, emerged in France in the 1970s predominantly with reference to economic self-sufficiency and work participation. At a similar time normalization theory emerged in disability social policy with a focus on creating, supporting and defending the value of social roles. The International Year of Disabled Persons in 1981 gave momentum and hope that people with disabilities would genuinely be able to take their equal place within our society. The principles which underpin this movement came together with the idea of social inclusion in international conventions such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Optional Protocol which included as one of its principles, ‘full and effective participation and inclusion in society’. The idea that social inclusion is broader than economic self-sufficiency and work participation is increasingly recognized in government documents, such as those by the Australian Social Inclusion Board.

Drawing on the insights gathered, there appears to be five faces (perspectives) of social inclusion that are relevant to its measurement:

• Economic participation
• Health and access to services
• Personal independence and self determination
• Education
• Interacting with society and fulfilling social roles