Suchergebnisse

Purpose
This study aims to investigate the association between social inclusion and financial inclusion. Social inclusion and financial inclusion are two major development policy agendas in many countries, and the association between them has received little attention in the policy and academic literature.


Design/methodology/approach
The findings reveal a positive and significant correlation between social inclusion and financial inclusion for Asian countries, Middle Eastern countries and African countries while the correlation between social inclusion and financial inclusion is negative for European countries. The findings also show that European and Asian economies experience higher levels of social inclusion and account ownership in a formal financial institution while African countries and Middle Eastern countries experience lower levels of social inclusion and account ownership.


Originality/value
The association between social and financial inclusion has received little attention in the policy and academic literature. This is the first study that investigates the association between social and financial inclusion.

This is a thematic issue on the relation between multilingualism and social inclusion. Due to globalization, Europeanization, supranational and transnational regulations linguistic diversity and multilingualism are on the rise. Migration and old and new forms of mobility play an important role in these processes. As a consequence, English as the only global language is spreading around the world, including Europe and the European Union. Social and linguistic inclusion was accounted for in the pre-globalization age by the nation-state ideology implementing the 'one nation-one people-one language' doctrine into practice. This lead to forced linguistic assimilation and the elimination of cultural and linguistic heritage. Now, in the present age of globalization, linguistic diversity at the national state level has been recognized and multilingual states have been developing where all types of languages can be used in governance and daily life protected by a legal framework. This does not mean that there is full equality of languages. This carries over to the fair and just social inclusion of the speakers of these weaker, dominated languages as well. There is always a power question related to multilingualism. The ten case studies in this thematic issue elaborate on the relation between multilingualism and social inclusion. The articles in this issue refer to this topic in connection with different spaces, including the city, the island, and the globe; in connection with different groups, like Roma in the former Soviet-Union and ethnic Albanians in Macedonia; in connection with migration and mobility of Nordic pensioners to the south of Europe, and language education in Scotland; and finally in connection with bilingual education in Austria and Estonia as examples of successful practices including multilingualism under one and the same school roof.

In public discourse, the social inclusion of migrants is often regarded as a challenge demanding migrants to increase their engagement in adapting to the new host country. Such imaginaries commonly declare migrants as being unwilling to acquire language skills and specific cultural values. In parallel, formal education is often proposed as the single most important remedy to inclusion, which generally solely implies labor market participation. However, there is a range of other, often neglected, practices that migrants themselves regard as important for their social inclusion in society. This article aims to analyze what practices are assigned meaning by newly arrived migrants in Sweden on their path toward social inclusion in the country. This is a longitudinal interview study with 19 newly arrived adult migrants that were interviewed on two occasions, three years apart. Drawing on a sociocultural perspective, we understand social inclusion as an ongoing process by which individuals become members of different communities. The result shows that important for social inclusion is access to valuable relationships and close social ties. These relations are important in all communities in which the migrants participate. The analysis illustrates three different communities, outside of formal education and employment, that migrants ascribe meaning to concerning language learning and social inclusion. These communities are sports, internships, and civil society engagements. Through its longitudinal design, this study also illustrates how migrants' narratives and their meanings shift with time and how migrants relate to these communities over time.

In the context of mental health services, social inclusion is being promoted as a top priority, integral to recovery and good practice. What is less clear in the literature is what the process means for clinicians and service users. In this article we make the process more explicit by describing, from both a service user and clinical perspective, what social inclusion means and how it can be facilitated effectively. We go on to explore and describe the process of facilitating and measuring social inclusion as a healthcare intervention, and how the use of person centred practice and evaluation, supports people to achieve personal goals, participate in meaningful community based activity and improve their overall quality of life. We conclude by suggesting that social inclusion interventions should be the core business of mental health services and a top priority.

There is a growing body of neurological, cognitive, and social psychological research to suggest the possibility of positive transfer effects from structured musical engagement. In particular, there is evidence to suggest that engagement in musical activities may impact on social inclusion (sense of self and of being socially integrated). Tackling social exclusion and promoting social inclusion are common concerns internationally, such as in the UK and the EC, and there are many diverse Government ministries and agencies globally that see the arts in general and music in particular as a key means by which social needs can be addressed. As part of a wider evaluation of a national, Government-sponsored music education initiative for Primary-aged children in England ("Sing Up"), opportunity was taken by the authors, at the request of the funders, to assess any possible relationship between (a) children's developing singing behavior and development and (b) their social inclusion (sense of self and of being socially integrated). Subsequently, it was possible to match data from n = 6087 participants, drawn from the final 3 years of data collection (2008–2011), in terms of each child's individually assessed singing ability (based on their singing behavior of two well-known songs to create a "normalized singing score") and their written responses to a specially-designed questionnaire that included a set of statements related to children's sense of being socially included to which the children indicated their level of agreement on a seven-point Likert scale. Data analyses suggested that the higher the normalized singing development rating, the more positive the child's self-concept and sense of being socially included, irrespective of singer age, sex and ethnicity.

Poverty is ostensibly a multi-dimensional issue. Economic, social and political forces play a role in its creation as well as in its eradication. Financial inclusion, understood as the provision of micro-loans to populations that have never before had access to lending, has for some time been consid- ered a useful way to help reduce poverty. In this paper, we test the power of financial inclusion in influencing poverty outcomes compared to other variables such as the provision of development aid and technology progress. To this end, we employ a panel data analysis based on a unique 2008-2010 database on financial inclusion in Peru. Our regression results show that financial inclusion does have an alleviating effect on various indicators of poverty. The coefficients are relatively large and statistically significant when a random effect model is applied. However, with an instrumental variable regression addressing the problem of reversal causality, the coefficients turn insignificant. Interestingly, indices of urbanisation (i.e. lower rurality) and internet access are associated with lower poverty incidence. Although some predictable results, such as the positive effect of food aid on poverty, are confirmed by this research, higher employment rates appear to be insignificant in the quest to help reduce poverty.

Social policies are required to go beyond the compensation of disadvantages obtained by offering goods and services capable of guarantee and widen individual and collective decision-making capabilities. In this sense, capabilities come into play, since they are the elements that relate to freedom and human rights—which are related to all dimensions of human life.Thus, even unemployment might be regarded as a case of capability deprivation, which results in an unaccomplished activation of empowerment processes (Sen, 2004; Nussbaum, 2002).This article deals with the issue of acquiring capabilities that are functional to the inclusion in the labour market. The research this paper refers to is still ongoing; its focus is on the theme of social inclusion of people with disabilities thanks to vocational induction. The Italian context—which is framed by this research into a wider international frame—is still well-advanced, although it runs the risk of ceasing to develop as a result of the current economical crisis ; Le politiche sociali sono chiamate a situarsi oltre la compensazione degli svantaggi offrendo beni e servizi in grado di ampliare e garantire le capacità di scelta individuali e collettive. In questo senso sono chiamate a pieno titolo in gioco le capabilities quali elementi che riguardano anche le libertà, i diritti fondamentali riferiti a tutte le dimensioni della vita umana. Anche la mancanza di un lavoro, dunque, può essere considerata una capability deprivation, un mancato avvio dei processi di empowerment (Sen, 2004; Nussbaum, 2002).Il presente articolo affronta il tema dell'acquisizione di capability funzionali all'inserimento nel mondo del lavoro, presentando una ricerca in fieri che propone il tema dell'inclusione sociale di persone con disabilità grazie all'inserimento al lavoro. Il contesto italiano, inserito nel contributo di questa ricerca in un contesto di più ampio respiro internazionale, resta all'avanguardia, ma corre il rischio, con l'attuale congiuntura economica, di subire una battuta ...

Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- Chapter 1 -- Social Inequalities and Educational Inclusion for Children with Disabilities in Greece -- Abstract -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Educational Policy for People with Disabilities -- 3. Social Inequalities and Special Education -- 4. Method -- 4.1. Participants -- 4.2. Research Tools -- 5. Findings -- 6. Discussion -- References -- Biographical Sketch -- Chapter 2 -- Cognitive Skills and Labour Market Experience of FSU Immigrants in Israel -- Abstract -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Literature Review -- 2.1. Job Autonomy and Job Satisfaction -- 2.2. Cognitive Skills -- 2.3. Israeli Case - FSU Immigrants in Israel -- 3. Methodology -- 3.1. Data -- 3.2. Procedure -- 3.3. Variables -- 3.3.1. The Dependent Variables -- 3.3.2. The Independent Variables -- 3.3.3. The Control Variables -- 4. Results -- 4.1. Descriptive Analyses -- 4.2. Multivariate Analyses -- 4.2.1. Predicting Income -- 4.2.2. Predicting Job Satisfaction -- 4.2.3. Predicting Job Autonomy -- 5. Discussion -- 6. Study Limitations and Recommendations for Further Research -- References -- Chapter 3 -- Volunteering as a Means of Preparing Future Educators to Work with Children at Risk -- Abstract -- 1. Introduction -- 1.1. Defining the Problem -- 1.2. The Importance of the Problem -- 1.3. The Status of the Problem -- 2. Materials and Methods -- 3. Results -- 3.1. Cognitive Criterion -- 3.2. Relational Criterion -- 3.3. Emotional Criterion -- 3.4. Activity Criterion -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgment -- References -- Chapter 4 -- How Alliance Managers are Like Blind Men Describing an Elephant: Investigating Resource Pooling and Value Asymmetries -- Abstract -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Social Dilemmas: A Brief Review -- 3. Alliance Social Dilemmas: A Synthesis and Extension -- 3.1. Resource Pooling Creates Value -- 3.2. Willingness to Contribute is Focal Point

AbstractThe use of poverty scoring is associated with increased outreach towards poor borrowers only in nonprofit microfinance institutions while, in for‐profit microfinance institutions, poverty scoring is associated with increased availability of financing. Poverty scoring allows for‐profit microfinance institutions to borrow funds from social investors in addition to funds borrowed from the market. As long as these social funds do not substitute market funds used in financing poor microborrowers, the share of poor clients served increases, so does financial inclusion of the poor.