A diagramming-based literature review on social exclusion

A diagramming-based literature review on social exclusion

Joseph Kim-keung Ho

Independent Trainer, Hong Kong, China

Abstract: As a newly launched research topic by the writer, diagramming-based literature review needs additional research works to inform its theoretical development. This is done in this paper in the form of a hands-on diagramming-based literature review on social exclusion. The exercise reveals a relatively complex knowledge structure of social exclusion with three maps, i.e., a mind map, a systems map and a cognitive map. This diagramming-based literature review both contributes to the theoretical development of diagramming-based literature review and offers some academic as well as pedagogical values to the social exclusion subject.

Key words: diagramming-based literature review, preliminary literature review, social exclusion, cognitive map, mind map, systems map

1.      Introduction

Diagramming-based literature review is a newly launched research topic from the writer. The subject is associated with both the Research Methods and the managerial intellectual learning fields (see Managerial intellectual learning Facebook page in the bibliography). This paper presents the findings from a hands-on diagramming-based literature review exercise on social exclusion with the aims of (i) making theoretical contribution to the diagramming-based literature review topic and (ii) offering some academic and pedagogical value on the social exclusion subject by conducting a literature review on it. In the next section, the writer will present the findings from the social exclusion literature review, followed by a diagramming-based literature review on it. The overall essay structure of this paper is relatively simple.

2.      The main themes and ideas of social exclusion from the literature

The notion of social exclusion originated in the 1970’s in France on debates associated to the “marginalization” and “integration” notions (Perruzzi, 2014). Though there is growing global interest in the notion in the academic and public policy realms, the social exclusion notion has been challenged as (i) a contested concept, at the theoretical, empirical and policy levels (Perruzi, 2014), (ii) a vague term, “loaded with numerous economic, social, political and cultural connotations and dimensions (Silver, 1994), and (iii) a conflation of concepts, e.g., poverty and employment, being reminiscent of the debate on “under class” (Marlow, 2006). Its use and meaning also differs by countries with “different traditions and political histories” (Silver, 1994), also see Literature on Social Exclusion Facebook page (re: bibliography). By reviewing the academic literature, the writer identifies three research themes and associated ideas of the social exclusion notion. They are as follows:

Theme 1: Basic views of the social exclusion notion

Theme 1a: On idea richness and scope breadth

Idea 1.1.                    Social exclusion is “broader than poverty”; its use is to understand “processes of change that result in individuals’ or groups’ exclusion from mainstream society, with consequent reductions in life-chances” (Moffatt and Glasgow, 2009);

Idea 1.2.                    Social exclusion could be comprehended in three ways, namely, (a) a form of special separation, (b) a lack of participation, and (c) an emanation from misrecognition practices (Hermann, 2011);

Idea 1.3.                    There are ways to comprehend social exclusion levels: (a) societal and individual levels, (b) social exclusion at the top and social exclusion at the bottom (Ottmann, 2010);

Idea 1.4.                    There are three elements within the social exclusion notion, namely: (a) dynamics, (b) relativity and (c) agency (Atkinson, 1998);

Idea 1.5.                    Two versions of social exclusion are distinguished by Veit-Wilson, 1998); for the weak version, the social exclusion solutions rely on “altering these excluded peoples’ handicapping characteristics and enhancing their integration into dominant society”; for the strong version, the solutions also “emphasize the role of those who are doing the excluding” (Veit-Wilson, 1998);

Theme 1b: On process orientation

Idea 1.6.                    Social exclusion is “better viewed as a set of processes as opposed to fixed state” (Jarman, 2001);

Idea 1.7.                    Social exclusion is a multi-dimensional process which combines various forms of exclusion (Mandanipour, 1998);

Theme 1c: On status orientation

Idea 1.8.                     “Social experience is experienced when particular groups cannot fully take part in society because they lack money, resources, and access to a variety of political, social, and economic institutions” (Williams, 2016);

Idea 1.9.                    Social exclusion is ‘a lack of recognition of certain social groups through which individuals are driven into a state of social isolation” (Hermann, 2011);

Idea 1.10.               Social exclusion is a failure of one of four systems, namely, (a) the democratic and legal system, (b) the labour market, (c) the welfare state, and (d) the family and community system (Alvey, 2000);

Idea 1.11.               Social exclusion is multidimensional social disadvantage in terms “economic, political, civic, cultural, geographic, and judicial dimensions along which people may be excluded (Todman et al., 2009: 331);

Idea 1.12.               Social exclusion happens when “people or places suffer from a series of problems such as unemployment, discrimination, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime, ill health and family breakdown. When such problems combine they can create a vicious circle” (Cabinet Office of the British Government (2008: 1) as cited by Ottmann (2010).);

Idea 1.13.               Social exclusion can be conceived as “the denial (or the non-realization) of the civil, political and social rights of citizenship (Walker and Walker, 1997: 8);

Idea 1.14.               The socially excluded “are not a distinct group set apart from the rest of society in all ways” (Jarman, 2001);

Theme 2: Associated theories and concepts [in bold]

Idea 2.1.                    Social exclusion is consistent with the capability deprivation notion of A. Sen (Sen, 2000; Perruzi, 2014);

Idea 2.2.                    Social exclusion is “a valid way of broadening research on poverty and multiple forms of deprivation” (Burchardt et al., 2002: 6);

Idea 2.3.                    Social exclusion can be conceived as “the denial (or the non-realization) of the civil, political and social rights of citizenship (Walker and Walker, 1997: 8); [same as idea 1.8]

Idea 2.4.                    A study of the social disadvantage issue in Hong Kong with the social exclusion framework (Saunders et al., 2014); [same as idea 3.12]

Idea 2.5.                    An examination of the problem of social exclusion in the welfare state via the legal and social theory lens (Ottmann, 2010); [same as idea 3.13]

Theme 3: Employment of the notion for analysis and evaluation

Theme 3a: On specific groups of people

Idea 3.1.                    An evaluation of undocumented college students’ experience of social exclusion at universities (Williams, 2016);

Idea 3.2.                    A study of the community-based approach to tackle the social exclusion problem as related to rural-to-urban migrants in China (Chow and Lou, 2015);

Idea 3.3.                    A study of social exclusion process involving migrant workers (Ngan and Chan, 2013);

Idea 3.4.                    An evaluation on the role of telecare to overcome social exclusion for isolated old people (Jones and Rowbottom, 2010);

Idea 3.5.                    A study of social exclusion status of elderly people in Central and Eastern Europe (Filipovic et al., 2013);

Theme 3b: On broad topics

Idea 3.6.                    An examination of the relationship between social exclusion and poverty via study of rural older people in the United Kingdom and the United States (Moffatt and Glasgow, 2009);

Idea 3.7.                    It is difficult to determine appropriate social exclusion indicators since it is “not a unitary concept that can be captured in a single measure” (Muffatt and Glasgow, 2009);

Idea 3.8.                    Social exclusion is such a broad term that it “can serve as a focus for a diverse range of exploration and policy initiatives that from a number of academic disciplines” (Jarman, 2001);

Idea 3.9.                    Methods of analyzing the process of social exclusion are quite lacking at this stage (Alvey, 2000);

Idea 3.10.               Housing can be conceived as both a consequence of social exclusion and a social exclusion generating factor (Alvey, 2000);

Idea 3.11.               A study to illustrate that “high and persistent unemployment need not lead to the formation of socially excluded groups” (Roberts, 2001);

Idea 2.6.                    A study of the social disadvantage issue in Hong Kong with the social exclusion framework (Saunders et al., 2014); [same as idea 2.4]

Idea 2.7.                    An examination of the problem of social exclusion in the welfare state via the legal and social theory lens (Ottmann, 2010); [same as idea 2.5]

Idea 3.12.               A study of social exclusion as capability deprivation in the e-society (Zheng and Walsham, 2008);

Theme 3c: On focused issues

Idea 3.13.               A study on how employment of multi-agency collaboration to provide client-led preventative services to children, young people and families is able to alleviate social exclusion (Edwards, 2004);

Idea 3.14.               An evaluation of effectiveness of the British and the US pension systems to reduce social exclusion risk in later life of women (Ginn, 2001):

Idea 3.15.               An evaluation of self-employment promotion to alleviate social exclusion (Marlow, 2006);

Idea 3.16.               A review of social work education appropriateness on the treatment of social exclusion (Davis and Wainwright, 2005);

Idea 3.17.               An examination of the impact of regional variation in banking services on social exclusion (Chakravarty, 2006);

Idea 3.18.               A study of community-participated commissioning of health and social care services as an approach to alleviate social exclusion (Kramer, 2008);

Idea 3.19.               A study of community-participated approach on urban community regeneration to reduce social exclusion (Ijasan and Ahmed, 2013);

Idea 3.20.               A study on intergenerational educational mobility and social exclusion in German and the United States (Eberharter, 2015);

This particular essay-form of literature, which groups ideas into a number of themes, is amendable to diagramming-based literature review, especially with mind mapping. It also indicates where different writers’ expressed views and research findings on social exclusion are associated with which research themes in the academic literature. The literature review findings, in terms of themes and ideas, expose the diversity of voices and viewpoints expressed in the literature, some of which are incompatible with each other. Subsequently, researchers intending to conduct a study with the social exclusion theme also need to decide how their research projects are related to one or some of these research themes.

3.      Diagramming-based review on social exclusion literature

With the essay-form of preliminary literature review conducted, a diagramming-based literature can now be launched. This literature review approach utilizes three types of maps, namely, (i) mind map, (ii) systems map and (iii) cognitive map (Ho, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c, 2016d). They offer three different images on the knowledge structure of social exclusion. The mind map reveals a tree-form structure; the systems map renders a systems-cum-structural view; lastly, the cognitive map portrays an interpretive-systemic-processural view. As such, they complement each other to exhibit the intellectual landscape of the social exclusion subject. The first map, a mind map on social exclusion, is provided in Figure 1.

Referring to Figure 1, the mind map has three primary branches; they correspond to the three main themes on social exclusion as highlighted in the previous section. Each of the three main braches has quite a number of subsidiary branches attached to it; in turn, each of the subsidiary branches ends with a node labeled with a certain social-exclusion-associated key phrase; these key phrases (or words) can be traced to specific social exclusion ideas, with explicit referencing, mentioned in the previous section on literature review. For examples, “rural-to-urban migrants” comes from idea 3.2; “capability deprivation” is associated with idea 2.1; and “lack of resources” is based on idea 1.8. Overall, the mind map is complex, not due to the limited number of main branches, but by reason of the large number of subsidiary branches and nodes. In spite of that, the mind map is able to reveal the knowledge structure of social exclusion at a glance in a colorful way. The next map on social exclusion is a systems map, see Figure 2.

The systems map consists of blobs, words and a system boundary, highlighting in a structural style the main topics of the system of interest. In Figure 2, three main topics are identified as blobs with labels in social exclusion terms (i.e., words). The systems map is useful as thinking and communication tools. The three blobs stand for the three social exclusion themes identified in the previous section. The arrows in Figure 2 are introduced by the writer to emphasize the relatedness of these blobs. [A conventional systems map does not use arrows.] The third map is a cognitive map. It is presented in Figure 3.

The cognitive map consists of variables (the boxes with labels of words), which have influences over other variables (as indicated by the arrows). In Figure 3, the cognitive map reveals a perceived dynamic and systemic view held by the writer on the knowledge structure on social exclusion. By default, the arrows in Figure 3 have a +ve sign, meaning that the influence is amplifying in nature. For examples, “Better formulated ideas on social exclusion” leads to “More insightful applications of social exclusion”; and “Better reflection on the social exclusion subject” leads to “Better formulated ideas on associated theories & concepts”. Such a conceived knowledge structure on social exclusion of the writer (re: Figure 3) is informed by his literature review exercise.

All in all, the three maps are the outputs from the diagramming-based literature review by the writer. In current forms, these maps primarily portray the main themes as well as ideas (including different theorists’ voices) in the social exclusion literature. They, as the products of a complementary preliminary literature review exercise with the essay-form literature, enable a researcher to speedily grasp the overall intellectual landscape of the social exclusion subject. Having achieved that, a researcher is in a better position to draw on his/her personal orientation to formulate a more focused research topic that can be related to some of the themes and ideas identified in the three maps (re: Figures 1, 2 and 3). Doing so ensures that the researcher’s topic has unquestionable academic value to the social exclusion field. Lastly, the three maps can also be used in the latter phase of a research project, but their structures need to be reconfigured to be more issue- and concern-focused; such an exercise on issue-/concern-focused/context-specific diagramming is however outside the study scope of this paper.

4.      Concluding remarks

The writer’s hands-on experience of the diagramming-based literature review, as a complementary exercise with the essay-form literature review, confirms its analytical value for literature review; the diagramming-based literature review is useful in rendering the knowledge structure of social exclusion, which is complex with many subsidiary branches and nodes. Despite that, the three maps are able to make the social exclusion knowledge structure comprehensible despite its complexity. Overall, the findings of this paper offer some academic and pedagogical values to those interested in the social exclusion subject. At the same time, the paper contributes to the theoretical development of diagramming-based literature review, which is associated with the Research Methods and the managerial intellectual learning (please refer to the managerial intellectual learning Facebook page) fields.

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