Social Inclusion: Theoretical Development and Cross-cultural Measurements

Opportunity knocked when Kara (the convener of the Environment, Health, and Sustainability group of the David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University) was invited by Professor Li Si-ming to join a research team led by Peter from Bangor University focusing on the cross-cultural study of social inclusion among mental health services users and immigrants in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. The invitation sparked our friendship and started a ten-year research journey that covers the research topics of social exclusion and inclusion, cultural assimilation, discrimination, quality of life, communication, and digital social networking. Social inclusion is a significant topic to study as division and exclusion can tear a society apart.

This book is a research monograph of what we have achieved over the entire research journey. This journey started in United Kingdom, then travelled to Hong Kong and Singapore, then travelled further to Poland and Brazil. The populations of study include the general public, users of mental health services, and immigrants. Both qualitative methods and quantitative sample survey methods have been used in the data collection. These studies enable us to see how people in different cultures interpret the concept of social inclusion and how social inclusion is experienced among different disadvantaged groups in society. A major finding, which the reader can confirm from the subsequent chapters, is that we did not observe huge differences in the understanding of social inclusion in different parts of the world. Of course, there are differences in emphasis, but our research supports the global transferability of the concept.

The significance of our research findings is two-fold. First, we established a reliable and valid measurement of social inclusion that covers all social domains. As mentioned, this measurement has been applied successfully in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore, Poland, and Brazil, demonstrating its practicality in global applications. The measurement is able to help organizations providing services to disadvantaged groups that have social inclusion as an outcome measure to evaluate the effectiveness of their intervention programs or services. The measurement can also be used to understand the general experience of social inclusion as well as the experience of a specific social domains, such as education or community participation. Second, we identified key social domains that relate to social inclusion or exclusion among mental health services users. The results have implications for policy-makers in designing and implementing social policies that encourage social inclusion.

This book is intended to be a reference book for social policy-makers, managerial-level employees, professionals, and para-professionals of social services sectors that provide support for disadvantaged groups with social inclusion as an outcome indicator or as a goal of intervention. It is organized into four parts detailing tools and standards, applications in Asia as well as outside of Asia, and what these studies tell us about social inclusion.

We are in debt to the editorial and design team at City University of Hong Kong Press, with special thanks to Dr Abby Manthey (editor) for her reckless effort in reorganizing the chapters as well as bringing the manuscript to perfection and Carrie Yu for the cover design. Some of the research presented in this book has been previously published as journal articles. We thank the respective journal publishers for providing permission to reprint the articles in their edited and updated forms.

Kara Chan and Peter J. Huxley

October 2022