571.1
The Meaning of Social Inclusion
What is it social inclusión? In a way some authors state that to be integrated means the fulfillement of social norms. Or in another sense means to be socially adapted. This leaves the subject in a pasive and subordinated position, moreover if there are exerted coercitive means to achive this adaptation. According to this look the system is first and then the subject.
But there are other alternatives. If we consider social structure of contemporary societies in a historical way, a “normal” adult person that has a “good life”, usually have a qualified work that allows a suitable earning that facilitate to make up a new own familiy, and a social and political active life. To achive this, he has to use all his creative resources and initiative. A “normal” person is not subsumed in the system but has an important personal component.
Social inclusión has to be conceptualized and measured with three criteria:
1. The degree in which the person achives valuable social goals.
2. The degree in which is allowed to practice his most beloved values.
3. The degree in which he can use all his creative potential and initiative.
Among the valuable social goals are to have a good job, to have a good partner,to live in a suitable home. We know that for mentally ill persons frequently lacks some of this achivements, but is a question of degree: it is better lo live in a suitable home than to live in a hospital, better to have a good partner than the opposite, and so on, and these goals according to some or all his beloved values and using his creativity in the highest posible degree; they are no replaced by a dubios “social adaptation” that ussually conducts to a compulsory conformism.