Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2183-2803

Next Issues

With our plurithematic issues we intended to draw the attention of researchers, policy-makers, scientists and the general public to some of the topics of highest relevance. Scholars interested in guest editing a thematic issue of Social Inclusion are kindly invited to contact the Editorial Office of the journal ([email protected]).

Published Thematic Issues are available here.

Upcoming Issues


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Volume 12

Title:
The Global Disappearance of Decent Work? Precarity, Exploitation, and Work-Based Harms in the Neoliberal Era


Editor(s):
Adam Formby (University of Lincoln), Mustapha Sheikh (University of Leeds), and Bob Jeffery (Sheffield Hallam University) as part of the (In)Justice International Collective

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 June 2023
Submission of Full Papers: 15-30 October 2023
Publication of the Issue: April/June 2024

Information:

This issue is asking for papers that examine the nature of “global precarity” and/or reflect upon the process of the global commodification of labour and its impact on what constitutes “precarity” for workers around the world: low-wages, insecure contracts, absence of training and progression, lack of status and exposure to a range of “work-based harms.” As global labour commodification has been accelerated and neoliberal employment policy has stripped away legislative and regulatory protections, a range of demographics have been rendered increasingly insecure, “precarious,” and disposable. This ranges from migrants and ethnic minorities, where varying citizenship statuses and structural racism may relegate them to the fringes of the labour market, to young people, who may also face ineligibility for support mechanisms, a lack of opportunities and increasingly fractured and fragmented transitions into work.

Moreover, a lack of appropriate social policy responses to contemporary global challenges to the global financial crisis of 2008 onwards, Covid-19 and post-pandemic inflationary pressures exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine, ongoing neo-colonialism, and climate change means that a variety of groups have faced increasingly uncertain futures.

We acknowledge that there is nothing new about “precarity”; the so-called “standard employment contract” that accompanied the shift to social democracy only existed for a few brief decades in the Global North in the aftermath of the Second World War, and even then, women and migrants were largely excluded. Nevertheless, the diffusion of neoliberal politics centred on deregulation, privatisation, and “responsibilisation” has, to a significant degree, unpicked the security that existed for some workers in the Global North while leading (in combination with neo-colonialism) to greater informalisation, hyper exploitation, and outward migration in the Global South. Younger, ethnic minority, migrant, and working-class people are disproportionately exposed to such processes, relegated to “gig work” or “bogus self-employment,” zero-hour and fixed-term contracts, insecure agency work or “off the books” employment within the illegal economy.

This call for papers is asking for global studies of the lived experience of precarity (linked to labour markets), with a particular focus on youth, ethnicity and migration status, gender and sexuality, disability, and class. Such analyses will be connected to questions of political economy (globalisation and “neoliberal statecraft”), the presence or absence of welfare systems that support people out of and into work, the vitality (or otherwise) of labour movements that are capable of organising, supporting, and defending workers, the role of technology in facilitating or inhibiting different forms of work, and the significance of culture and ideology in reproducing various workplace regimes.

We also encourage authors whose first language is not English to send in a copy of their manuscript in their Native language, to be made available through the (In)Justice International website. These manuscripts will form an informal companion to the official issue published by Social Inclusion: They will not undergo peer-review and are exempt from the journal’s article processing fee but will not be included in the published volume. For more information, please contact Simon Prideaux ([email protected]).


Instructions for Authors:
This thematic issue is the result of Social Inclusion’s partnership with research network (In)Justice International, who is also available to cover open access publication costs on a case-by-case basis. To know if you are eligible to have the APC covered by the network, please contact Simon Prideaux ([email protected]) directly. Corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee. Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. For this thematic issue, (In)Justice International will also be available to cover open access publication costs on a case-by-case basis. To know if you are eligible to have the APC covered by the network, please contact Simon Prideaux ([email protected]) directly. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 12

Title:
War, Economic Strife, Climate Change: Understanding Intersectional Threats to Inclusion and Security


Editor(s):
Mustapha Sheikh (University of Leeds), Roland Zarzycki (Collegium Civitas, Warsaw), and Leah Burch (Liverpool Hope University)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 December 2023
Submission of Full Papers: 15-30 April 2024
Publication of the Issue: October/December 2024

Information:

War, climate change, and economic instability pose unpredictable security threats in today’s world. Are, for example, societies safe, and if they are, safe for whom? This thematic issue will examine the sometimes-horrific difficulties and problems that minorities and others with marginal positions in societies and mainstream cultures have had to face and try to overcome.

We ask for papers that attempt to address increased insecurity and those issues that affect people in marginal positions due to their Indigenous backgrounds, ethnicity, age, gender, and sexuality, disability and illness, socio-economic position and class. We also want papers to inquire or examine if these insecure individuals are left to struggle by themselves and why. Are they excluded from existing security networks—or are there any networks at all? How do these global, dangerous developments affect their sense of safety, trust in society, and abilities to use welfare services? And how are their needs met?

To broaden the scope of our investigations, we call for papers not just from scholars, but NGOs, barristers, and practitioners in the fields of sociology and social policy, anthropology, geography, critical economics, political sciences, criminology, gender studies, youth studies, and disability studies. Papers from people who have “lived” experience of this desperation or have reported upon are also welcome.

Topics of interest to this thematic issue include (but are not limited to) why some of people feel the need to seek refuge elsewhere, what happened on their route to “safe” sanctuaries, and how they were treated/received at their final or intermediate destinations. Proposals relating to the traumatic events of any group of fleeing refugees are encouraged, and we especially welcome those focused on movement from and within the Global South.

Case studies that look at Indigenous people, ethnic minorities, disabled people, the young, and issues relating to gender and sexuality in a discriminatory, “ableist,” and heteronormative time of war will all be welcome additions to this thematic issue.

Economic strife, on the other hand, is relevant in that war can either cause or exacerbate divisive economic forces impacting upon these aforementioned individuals.

We also encourage authors whose first language is not English to send in a copy of their manuscript in their Native language, to be made available through the (In)Justice International website. These manuscripts will form an informal companion to the official issue published by Social Inclusion: They will not undergo peer-review and are exempt from the journal’s article processing fee but will not be included in the published volume. For more information, please contact Simon Prideaux ([email protected]).


Instructions for Authors:
This thematic issue is the result of Social Inclusion’s partnership with research network (In)Justice International, who is also available to cover open access publication costs on a case-by-case basis. To know if you are eligible to have the APC covered by the network, please contact Karen Soldatic ([email protected]) directly. Corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee. Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. For this thematic issue, (In)Justice International will also be available to cover open access publication costs on a case-by-case basis. To know if you are eligible to have the APC covered by the network, please contact Karen Soldatic ([email protected]) directly. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 12

Title:
Artificial Intelligence and Ethnic, Religious, and Gender-Based Discrimination


Editor(s):
Derya Ozkul (University of Oxford)

Submission of Abstracts: Closed
Submission of Full Papers: 15-31 July 2023
Publication of the Issue: January/March 2024

Information:

The use of artificial intelligence-based technologies, including biometrics and blockchain, is on the rise in many sectors. Still, these new technologies are often employed with no regulation, weak oversight and governance mechanisms. The existing literature suggests that the deployment of these technologies has been opaque with little knowledge about who has access to the data, with whom it is shared and who is accountable for the wrongdoings of humans and automated decision-makers in the process. In many sectors, recipients are obliged to provide their consent in order to receive the product, without knowing how their data will be used and how it will be protected.

Moreover, these new technologies have been introduced without an examination of possible forms of exclusion. Like any other tool, technology in itself is not neutral. The ability to design, own and use AI-based technologies is directly related to relationships of power. Not only assessing individual characteristics and posing a risk to privacy rights, biometric identification can discriminate according to group-based (gender, ethnic, religious) characteristics. For instance, existing preliminary research finds that 'machine bias' against gender and racialised characteristics of individuals persist in the scanning of CVs and in assessments of criminals' likelihood of becoming a recidivist. Even though there is growing activism on risks to data privacy, there are very few scholarly investigations on how AI-based technologies can give rise to discrimination of certain groups over others.

This thematic issue will explore the following questions and related topics: To what extent the use of new technologies result in discrimination based on gender, ethnic or religious backgrounds? What are the newly emerging governance mechanisms to mitigate such forms of discrimination? How is accountability ensured in the design and implementation stages? What is the role of civil society and courts in challenging the 'machine bias'? This thematic issue invites articles with a critical lens and empirically novel findings across various spheres, including but not limited to courts, public security, and border management, among others.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal’s instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join Cogitatio’s Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal’s open access charges and institutional members can be found here.

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Volume 12

Title:
Perceptions, Reflections, and Conceptualizations of War and Peace in Children’s Drawings


Editor(s):
Lisa Blasch (University of Innsbruck), Phil C. Langer (International Psychoanalytic University Berlin), and Nadja Thoma (University of Vienna / EURAC Research)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 December 2023
Submission of Full Papers: 15-30 April 2024
Publication of the Issue: October/December 2024

Information:

Issues of war and peace have crucially been re-/positioned within the center of global politics, media publics, humanitarian aid, and individual life worlds by the war on Ukraine. These issues are not new. Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, the Darfur, and Mali are only some of the signifiers of violent conflicts that have plagued the world for years.

In almost all conflicts and wars, children are among the groups most affected by their pervasive consequences. They are, however, not only passively suffering victims of violence, displacement, hunger, and existential hardship, but remain (sometimes more, sometimes less) conscious actors in a collective process of meaning-making: They perceive, they reflect, they interpret, they conceptualize. An important medium of these discursive negotiations are drawings. Drawings are generated as means of reflections of war and peace in spontaneous play at home, in informal and formal educational settings, via pedagogical instructions, in therapeutic contexts, and—as child-sensitive and participatory method—for research endeavors. The systematic methodological thinking about and the recognized use of drawings in empirical research projects, nonetheless, still represent a desiderate within many disciplines. As an interdisciplinary and inter-university group we now aim to bring together exciting innovative contributions focusing on children’s perceptions, reflections, and conceptualizations of war and peace from a wide range of (inter-/trans-)disciplinary fields, theoretical foundations, method(olog)ical perspectives, and different regions in this thematic issue.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 12

Title:
Who Wants to Share? Attitudes Towards Horizontal Redistribution Across the Globe


Editor(s):
Frances Stewart (University of Oxford), Arnim Langer (KU Leuven), and Line Kuppens (University of Amsterdam)

Submission of Abstracts: 15-30 April 2023 (invited authors only)
Submission of Full Papers: 1-15 September 2023
Publication of the Issue: April/June 2024

Information:

Since 1960s, the concept and phenomenon of inequality has been widely studied across a range of disciplines. Most research and public discussion has focused on income and wealth inequalities between individuals or households, or what Stewart has termed “vertical inequality.” In contrast, much less attention has been paid to the issue of socio-economic inequalities between different culturally-defined groups or so-called “horizontal inequalities” (HIs). Socio-economic HIs cover a range of dimensions and may refer to inequalities in the ownership of assets, income, and employment opportunities. They may also pertain to inequalities in the access to a range of social services (i.e., education, healthcare, and public housing), as well as in achievements in health and educational outcomes. Hence, socio-economic HIs cover both inequalities in opportunities and outcomes.

There are important reasons for societies to be concerned about the presence of socio-economic HIs. On the one hand, HIs matter because they tend to affect people’s happiness and well-being, and may unfairly trap individuals and groups in a position of inferiority. On the other hand, HIs may also matter instrumentally. Indeed, reducing severe socio-economic HIs may be necessary for promoting economic efficiency and for maintaining political stability and social cohesion in multi-ethnic societies. With regard to the latter issue, a growing body of both qualitative and quantitative empirical research has found evidence that the presence of HIs significantly increases the risk of violent conflicts. Furthermore, research on countries such as Bolivia, Côte d‘Ivoire, Ghana, Guatemala, Nigeria, South Africa, and the US has shown socio-economic HIs to be extremely persistent; in some cases locking certain groups into positions of inferiority for centuries. Hence, in cases where there are sharp and persistent socio-economic HIs, there may be a strong case for the introduction of redistributive policies aimed at correcting the existing socio-economic His—or what we term “horizontal redistribution.”

While extensive research has been conducted on perceived income inequalities between individuals (i.e. vertical inequalities) as well as on how perceived levels and sources of income inequality affect preferences for redistribution in Western countries, extremely little research has been conducted on the drivers of people’s attitudes towards horizontal redistribution in diverse societies. More specifically, we know very little about how different kinds of horizontal redistribution interventions affect people’s inter-group attitudes and behavior. Existing research concerning people’s attitudes towards horizontal redistribution is largely limited to research on affirmative action in the US and a few other countries with large affirmative action programmes.

The objective of this thematic issue is to address this important academic and policy void by analyzing and studying people’s attitudes towards redistributive policies in a range of contexts and regions. Articles should cover different contexts where HIs are significant, although the characteristics of the salient groups vary across contexts. The thematic issue proposes to cover black/white inequalities in the US, Brazil, and South Africa, ethnic inequalities in Nigeria, Malaysia, Kenya, and the Roma people in Eastern Europe, caste-based inequalities in India, and religious inequalities in Northern Ireland. The group of selected article should use a variety of methods, including statistical analysis drawing on perceptions surveys, discourse analysis, and historical analysis.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and contact the academic editors directly before submitting their abstracts through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 12

Title:
Accomplices to Social Exclusion? Analyzing Institutional Processes of Silencing


Editor(s):
Ulrike M. Vieten (Queen’s University Belfast) and Emily Mitchell-Bajic (Arden University)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 June 2023
Submission of Full Papers: 15-30 October 2023
Publication of the Issue: April/June 2024

Information:

“Silencing” appears in social sciences studies as a far-reaching theoretical and empirical topic of discussion (Bhambra & Shilliam, 2009; Brown, 2008; Jaworski, 1997; Post, 2008). With broad contributions made on how silencing relates to mobilisations of power—or even as a stronghold of power itself—there exist defined conceptual and practicable links between silencing, power, and resultant social exclusion for demographics and individuals who experience silencing. Altiney and Peto (2015) co-edited a special issue on “new directions in feminist thinking on genocide,” mentioning “silence as narration.” The “archaeology of silence” (de Lagasnerie & Louis, 2015) needs more attention in a political-institutional context where institutional racisms might silence visible ethnic minorities, for example, and what it needs to speak out and complain against, as Ahmed (2021) follows up. Those who become bystanders—acting silent—to racist and sexist acts might be complicit in this form of embedded and institutionalized racism and sexism. However, we are less interested here in “silence” than in processes of silencing; understanding who is silenced by whom, when, and how. Silence can be an individual choice (Clark, 2020), but silence as a mass phenomenon, embedded in institutions and regarded as a signifier of taboo or stigma hints at structural power hierarchies in need of unwrapping and exposing. In situ, the myriad angles and case examples with which to approach silencing as it is experienced presents an extensive scope for the renewed address of how silencing is shaped and reshaped by power arcs.

This thematic issue approaches institutional processes of silencing and invites scholars to challenge both how and why institutions house silencing, interrogating processes of silencing as an apparatus of wider power arcs.

Further, we are interested in understanding how silencing is overcome and in what ways temporary silence can be resolved without structural damage in giving a voice and being heard. Does silencing have consequences for institutional actors, and can acts of silencing be recorded?

Paying particular attention to how intersections of social class, gender, and ethnicity receive and shape processes of silencing, this thematic issue seeks to situate intersections of individual demographic identity as ventricles of specific vulnerabilities to the silencing, power, and social exclusion nexus, to uncover institutions as instrumental in this.

Possible, but not limited, angles of inquiries are:

  • Media coverage, and the silencing of non-visible minorities: Does the notion of majority and minority make sense in the context of gender/sex and social class silencing?
  • Memories of war and violence—rules of forgiveness and silencing in-group atrocities: Which groups of victims remain invisible?
  • National lenses and the de-colonial gaze: In what ways does the silencing of the subaltern must be read and interpreted anew again and again against situated historical and national (nation-state) contexts?
  • Queering the text (visual and written): Do form and material matter in the ways space is inhabited and space is given to silenced minorities?
  • Does academia prolong silencing through institutional procedures and the normalisation of white middle-class standards?
  • How does “un-silencing” (Altiney, 2014) work, and which classed, gendered, and racialised actors are pushing the undoing of historical silence?

References

Ahmed, S. (2021). Complaint! Duke University Press.

Altiney, A. G., & A. Petö (2015). Europe and the century of genocide: new directions in the feminist theorizing of genocide. Gendering Genocide, 22(4), 379–385.

Bhambra, G. K., & Shilliam, R. (2009). Silence and human rights. In G. K. Bhambra & R. Shilliam (Eds.), Silencing human rights: Critical engagements with a contested project (pp. 1–16). Palgrave Macmillan.

Brown, W. (1998). Freedom’s silences. In R. C. Post (Ed.), Censorship and silencing: Practices of cultural regulation (pp. 313–327). The Getty Research Institute.

Clark, J. N. (2020). Finding a voice: Silence and its significance for transitional justice. Social & Legal Studies, 29(3), 355–378.

de Lagasnerie, G., & Louis, E. (2015). Manifesto for an intellectual and political counteroffensive. LARB. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/manifesto-for-an-intellectual-and-political-counter-offensive

Jaworski, A. (1997). Introduction: An overview. In A. Jaworski (Ed.), Silence: Interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 6–13). De Gruyter.

Post, R. C. (1998). Censorship and silencing. in R. C. Post (Ed.), Censorship and silencing: Practices of cultural regulation (pp. 1–16). The Getty Research Institute.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 12

Title:
Belonging and Boundary Work in Majority–Minority Cities: Practices of (In)Exclusion


Editor(s):
Maurice Crul (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Ismintha Waldring (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), and Frans Lelie (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 September 2023 (invited authors only)
Submission of Full Papers: 15-30 January 2024
Publication of the Issue: July/September 2024

Information:

This thematic issue will revolve around the ERC advanced research project Becoming a Minority (BaM). The issue will explore six European majority–minority cities (Amsterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg, Malmö, Rotterdam, and Vienna) in which residents without a migration background are one of many ethnic minority groups. Articles will focus on this group of residents. Specifically, we aim to uncover how practices of (in)exclusion in majority–minority neighborhoods come about and are experienced by residents without a migration background.

One of the articles in this thematic issue will be based on the BaM survey conducted in 2019 and has a comparative angle focusing on all six BaM project cities. The other contributions will be based on semi-structured interviews conducted in 2019 and the first quarter of 2020. Two of these qualitative articles propose a comparison between two cities, while the others will remain focused on one.

Central to the articles are the concepts of social boundaries, interactions (across ethnic boundaries), belonging, and belonging uncertainty. Themes addressed in these articles include how various national discourses in Europe are rooted in the bright boundaries put up between people with and without a migration background, how they resonate at the local majority–minority level, the function of space in majority–minority neighborhoods, and how neighborhood spaces such as shops, schools, parks, and streets can gain a strategic function for neighborhood residents to interact across ethnic boundaries.

This thematic issue underlines the importance of looking at the interplay between symbolic and social boundary-making through national discourses and inter-ethnic contacts and feelings of belonging (uncertainty) in the local setting of majority–minority neighborhoods to understand practices of inclusion and exclusion in majority–minority neighborhoods in Europe.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and contact the academic editors directly before submitting their abstracts through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 12

Title:
Theorizing as a Liberatory Practice? The Emancipatory Promise of Knowledge Co-Creation With (Forced) Migrants


Editor(s):
Halleh Ghorashi (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and Maria Rast (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 December 2023 (invited authors only)
Submission of Full Papers: 15-30 April 2024
Publication of the Issue: October/December 2024

Information:

Theorizing is often considered a privileged act reserved for academics. However, knowledge rarely is a product of an individual “genius”; instead, it is grounded in and fueled by lived experiences and narratives of resistance, transformation, and hope. Knowledge emerges from engagement with collective sources, through collaborations with others.

Throughout history, activists, students, scholars, politicians, and marginalized communities have contributed to and utilized socio-political theorizing to understand how micro/meso processes of social inequality and marginalization are embedded in socio-political macro-structures and sustained and legitimated by normalized discursive practices. Hence, the promise of a historicized socio-political diagnosis—a “sociological imagination” or “critical consciousness”—is that it allows us to recast private troubles into public issues, shift the locus of blame to external structures, and find possibilities to intervene, resist, and engage in political action. It potentially allows for practices of politicization, intervention, and transformation.

This thematic issue’s understanding of knowledge co-creation is rooted in an engaged, relational, reciprocal approach that recognizes the mutual interdependence of theory and practice. Through co-creative research, in which scholars create knowledge with and for—instead of about—people, different actors seek to contribute to advancing people’ struggles, needs, interests, and desires.

The thematic issue consists of empirical and theoretical contributions from South Africa, the United States, and the Netherlands that address how academic theorizing is co-created by and co-creates processes of emancipation and transformation for differently positioned and impacted individuals and collectivities. In their contributions, knowledge co-creators (from both inside and outside academia) aim to improve social inclusion and justice for refugees/forced migrants to engage further with the question of how theory and practice are co-created as an engaged, collaborative, reflective, and critical act between scholars and social movements, activists, artists, societal partners, and other individuals or communities. This entails acknowledging how these actors learn, acquire, work with, resist, transform, as well as reproduce (hegemonic) theories and practices.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and contact the academic editors directly before submitting their abstracts through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 12

Title:
Migrants’ Inclusion in Rural Communities


Editor(s):
Unnur Dís Skaptadóttir (University of Iceland), Pamela Innes (University of Wyoming), and Anna Wojtyńska (University of Iceland)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 June 2023
Submission of Full Papers: 15-30 October 2023
Publication of the Issue: April/June 2024

Information:

There has been a growing research interest in recent years in the expanding migration into rural areas (McAreavey & Argent, 2018). These studies have illustrated how migrants have commonly replaced out-migrating local populations and helped maintain necessary services and local economic activities (Hedberg & Haandrikman, 2014). Rural areas are increasingly diverse and heterogenous places with transnational populations. Like urban areas, they are part of the global neoliberal restructuring and their integration into international economy has transformed many local sectors (Rye & O’Reilly, 2021). Different kinds of internal and international migrants, such as those arriving as workers, refugees, and lifestyle migrants inform the heterogeneity of contemporary migrations. Their conditions, opportunities, and right to stay varies.

This thematic issue contributes to the understanding of this complex reality by focusing on how immigrating populations themselves experience processes of inclusion and exclusion in rural localities. It attempts to cover a broad spectrum of issues to reflect the multifaceted character of migration to rural areas. What kinds of issues are people concerned with when moving to or working in often tightly knit, small, rural communities? While many studies have focused on the perspectives of the receiving locations (e.g., services, policies) this thematic issue seeks contributions from the point of view of the in-migrating persons and the lived experiences of incorporation of various groups. Authors are invited to contribute articles that deal with the complex and multifaceted processes of integration and belonging based on diverse research methods and theoretical perspectives: What does integration mean to participants? How are they able to become active agents of change both personally and in local transformations? To what extent do migrating populations see themselves as included and part of local communities? What kinds of challenges do different groups encounter and on what bases are they excluded? What do they need in terms of accessibility to services? These are a few examples of the questions we encourage our authors to explore.

References

Hedberg, C., & Haandrikman, K. (2014). Repopulation of the Swedish countryside: Globalization by international migration. Journal of Rural Studies, 34, 128–138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2014.01.005

McAreavey, R., & Argent, N. (2018). New immigration destinations (NID) unravelling the challenges and opportunities for migrants and for host communities. Journal of Rural Studies, 64, 148–152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2018.09.006

Rye, J. F., & O’Reilly, K. (2020). International labour migration to Europe’s rural regions. Routledge.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 12

Title:
Neighborhood Residents in Vulnerable Circumstances: Crisis, Stress, and Coping Mechanisms


Editor(s):
Peer Smets (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and Pekka Tuominen (University of Helsinki)

Submission of Abstracts: 15-30 October 2023
Submission of Full Papers: 1-15 April 2024
Publication of the Issue: September/November 2024

Information:

Today many cities have to deal with multiple crises such as the financial crises, housing crisis, climate crisis, food crisis, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Living in such a city is often characterised by insecurity concerning finding a safe living space and obtaining sufficient income-generating activities. Moreover, there is a growing gap between the poor and the better-off. In low-income neighbourhoods, individuals have to cope with for instance a shortage of (financial) means and inadequate housing. This causes stress about how to survive, which often creates a short-term perspective which obstructs planning for the future. Many poorer sections of society got stuck in poverty stress, while others have developed skills enabling them to escape from poverty. These coping mechanisms can be more or less successful.

In low-income neighbourhoods people may join hands to improve their living conditions. Moreover, there are social workers who work with the poor with the aim of improving their vulnerable circumstances. For these interventions different kinds of methods are used. Some methods are linked to neoliberalism, while others fight against this and may focus on different kinds of community development. The aim of this thematic issue is to better understand the positions of neighbourhood residents in contemporary vulnerable circumstances, analysing the viewpoints of both the better-off and the poor.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and contact the academic editors directly before submitting their abstracts through the abstracts system (here). Authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 13

Title:
The Implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights in the Era of Polycrisis


Editor(s):
Francisco Simões (ISCTE-IUL), Renato do Carmo (ISCTE-IUL), and Bráulio Alturas (ISCTE-IUL)

Submission of Abstracts: 15-30 September 2024
Submission of Full Papers: 1-15 February 2025
Publication of the Issue: September/December 2025

Information:

The post-pandemic period, associated with the war in Ukraine and persisting high inflation rates, has created the perfect storm for stretching inequalities across Europe. Since the 2008 economic turmoil, the consequences of systemic and successive crises have been asymmetric, and in this polycrisis context, Southern and Eastern European countries have been affected by negative social and economic effects most of all (Henig & Knight, 2023), increasing pre-existing structural inequalities. In the meantime, Northern and Central European countries seem to have adjusted faster to these challenges, although their recovery pathways—if any—remain uncertain.

The European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) is a beacon for assessing the social and economic conditions of the European people. We consider that the EPSR can also constitute a charter for assessing how the gap between countries and distinct areas of the continent (North/South, East/West) is currently evolving using each of its dimensions. For instance, at the equal opportunities level, for the past decade, the share of early school leavers and young people not in employment not in education or training (NEET) has declined across the European Union, while tertiary education attainment has broken records despite the socioeconomic turbulence (Simões, 2022). However, NEET rates as well as the share of early school leavers from education and training are persistently higher in the South and the East of the continent, with collateral negative effects over other indicators of the EPSR such as income disparities or gender inequalities in accessing the labor market. Moreover, the increase in tertiary education attainment brings new challenges such as risks of overqualification or the mismatch between job supply and demand (Rodrigues et al., 2022).

Several European countries also struggle to ensure fair working conditions, a second dimension of the EPSR. In general, unemployment rates in Southern and Eastern countries are higher, including among young people. Longer and more uncertain school-to-work transitions (Pastore et al., 2021), widespread precariousness (Carmo & D’Avelar, 2021; Carmo & Matias, 2020), and consequently a higher share of workers at risk of being poor are widespread concerns in these parts of Europe. These social problems directly question the role of States and policies, in terms of social protection and inclusion, the third dimension of the EPSR. Citizens in Southern and Eastern countries, compared to their counterparts living in Northern and Western parts of the continent, struggle more to avoid poverty, especially among children and youth, or access a decent house, with the role of social transfers being more pivotal for ensuring minimum standards of living and dignity in these areas of the continent. However, the dismantling of public support systems in Northern European countries is also worrisome and can potentially affect the capacity of these states to address the EPSR vision (Jørgensen et al., 2019).

European Union ambitions for the next decades associated with sustainable development and digitalization—the so-called dual transition—add layers of complexity to how ESPR targets can be met while raising several questions (ISCTE-IUL, n.d.). How are the education and training systems being shaped by these megatrends? How are European countries equipping workers with new skills in the green and digital sectors and still meeting employment and activity rates proposed by the ESPR? Are under-skilled and underqualified citizens being left behind in these countries? How exactly are new economies emerging from the green and digital transformations and creating new opportunities for people in more peripherical countries?

This thematic issue aims to showcase how ESPR goals and indicators are (not) being met across European countries in the aftermath of the pandemic period and the context of the dual transition. This thematic issue constitutes, thus, a forum for discussing how European states are addressing each of the dimensions of the ESPR as they adjust to the European vision for 2050. To be aligned with the special issue’s goal, articles must comply with all the following criteria:

  • Address at least one of the ESPR dimensions or one of its headline or secondary indicators (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/european-pillar-of-social-rights/indicators/social-scoreboard-indicators);
  • Focus on one or multiple European countries;
  • Clearly reflect on the impact or consequences of one of the pillars of the dual transition to the topic of interest.

We are giving priority to the contributions focusing on the second (fair working conditions) and third (social protection and inclusion) dimensions of the ESPR. Topics such as (un)employment, particularly among adults, income distribution, poverty, and social exclusion or social protection across the lifespan are especially welcome.

Multiple types of contributions, from scoping or systematic reviews to position papers or empirical studies, are admissible. We especially welcome reports on policies and best practices. The accepted papers are expected to come from and are not limited to disciplines such as sociology, economics, social psychology, political sciences, geography, social work, or information sciences. While we particularly welcome papers from both Southern and Eastern European countries, including from countries that are not EU member states, we also expect contributions from scholars from other countries comparing East/West or North/South dimensions of the ESPR.

References

Carmo, R. M., & d’Avelar, M. M. (2021). The weight of time and the unemployment experience: Daily life and future prospects. Current Sociology, 69(5), 742–760. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392120986222

Carmo, R. M., & Matias, A. R. (2020). Precarious futures: From non-standard jobs to an uncertain tomorrow. In R. M. Carmo & J. A. V. Simões (Eds.), Protest, youth and precariousness: The unfinished fight against austerity in Portugal (pp. 13–32). Berghahn Books.

Henig, D., & Knight, D. M. (2023). Polycrisis: Prompts for an emerging worldview. Antropology Today, 39(2), 3–6. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8322.12793

ISCTE-IUL. (n.d.). InCITIES project: Trailblazing inclusive, sustainable and resilient cities. https://ciencia.iscte-iul.pt/projects/trailblazing-inclusive-sustainable-and-resilient-cities/1813

Jørgensen, C. H., Järvinen, T., & Lundahl, L. (2019). A Nordic transition regime? Policies for school-to-work transitions in Sweden, Denmark and Finland. European Educational Research Journal, 18(3), 278–297. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904119830037

Pastore, F., Quintano, C., & Rocca, A. (2021). Some young people have all the luck! The duration dependence of the school-to-work transition in Europe. Journal of Labour Economics, 70, Article 101902. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2021.101982

Rodrigues, F., Suleman, F., Marques, P., Videira, P., Pereira, M., & Guimarães, R. (2022). Mais e melhores empregos para os jovens. Fundação José Neves; Observatório Do Emprego Jovem. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads-7e3kk3/48133/livro_branco_compressed.4ce24c0c7a48.pdf

Simões, F. (2022). School to work transition in the resilience and recovery facility framework: Youth oriented active labour market policies under Pillar 6. European Parliament. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2022/699552/IPOL_STU(2022)699552_EN.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0NNtOseIA9zRcYH0JOVtfqvp0T3_w0ElimJmaeSWNlD1WKrYZyrj85ER0


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 13

Title:
Vocational Schools as Pathways to Higher Education: International Perspectives


Editor(s):
Christian Imdorf (Leibniz University Hannover), Claudia Schuchart (University of Wuppertal), and Nadine Bernhard (TU Berlin)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 July 2024
Submission of Full Papers: 1-15 December 2024
Publication of the Issue: July/September 2025

Information:
The new millennium higher education expansion in Europe was accompanied by educational reforms aiming at adjusting upper secondary education to an increasingly diversified higher education system. An important part of the European policy agenda today is to make access to higher education (HE) more inclusive, and permeability between vocational education and training (VET) and HE is considered key to enhancing HE access. Likewise, as there is a royal road to HE in every country, the upgrading of VET has evolved in country-specific ways and created specific alternative and “second chance” routes via vocational schools into HE, which today are taken by significant proportions of students of new social groups.

Access to HE is restricted in different ways in different countries, and opportunity structures for disadvantaged youth therefore also vary by national contexts. This thematic issue asks how vocational schools improve access to HE for youth from less advantaged backgrounds (due to social origin, migration experience, or age), how they select and prepare their students for trajectories into HE (e.g., through counseling strategies and rising their aspirations), and how effective they are. Finally, we are interested in the ways educational trajectories through VET schools are governed at an organizational and institutional level.

VET schools differ in their degree of vocational specificity and in whether they offer school-leaving qualifications and/or labor market-relevant certificates. We are interested in contributions on vocational schools of different kinds, which are, however, united in their institutional and social function to feed HE. This thematic issue aims to highlight international research on this important but under-researched topic and make its international relevance visible, inciting further, international comparative research in the future.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join our Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 13

Title:
Violence, Hate Speech, and Gender Bias: Challenges to an Inclusive Digital Environment


Editor(s):
Max Römer Pieretti (Universidad Camilo José Cela), Beatriz Esteban Ramiro (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha), and Agrivalca Canelón (Universidad Católica Andrés Bello)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 April 2024
Submission of Full Papers: 1-15 September 2024
Publication of the Issue: January/March 2025

Information:

The growth of Internet access, ICTs, and social media have contributed in a blatant and well-documented way to how people communicate and relate to one another in contemporary society. The general perception of “the public sphere” is changing: How relationships between individuals are established and maintained, and—more importantly—how they influence processes of social inclusion and exclusion are, increasingly, at the mercy of an amorphous, often unrestrained, and ever-changing digital environment. This thematic issue proposes to address some of the most prominent risks and repercussions of this transformation to social cohesion and individual well-being.

By navigating the realities and experiences of users (and especially young users) from a myriad of online platforms/digital spaces, we want to tackle how the proliferation of hate speech and identity/gender biases is increasingly made easier in the “virtual world” (see, e.g., Paz et al., 2021; Piñeiro-Otero & Martínez-Rolán, 2021), fueling tensions and conflicts that transpire into “non-digital reality,” inciting real violent behaviours and, ultimately, endangering worldly accepted values of social cohesion and inclusion.

The adaptability of young users to online platforms is notorious, if not sometimes taken for granted. Even more “sheltered” spaces like online video games emphasise and capitalize, more and more, on their “social character” (see the case of multiplayer online games, or MMOs). But what are the social implications and impacts of a hostile digital environment on childhood/adolescence and youth? Digital experiences are a flourishing industry; yet what is being made to challenge and face the rising cases of bullying, harassment, and violence that such experiences instil? What mechanisms are at society’s disposal to mitigate these problems? What tools are being/could be used in shaping a more inclusive society in the virtual sphere and how can we promote more positive narratives from within the digital world?


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join our Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 13

Title:
The Impact of Social Norms on Cohesion and (De)Polarization


Editor(s):
Miranda Lubbers (Autonomous University of Barcelona), Marcin Bukowski (Jagiellonian University), Oliver Christ (FernUniversität in Hagen), Eva Jaspers (University of Utrecht), and Maarten van Zalk (University of Osnabrück)

Submission of Abstracts: 15-30 September 2024
Submission of Full Papers: 15-31 January 2025
Publication of the Issue: October/December 2025

Information:

Over the last few decades, polarization has been increasing in numerous societies worldwide (McCoy et al., 2018; Phillips, 2022; Reiljan, 2019), particularly in those with high unemployment and income equality (Gidron et al., 2019). These divides have increased hostility and distance among groups defined by partisanship, political identities, or religious beliefs (Balcells & Kuo, 2022; Hobolt et al., 2021). However, as cultural issues are increasingly aligned with these identities (“culture wars”; DellaPosta et al., 2015), polarization does not only stay in the political realm but spills over to social groups more generally, defined by ethnicity, social class, religion, gender, and sexual identities (Castle, 2018). Consequently, polarization may lead to lower mutual understanding, tolerance, intergroup contact, and cooperation. Polarization raises serious societal and political challenges such as hate speech and violence (Suarez Estrada et al., 2022), the ineffective addressing of societal challenges, and democratic backsliding (Orhan, 2021).

Despite extensive research on polarization, intergroup conflict, intolerance (Verkuyten, 2023), and interventions aimed at decreasing affective polarization (Huddy & Yair, 2021; Levendusky, 2018; Voelkel et al., 2022), there has been limited examination of the role of social norms in regulating negative sentiment among social groups (Iyengar & Westwood, 2014; Meleady, 2021), stimulating the willingness to interact with people one disagrees with, potentially mitigating the harmful effects of polarization. This thematic issue aims to bridge this gap by investigating how the transmission of—and conformity to—social norms can help increase tolerance, foster willingness to interact and collaborate with other social groups in polarized contexts, and if and how they can decrease polarization.

We invite authors worldwide to contribute with articles that analyze the significance of norms in stimulating respectful intergroup contact and fostering depolarization. Questions authors may address include, but are not limited to:

  • Which social norms do individuals adhere to when interacting or collaborating with people from different social groups or of opposing partisanship or ideas?
  • Which social norms can be identified that can effectively depolarize communities, regulate negative intergroup sentiment, or stimulate respectful interaction and collaboration among opposing or different social groups?
  • What are the boundary conditions under which these norms are adopted, contested, or enforced?
  • How can such norms be strengthened, in general or for specific groups?
  • Does the adoption of these norms vary across countries or social groups?
  • How are they transmitted, enforced, or contested via social networks, and what network features lead to more efficient norm transmission?
  • How is youth socialized (e.g., by their parents, in school classes) in adopting social norms that enhance or weaken intergroup contact?
  • How are these norms transmitted via social media and/or what makes social media users conform to these norms?
  • How do norms change over time?

Contributions can focus on different types of polarization (e.g., partisan-, opinion-, or identity-related polarization) or related divisions. Articles can be theoretical, methodological, or empirical, and the latter can use diverse methodologies, including surveys, qualitative interviews, experiments, data mining, social network analysis, agent-based models and simulation, and intervention studies. Contributions from all disciplines are welcome.

By exploring the impact of norms on (de-)polarization, this thematic issue aims to gain insights into creating a more cohesive and inclusive society.

References

Balcells, L., & Kuo, A. (2022). Secessionist conflict and affective polarization: Evidence from Catalonia. Journal of Peace Research, 60(4), 604–618. https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433221088112

Castle, J. (2018). New fronts in the culture wars? Religion, partisanship, and polarization on religious liberty and transgender rights in the United States. American Politics Research, 47(3), 650–679.

DellaPosta, D., Shi, Y., & Macy, M. (2015). Why do liberals drink lattes? American Journal of Sociology, 120(5), 1473–1511. https://doi.org/10.1086/681254

Gidron, N., Adams, J., & Horne, W. (2019, August 29–September 1). How ideology, economics, and institutions shape affective polarization in democratic polities [Paper presentation]. Annual Conference of the American Political Science Association. https://ces.fas.harvard.edu/uploads/files/events/GAH-Affective-Polarization-in-Democratic-Polities.pdf

Hobolt, S. B., Leeper, T. J., & Tilley, J. (2021). Divided by the vote: Affective polarization in the wake of the Brexit referendum. British Journal of Political Science, 51, 1476–1493.

Huddy, L., & Yair, O. (2021). Reducing affective polarization: Warm group relations or policy compromise? Political Psychology, 42, 291–309.

Iyengar, S., & Westwood, S. J. (2014). Fear and loathing across party lines: New evidence on group polarization. American Journal of Political Science, 59(3), 690–707.

Levendusky, M. S. (2018). Americans, not partisans: Can priming American national identity reduce affective polarization? Journal of Politics, 80, 59–70.

McCoy, J., Rahman, T., & Somer, M. S. (2018). Polarization and the global crisis of democracy: Common patterns, dynamics, and pernicious consequences for democratic polities. American Behavioral Scientist, 62, 16–42.

Meleady, R. (2021). “Nudging” intergroup contact: Normative social influences on intergroup contact engagement. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 24(7), 1180–1199.

Orhan, Y. E. (2021). The relationship between affective polarization and democratic backsliding: Comparative evidence. Democratization, 29(4), 714–735.

Phillips, J. (2022). Affective polarization: Over time, through the generations, and during the lifespan. Political Behavior, 44, 1483–1508.

Reiljan, A. (2019). ‘Fear and loathing across party lines’ (also) in Europe: Affective polarization in European party systems. European Journal of Political Research, 59(2), 376–396.

Suarez Estrada, M., Juarez, Y., & Piña-García, C. A. (2022). Toxic social media: Affective polarization after feminist protests. Social Media + Society, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221098343

Verkuyten, M. (2023). The social psychology of tolerance. Routledge.

Voelkel, J. G., Chu, J., Stagnaro, M., Mernyk, J., Redekopp, C., Pink, S., Druckman, J., Rand, D., & Willer, R. (2022). Interventions reducing affective polarization do not necessarily improve anti-democratic attitudes. Nature Human Behavior, 7, 55–64.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join our Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 13

Title:
Accessibility, Integration, and Human Rights in Current Welfare Services, Practices, and Communities


Editor(s):
Suvi Raitakari (Tampere University), Jenni-Mari Räsänen (Tampere University), and Anže Jurček (University of Ljubljana)

Submission of Abstracts: 15-30 September 2024
Submission of Full Papers: 15-31 March 2025
Publication of the Issue: September/December 2025

Information:

Accessibility as a policy objective can be considered both the “cornerstone” and “Achilles heel” of current welfare services. It also causes challenges for various vulnerable groups in Western societies. The proposed thematic issue aims to study and reflect critically upon accessibility intertwined with integration and human rights in the contexts of welfare systems, services, practices, and communities, such as self-help groups, social clubs, and food aid organizations. It invites contributions of system-level analysis as well as examinations of everyday encounters and experiences, both from professionals’ and service users’ perspectives. Furthermore, theoretical, policy-oriented, and historical papers on the topic are welcomed.

Accessibility means that services should be easily accessible to all the people who need them regarding the physical environment, transportation, information, and public facilities and services (United Nations, 2007). The services, their contents, and aims should be understandable, acceptable, easy-to-find, and available to everyone so that individuals are treated equally and human rights are respected. Accessibility is often associated with digital services, but it is relevant to all services and information regarding, for example, opening hours, geographical distances, service fees, and the time frame for getting an appointment. Service users’ previous experiences of treatment play a major role in help-seeking and engagement with services. Accessibility is in practice negotiated and constructed at the grassroots level in practitioner–service user interaction. Access is negotiated, accepted, or denied at the intersection of institutional intake criteria and resources as well as personal needs, wants, and problem formulations. Partly due to the multidimensionality of the concepts, the research is quite fragmented and spread across different fields of research. Accessibility has been studied by focusing on many parallel and closely related discussions, such as help-seeking and service choices (Fargion et al., 2019), which are also relevant to this thematic issue. The overlap between help-seeking, service choices, and accessibility is indicated, for example, when a person recognizes that they need help but decides not to apply for any services or help and, as a result, is consequently excluded from services and communities.

The integration of services and multi-professional collaboration is closely connected to accessibility. The relation between accessibility and integration is multifaceted: Service integration may advance accessibility, but it can also be approached as a result of the successful entry process of service systems, professional practices, and communities. Thus, the concept of accessibility includes the idea of integration with services, communities, and access to citizenship with rights.

Accessibility is also strongly intertwined with the protection of human rights and equality and their actualization among people in vulnerable life situations. Nonetheless, access is often negotiated according to expectations of who is seen as eligible and acknowledged for social support, benefits, and aid (see, e.g., Casas, 2007; Clarke, 2004; Fargion et al., 2019). The requirement of accessibility is complicated because of the different “gatekeeping” and “exclusion mechanisms,” which can be purposely built into service systems to curb and control demand. In that case, the goal of welfare systems is that the “right” and “eligible” service users find the services. Hence, various ethical considerations are embedded in managing and enabling accessibility. Endeavours to advance accessibility are often realized, for instance, in low-threshold services and outreach and mobile work that aims to reach “hard-to-reach,” isolated people and build a relationship of trust with them (Clarke, 2004; Cortis, 2012; Grymonprez et al., 2017).

This thematic issue welcomes studies that address accessibility, for instance, in various population groups interpreted as vulnerable, such as immigrants (Fauk et al., 2021), sexual and gender minorities (McIntyre et al., 2011), people experiencing mental health and substance use challenges (Neale et al., 2008), elderly people (Zechner & Valokivi, 2012), people with disabilities (Casas, 2007), or people experiencing homelessness (McWilliams et al., 2022). Difficulties related to accessibility make visible and acknowledge the diversity, special needs, different statuses, and power relations among people and groups. Instead of accessibility, inaccessibility is often perceived, which is associated with “gatekeeping,” abuse, social exclusion, and turning people away from services, benefits, and communities.

References

Casas, I. (2007). Social exclusion and the disabled: An accessibility approach. The Professional Geographer, 59(4), 463–477.

Clarke, J. (2004). Access for all? The promise and problems of universalism. Social Work and Society, 2(2), 216–224.

Cortis, N. (2012). Overlooked and under‐served? Promoting service use and engagement among “hard‐to‐reach” populations. International Journal of Social Welfare, 21(4), 351–360.

Fargion, S., Nagy, A., & Berger, E. (2019). Access to social services as a rite of integration: Power, rights, and identity. Social Policy & Administration, 53(5), 627–640.

Fauk, N. K., Ziersch, A., Gesesew, H., Ward, P., Green, E., Oudih, E., Tahir, R., & Mwanri, L. (2021). Migrants and service providers’ perspectives of barriers to accessing mental health services in South Australia: A case of African migrants with a refugee background in South Australia. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(17). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18178906

Grymonprez, H., Roose, R., & Roets, G. (2017). Outreach social work: From managing access to practices of accessibility. European Journal of Social Work, 20(4), 461–471.

McIntyre, J., Daley, A., Rutherford, K., & Ross, L. E. (2011). Systems-level barriers in accessing supportive mental health services for sexual and gender minorities: Insights from the provider’s perspective. Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health, 30(2), 173–186.

McWilliams, L., Paisi, M., Middleton, S., Shawe, J., Thornton, A., Larkin, M., Taylor, J., & Currie, J. (2022). Scoping review: Scope of practice of nurse-led services access to care for people experiencing homelessness. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 78(11), 3587–3606.

Neale, J., Tompkins, C., & Sheard, L. (2008). Barriers to accessing generic health and social care services: A qualitative study of injecting drug users. Health & Social Care in the Community, 16(2), 147–154.

United Nations. (2007). Accessibility: A guiding principle of the Convention 2007. https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/disacc.htm

Zechner, M., & Valokivi, Heli (2012). Negotiating care in the context of Finnish and Italian elder care policies. European Journal of Ageing, 9(2), 131–140.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join our Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 13

Title:
Solidarity in Diversity: Overcoming Marginalisation in Society


Editor(s):
Matthew Mabefam (University of Melbourne), Kennedy Mbeva (University of Oxford), and Franka Vaughan (University of Melbourne)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 March 2024
Submission of Full Papers: 15-31 July 2024
Publication of the Issue: January/March 2025

Information:

In the last few decades, solidarity has stood out as an important mechanism for mobilising support to address societal challenges. For example, the abolition of the slave trade, colonial rule, apartheid, and numerous acts of support to people are some of the indications of the significant role of solidarity in fostering social cohesion. It can thus be argued that solidarity is experiencing a resurgence, especially in addressing major societal challenges such as racism, migration, and the plight of indigenous groups, amongst others.

Solidarity is broadly conceived as a unifying bond between individuals with a common interest or mutual support with or within a group (see Jones, 2001; Miller, 1996). It is “a rich network of social ties, beyond the kinship network, that are freely entered into and developed by social actors; such social ties are both pleasurable and are also sources of obligations voluntarily accepted” (Tiryakian, 2005, p. 307). Solidarity has been the theme of scholarship for decades, yet the need for further exploration and analysis in our society today is accentuated. This is due to the ongoing marginalisation, oppression, and suppression of people, especially minorities. Moreover, there are debates about whom to support, what to support, and whether choosing one or the other defeats the very purpose of solidarity. The question that may arise is: Shouldn’t it be obvious who or which ideas to support? Shouldn’t it be those who are marginalised and suppressed by the structures of society or societies? Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple and obvious, thus the increasing debate on the subject.

Against this backdrop, this thematic issue seeks to bring together a series of articles to examine the theme of solidarity in diversity as debated in academic platforms or public policy and community forums that rarely engage in a mutual manner. Given the increasing salience of the need to engage multiple stakeholders in a single forum, there is a renewed need for innovative platforms to convene and foster these debates. In addition, there is a need to engage scholars, practitioners, and community members in these deliberations, especially from areas/countries where these issues are prevalent.

Contributions to this thematic issue will be organized around two key concepts: solidarity and diversity. Previous works on “solidarity” have manifested in other social spheres, such as academia, policy framing and practice. Intensifying contestations over the shaping and production of knowledge, as underscored by the push to decolonise the academy, for instance, highlight these debates. In response, public discussions have repeatedly called for the inclusion of minority voices in mainstream activities and paid attention to their plight, but the impact of the voices represented or heard remains uncertain. Debates on these issues have revolved around those supporting and opposing the various notions of integration. What is instructive herein is the dialectical nature of the debates, which remain under-examined.

The second concept which underpins this thematic issue is “diversity.” To be clear, diversity has always been an inherent aspect of societies. We will argue that difference is not a problem, and it is high time we started underscoring the benefits of diversity or difference in society. When we consciously do so, we can appreciate and reap its gains. Solidarity is weakened once the debates are reduced to what separates us as humanity, epitomised in the mantra of us versus them. It may even defeat the very purpose for which the theory and practice of solidarity over the past decades. Thus, when we tie the two concepts together and view our engagement in that light, solidarity acknowledges that not every individual or group supporting communities do so because they share their views despite having different experiences. Instead, their support is based on the moral conviction that doing so is the right thing and the only way to minimise marginalisation. Solidarity can create awareness and initiate structural changes that could transform the lives of the marginalised and as well limit marginalisation. Although solidarity is highly contested, with some claims that solidarity is eroding due to increasing inequality and support for groups that scapegoat minorities, it has primarily served as the glue that holds together the various facets of diversity.

This thematic issue seeks to unite work exploring “solidarity in diversity” amongst marginalised and oppressed people at the local and global levels. We argue that regardless of the varied opinions about solidarity, it is still the glue that binds people together and has the potential to minimise the negative experiences of those who are vulnerable. Contributions are encouraged to explore the following research questions, among others:

  • How do we understand solidarity and diversity?
  • How are solidarity and diversity interrelated?
  • How can solidarity and diversity address social challenges?

References

Jones, S. S. (2001). Durkheim reconsidered. Polity Press.

Miller, W. W. (1996). Durkheim, morals and modernity (1st ed.). Routledge.

Tiryakian, E. A. (2005). Durkheim, solidarity, and September 11. In J. C. Alexander & P. Smith (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Durkheim (pp. 305–321). Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-durkheim/durkheim-solidarity-and-september-11/B2B837CEF72C935DAD651ECF0510287C

Recommended Reading

Bauböck, R., & Scholten, P. (2016). Introduction to the special issue: “Solidarity in diverse societies: beyond neoliberal multiculturalism and welfare chauvinism.” Comparative Migration Studies, 4(1), 4. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-016-0025-z

Bhattacharyya, J. (1995). Solidarity and agency: Rethinking community development. Human Organization, 54(1) 60–69. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44126573

Çağatay, S., Liinason, M., & Sasunkevich, O. (2022). Solidarities across: Borders, belongings, movements. In S. Çağatay, M. Liinason, & O. Sasunkevich (Eds.), Feminist and LGBTI+ activism across Russia, Scandinavia and Turkey: Transnationalizing spaces of resistance (pp. 143–190). Springer.

Gofman, A. (2014). Durkheim’s theory of social solidarity and social rules. In V. Jeffries (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of altruism, morality, and social solidarity: Formulating a field of study (pp. 45–69). Palgrave Macmillan.

Harell, A., Banting, K., Kymlicka, W., & Wallace, R. (2021). Shared membership beyond national identity: Deservingness and solidarity in diverse societies. Political Studies, 70(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321721996939

Kymlicka, W. (2015). Solidarity in diverse societies: Beyond neoliberal multiculturalism and welfare chauvinism. Comparative Migration Studies, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-015-0017-4

Schiller, N. G. (2016). The question of solidarity and society: Comment on Will Kymlicka’s article: “Solidarity in diverse societies.” Comparative Migration Studies, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-016-0027-x

Thijssen, P., & Verheyen, P. (2022). “It’s all about solidarity, stupid!” How solidarity frames structure the party political sphere. British Journal of Political Science, 52(1), 128–145.

Wilde, L. (2007). The concept of solidarity: Emerging from the theoretical shadows? The British Journal of Politics & International Relations, 9(1), 171–181.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 13

Title:
Gender Equality Plans in European Research Performing Organisations


Editor(s):
Katalin Tardos (Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence), Veronika Paksi (Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence / University of Szeged), Judit Takács (Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence), and Rita Bencivenga (University of Genoa)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 August 2024
Submission of Full Papers: 15-30 January 2025
Publication of the Issue: July/September 2025

Information:

Despite the vast scale of initiatives and good practices, gender equality has been only slowly improving in research & innovation (R&I) sectors. Moreover, opposite tendencies can also be captured. Women and other intersecting minority groups still often face social and professional exclusion and vertical segregation in the scientific arena due to persisting gender-based negative stereotypes and discrimination.

Though the different governmental and organisational affirmative actions like diversity management practices, quota systems, gender equality, and diversity plans all aim for better gender equality, they often fail to reach all their goals. The recent introduction of such mandatory actions, i.e., gender equality plans (GEPs) in research performing organisations (RPOs) in EU member states may accelerate further challenges both at the organisational and individual level.

Highly gendered organisations featuring strong hegemonic masculinity, and/or organisations embedded in national contexts characterised by traditional gender norms, are particularly exposed to organisational resistance. A wide scale of positive and negative experiences could be possessed by experts regarding the implementation of GEPs in the public sector. By sharing these experiences, this thematic issue aims to promote and advance the implementation of gender diversity, inclusion, and equality strategies in the R&I sector—including intersectional approaches—and offer intervention points to stakeholders.

We welcome contributions that highlight how GEPs affect the inclusion of women and other intersecting minority groups in RPOs by exploring barriers, experiences, and good practices related to GEP implementation (including their effects at the individual and organisational level); challenges associated with GEPs (elements that cannot or can hardly be implemented); the relationship between GEPs and diversity and inclusion practices; and the interpretation of gender+ within GEPs. Recent empirical studies using qualitative, quantitative, and/or mixed methods are all welcome. Papers focusing on male-dominated fields (STEM), Central and Eastern Europe, and comparative studies are particularly encouraged.

To be accepted, abstracts need to include the three following key elements/dimensions: GEPs; exclusion and/or inclusion of genders; universities and/or research performing organisations.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join our Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 13

Title:
Impact Evaluation of Community Sport Programmes and “Sport Social Work Practices”


Editor(s):
Kirsten Verkooijen (Wageningen University & Research) and Pascal Delheye (Ghent University)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 April 2024
Submission of Full Papers: 1-15 September 2024
Publication of the Issue: March/June 2025

Information:

Sport participation has been associated with positive outcomes beyond physical health, such as increased social capital and mental wellbeing. Unfortunately, groups at risk of exclusion from society are typically also excluded from sports participation and hence are unlikely to benefit from these positive outcomes. Community sport programmes and “sport social work practices” aim to combat social exclusion by offering activities tailored to the needs and wishes of people in socially disadvantaged positions. However, the body of knowledge on the impact evaluation of these programmes and practices is not very extensive.

Better knowledge of the impact of community sport programs and sport social work practices would not only benefit the design of these programs and practices but also render long-term funding legitimate as policymakers and other investors prefer to invest in programs and practices that have been proven effective. Yet, conducting an impact evaluation is challenging. A randomised controlled trial, the golden standard in evidence-based medicine, does not suit the real-life context of what can be considered a “complex social intervention.” So what then is the best research design to use? Furthermore, given the wide range of possible outcomes at the individual as well as community level, what outcome indicator(s) should we choose? Finally, considering capacity constraints in community work, there is a need for pragmatic approaches in evaluating impact.

For this thematic issue, we invite scholars and sport/social workers around the world to submit papers that increase our insight into the impact of community sport programs and sport social work practices as well as research papers that contribute to the practice of conducting an impact evaluation within this context.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join our Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 13

Title:
Policies, Attitudes, Design: Promoting the Social Inclusion of Vulnerable Women in Greater China


Editor(s):
Liu Liu (Nanjing University) and Xuemeng Li (Hunter College)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 June 2024
Submission of Full Papers: 15-30 October 2024
Publication of the Issue: April/June 2025

Information:

The vulnerability of Chinese women is in great measure the result of structural factors: among others, their subordinate position in the family and the entire compound of the Chinese educational system and labor market. However, by focusing on Chinese women’s structural disadvantages and struggles alone, we underestimate an equally important component that has, historically, contributed to undermining these women’s chances of overcoming their vulnerable position. This is the construction of “gendered meanings” in all spheres and “walks of life” available to women, that sustain a well-known traditionally patriarchal culture in Greater China.

How Chinese culture defines a sense of what is “clean” or “dirty,” a “failure” or a “success,” “normal” or “abnormal,” and how these beliefs are used to judge or validate the everyday behavior of women and men separately, is overtly different from Western or more Westernized cultures; certain choices and conducts in one’s past can mean entirely different things depending on one’s gender. Social connections and interpersonal interactions depend greatly on these constructed gendered meanings, generating labels, markers, and stigmas that can lead to the social exclusion of female populations.

In contemporary society, the idea of “bodily vulnerability” extends the discussion of vulnerability beyond one’s body or physical limitation (that is, physical ability or strength): “We experience vulnerability differently and that is allocated differently across the globe” (Williams, 2005, pp. 99–100). In this thematic issue, we challenge authors to explore what it feels like to be a woman in vulnerability in China, also in the hopes of making sense of the depth and power of gendered constructions in Chinese culture and their real impact on contemporary life in Greater China.

We invite contributions from varied academic backgrounds: Macro-level policy studies, micro-level research, or a combination of perspectives focused on inclusive policy design, as well as inclusive projects and/or products, are especially welcome if they can highlight and help promoting the social inclusion of vulnerable Chinese women.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join our Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 13

Title:
Fostering the Socially and Ecologically Sustainable Digitalisation of Welfare States


Editor(s):
Paula Saikkonen (Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare) and Marta Choroszewicz (University of Eastern Finland)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 September 2024
Submission of Full Papers: 15-30 January 2025
Publication of the Issue: September/October 2025

Information:

Digitalisation of societies and welfare systems is often touted as a driver of increased efficiency and service quality, enabling flexibility for service users and a possibility to save on costs. Big data, data analysis tools, and artificial intelligence (AI) are argued to bring opportunities for managers and decision-makers to lead better with knowledge derived from so-called real-time data. Yet, in practice, data pose numerous challenges to interpretation and simultaneous utilisation for multiple purposes (e.g., Hoeyer, 2023). The European Commission (2022) has presented ambitious aims for digital targets for 2030. However, insufficient attention has been given to how digitalisation supports or contradicts social and ecological sustainability. In other words, policies often overlook the broader ramifications of digitalisation for environmental and social justice.

We argue that neglecting ecological and social sustainability is short-sighted, particularly considering the pressing need for welfare states to address environmental crises alongside rapidly ageing populations. In practice, this means that the reform of welfare systems cannot afford to overlook social and ecological sustainability (Saikkonen & Ilmakunnas, 2023). Sustainability and digitalisation are frequently addressed as separate concerns, digitalisation often being regarded primarily as a technological matter. Only a limited number of reports have emphasised the ecologically unsustainable aspects of digitalisation, whereas social sustainability is predominantly acknowledged within the discussions on “decent work,” the platform economy, datafication, and surveillance, rather than focusing on the social sustainability of digitalised welfare systems.

We argue that social and ecological sustainability should be considered essential parts of the digitalisation processes of welfare systems. Without policy coherence, it is impossible to achieve the advantages of digitalisation. The socially sustainable digitalisation of welfare systems requires that all stakeholders (citizens, frontline workers /street-level bureaucrats, managers, decision-makers, and consultants, to name a few) be involved in the process and that practices be planned based on the careful consideration of wherein and how digitalisation, automatic decision-making, or AI bring betterments to all groups of citizens and their welfare. Furthermore, welfare services and benefits should specifically support citizens in challenging life circumstances (e.g., sickness, unemployment, loss of loved ones/bereavement, or lack of safety net during life crises) when immediate access to the welfare system is essential for citizens in these life situations to mitigate their situations from deteriorating further.

All citizens should get access to necessary benefits and services, regardless of their varying levels of skills or ability to use digital services (Saikkonen & Ylikännö, 2020). Therefore, the relation between online and on-site services should be carefully investigated when digitalising welfare systems, with special emphasis placed on providing adequate support to citizens during the transition periods from in-person to online services, and potentially even afterward. Currently, there is a lack of research knowledge to show how to ideally combine online and on-site services now or in the future.

Ecological sustainability demands policy coherence as well. Welfare systems may have a direct impact on ecological sustainability (e.g., energy efficiency, an ecological footprint of the ICT system), but more importantly, welfare systems modify institutional trust and protect from social risks. The digitalisation of the welfare system does not happen in a vacuum: The existing system and its earlier development have an impact on the processes whereas political decision-making steers the aims of digitalisation (e.g., cost-efficiency, public or private system supplier, data collection, and use of data). (Digitalised) welfare systems, with their novel technologies, reformulate the relationships between citizens and welfare state institutions by strengthening social inclusion for some citizens and amplifying old—or creating new—disadvantages for others (see, e.g., Alston, 2019; Buchert et al., 2022; Choroszewicz & Mäihaniemi, 2020). If policy coherence is taken seriously, the digitalisation of welfare systems could increase discussion on individual and collective responsibilities and redirect attention away from the individualisation of social problems and towards improving welfare systems to mitigate structural causes of actual individual problems.

In this thematic issue, we invite methodological and empirical contributions that address the above-mentioned aspects as well as the following questions:

  • What kind of digitalisation in welfare systems may strengthen social or ecological sustainability and how?
  • How are social and/or ecological sustainability already being (directly or implicitly) addressed in the current processes of digitalisation of welfare systems?
  • When is digitalisation advancing client work and who benefits from it in the welfare systems? What are the implications for social justice or social sustainability?
  • How is the digital divide among citizens present or non-existent in current digitalisation processes of welfare systems? How are different groups of citizens currently included in the digitalisation processes?
  • What are the differences and similarities between countries in the digitalisation of welfare systems and how might those be connected to earlier developments of the welfare systems?
  • How do we create welfare imagination, i.e., a capacity to see and understand novel ways to blend in-person and online services? Are there any good examples?

References

Alston, P. (2019). Report of the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights (A/74/48037). OHCHR. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25156

Buchert, U., Kemppainen, L., Olakivi, A., Wrede, S., & Kouvonen, A. (2022). Is digitalisation of public health and social welfare services reinforcing social exclusion? The case of Russian-speaking older migrants in Finland. Critical Social Policy, 43(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/02610183221105035

Choroszewicz, M., & Mäihäniemi, B. (2020). Developing a digital welfare state: Data protection legislation and the use of automated decision-making across six EU countries. Global Perspectives, 1(1), Article 12910. https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2020.12910

European Commission. (2022). Europe’s digital decade: Digital targets for 2030. https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/europes-digital-decade-digital-targets-2030_en#digital-rights-and-principles

Hoeyer, K. (2023). Data paradoxes: The politics of intensified data sourcing in contemporary healthcare. MIT Press.

Saikkonen, P., & Ilmakunnas, I. (2023). Reconciling welfare policy and sustainability transition—A case study of the Finnish welfare state. Environmental Policy and Governance. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2055

Saikkonen, P., & Ylikännö, M. (2020). Is there room for targeting within universalism? Finnish social assistance recipients as social citizens. Social Inclusion, 8(1), 145–154. https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v8i1.2521


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 750 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join our Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 13

Title:
The Role of Contexts in the Educational and Employment Transitions and Pathways of Young People


Editor(s):
Alexandra Wicht (Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training / University of Siegen), Oliver Winkler (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg), Mona Granato (Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training), and Alexandra Nonnenmacher (University of Siegen)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 March 2024
Submission of Full Papers: 15-31 October 2024
Publication of the Issue: April/May 2025

Information:

Social contexts highly structure individual chances for favorable outcomes in education and employment. For young people, such contexts can facilitate or complicate their educational pathways and achievements, transitions from school to work, or early career outcomes. Thus, the trajectories of some school leavers may not always be linear but also involve interruptions. This finding is even more significant because early (dis)continuities can yield cumulative (dis)advantages for employment trajectories and are thus pertinent for individual social positioning across the life course. Therefore, it is important for researchers and policymakers to examine the process of young people’s access to and placement in the education and employment system and identify the contextual factors that promote, impede, or prevent successful transitions and pathways.

The main theme of the thematic issue is the importance of contextual characteristics for the transition and pathways of adolescents and young adults to education and employment, and thus for the role of context in the reproduction of social inequalities at career entry. Contextual characteristics can be manifold and relevant at different levels, e.g., national, spatial, organizational, institutional, or social, and their influence can be channeled through different social processes. Our aim is to bring together researchers from different disciplines and research areas to study contextual social processes and their consequences for transitions and pathways into and through education and employment.

The editors invite (interdisciplinary) qualitative and quantitative empirical contributions focusing on the role of spatial (e.g., countries, regions, infrastructure), organizational (e.g., companies, associations), or institutional (e.g., schools, education systems, policies) contexts, or social groups and networks (e.g., family, peers) for one or more of the following themes:

  • Educational transitions
  • School-to-work transitions
  • Inclusion and integration in the education and employment system
  • Transitions and pathways at career entry
  • Social positioning in the labor market

Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join our Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 13

Title:
Public Participation Amidst Hostility: When the Uninvited Shape Matters of Collective Concern


Editor(s):
Olga Zvonareva (Maastricht University) and Claudia Egher (Utrecht University)

Submission of Abstracts: 15-31 December 2023
Submission of Full Papers: 15-31 July 2024
Publication of the Issue: January/March 2025

Information:

Ways of taking part in formulating and addressing matters of shared concern are diverse. The practices people employ to engage in shaping societal orders go far beyond organized formats such as citizen juries or co-production sessions, where questions and tasks are, to a large extent, pre-set. Particularly creative practices emerge in situations when participation is not invited, or discouraged, or even met with hostility. Such situations are not exceptional because even in established democracies pockets of exclusion exist.

Practices of participation under adverse circumstances deserve more attention. Besides known and highly visible protest movements, there are also numerous mundane and non-heroic practices undertaken without any overt political motivation. Nonetheless, these practices feed into maintaining, transforming, or disrupting governance arrangements. Yet, these everyday practices are often not recognized as participation because of an established analytical focus on more dialogical and explicit participatory formats.

Furthermore, participation under adverse circumstances may involve working around formal procedures and public spaces and depend on remaining hidden. Yet, since public participation tends to be conceptualised as dependent on making issues visible and debatable, these hidden practices often escape scholarly scrutiny.

For this thematic issue, we challenge scholars and researchers to consider, among others, how is participation made possible in situations of hostility to participation: What are the consequences of participatory practices under adverse circumstances? How can we understand and theorize the diversity of forms of participation in contemporary societies? How can we make studies of public participation relevant to the multiple settings where exclusion and animosity to public input exist?

We encourage all interested authors to provide inspiration for novel ways of equipping actors globally to deal with mounting uncertainties and instabilities. Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to join a workshop led by the editors in the months between the submission of abstracts and full papers.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 13

Title:
Money in Foster Care: Social Issues in Paid Parenthood


Editor(s):
Malin Åkerström (Lund University) and Susanne Boethius (Lund University)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 October 2024
Submission of Full Papers: 15-30 April 2025
Publication of the Issue: October/December 2025

Information:

Foster care is often described as socially inclusive compared to institutional care. It serves as a way to avoid children’s institutionalization and provide a more family-like upbringing and care for children who, for various reasons, cannot live with their biological parents.

In many countries, there has been a vivid discussion about whether and, if so, how much reimbursement should be granted to foster parents, although all systems involve some compensation for expenses. Yet, money is a sensitive subject, and monetary motives for taking care of children are looked upon as morally questionable. Foster care seems to occupy a liminal position between “work” and “family,” which constitutes a problem as well as a resource for actors in this field.

This thematic issue calls for articles on foster care with pecuniary considerations, aiming at illuminating the different meanings of “money” in foster care practice. We welcome contributions from a broad variety of theoretical perspectives, grounded on various types of data.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Professionals’ perspectives on fostering as a paid activity in terms of recruitment and support
  • Foster families’ experiences and accounts concerning being paid and reimbursed
  • Fostering framed as family and/or work
  • The professionalization of the foster family
  • The social categorization (earmarking) of monies within the foster care context
  • Historical changes in discourses and practices
  • Economic and institutional conditions of foster care
  • Media scandals on foster care and money
  • Money as sensitive or taboo in foster care contexts
  • Marketization of foster care
  • Comparative analyses of foster care systems from a pecuniary perspective

Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 13

Title:
Contemporary Changes in Medically Assisted Reproduction: The Role of Social Inequality and Social Norms


Editor(s):
Anne-Kristin Kuhnt (University of Rostock), Jörg Rössel (University of Zurich), and Heike Trappe (University of Rostock)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 October 2024
Submission of Full Papers: 15-30 March 2025
Publication of the Issue: December 2025

Information:

Since, in 1978, the first baby conceived by in vitro fertilization was born, further technological advances, like egg freezing, preimplantation diagnostics, and gene editing (CRISPR) have revolutionized the conditions for human fertility. This thematic issue focuses on how the social context, in particular social inequalities and social norms, shapes attitudes towards these technologies, their use, and their impact. We are interested in articles that explore how attitudes and public discourse on these technologies are shaped by prevailing gender norms and moral orientations in societies. Furthermore, the research presented in this issue should cover how such attitudes, but also the opportunities for the uptake and the actual use of these technologies, are shaped by social inequalities, not only along class and education, but also gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity.

We are open to studies from different methodological backgrounds, using, e.g., survey data, qualitative interviews, content/text analysis, and case studies. We particularly welcome studies that take a cross-country or longitudinal approach, focusing on the German-speaking countries (Austria, Germany, Switzerland).


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 14

Title:
Educational Equity and Sustainable Development: From the Greater Bay Area in China to World Comparisons


Editor(s):
Huinan Liu (The Education University of Hong Kong) and Zhang Meng (South China Normal University)

Submission of Abstracts: 15-31 January 2025
Submission of Full Papers: 15-31 June 2025
Publication of the Issue: January/March 2026

Information:

“Every child has the right to quality education and learning” (UNICEF, 2018). Schools play a vital role in providing students with knowledge and instruments that shape children’s social inclusion throughout their life course. All children have the right to an education, and schools must guarantee that all students are present, participating, and advancing, as well as being offered equal opportunities. Indeed, the concept of equal opportunity has been championed as a great pillar of sustainable development and inclusive education worldwide, as identified by several SDGs. Yet, to this day, not all children have equal access to school: Despite great efforts to achieve the envisioned “inclusive city,” societal norms and attitudes still pose the strongest barriers to school inclusion and integration.

To create a cohesive narrative, this thematic issue will zoom in on the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau Greater Bay Area (GHKM GBA), a recent enterprise (2019) set out to create a “world-class” city cluster, and compare it with other parts of the world. Why China’s GBA? GBAs are characterized by wide and pervasive urban expansion and a rapid increase in population; notable examples include the San Francisco, New York, and Tokyo Bay Areas. That said, “as a result of historical and geographical factors, [China’s] GBA is uniquely characterised by being subject to ‘one country, two systems,’ ‘three customs territories,’ and ‘three legal systems’” (Xie et al., 2023), rendering it one of the most challenging settings for education equity and sustainable development.

The goal of this thematic issue is twofold: First, we want to provide a critical understanding of the barriers to school inclusion where the trials of speedy and all-encompassing urbanization are felt more thoroughly and are strongly aligned with social phenomena like marginalization. The issue will focus on all levels of education (early childhood, primary, secondary, and tertiary education). Second, by contextualizing educational equity, social inclusion, and sustainable development in the GHKM, we propose that an important comparison be drawn with the world’s three major bay areas (San Francisco, New York, and Tokyo) and other parts of the world, including Europe.

With this in mind, we invite authors to use multi-methods (e.g., policy analysis, case studies, systematic review) in their approach to such topics as:

  • The integrated development of teachers in GBAs
  • The construction of professional learning communities
  • Teacher leadership and professional development
  • Education leadership and school principalship
  • Inclusive education and special educational needs
  • Developmental needs of students from various backgrounds
  • Educational provision for ethnic or sexual minorities
  • Stigmatization and urban marginalization
  • Ingroup bias and social norms
  • Underprivileged students and families
  • Changes in China’s teacher rationing policy.

References

UNICEF. (2018). Quality of education. https://www.unicef.org/rosa/what-we-do/quality-education

Xie, X., Liu, X., & McNay, I. (2023). One country with two systems: The characteristics and development of higher education in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau Greater Bay Area. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 10, Article 1. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01483-z


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 14

Title:
Multilingual Challenges: Empirical Social Research in Migration Societies, Transnational Spaces, and International Contexts


Editor(s):
Clara Holzinger (University of Vienna), Elisabeth Scheibelhofer (University of Vienna), and Anna-Katharina Draxl (University of Vienna)

Submission of Abstracts: 15-31 January 2025
Submission of Full Papers: 15-31 June 2025
Publication of the Issue: January/March 2026

Information:

We live and research in societies that are characterised by multilingualism. Hence, working with a large number of research questions also implies reaching people who do not necessarily speak the official or local language(s) at a level required for study participation. Additionally, multilingualism matters when adopting a transnational research perspective as well as in international and cross-country comparative research projects; for example, collaborating with interpreters or translating questionnaires play a major role. How this multilingualism is dealt with varies in practice and depends, among other things, on the research question, research approach, the (financial) framework conditions of a project and the linguistic skills of both the researchers and those being researched. However, the literature has not yet adequately addressed several ensuing methodological challenges in the multilingual research context.

This thematic issue aims to help bridge this gap by focusing on, inter alia, the following questions: What methodological demands does multilingualism pose for researchers in both quantitative and qualitative designs? What challenges arise across the phases of the research process—from access to the field, data collection, field work and interpretation to presenting and publishing the results, as well as with regard to quality assurance and research ethics? How do power relations and language hierarchies impact the research process and, consequently, the produced knowledge?

Based on these questions, this thematic issue addresses the distinct features of empirical social research in the context of multilingual migration societies and examines approaches to managing associated difficulties and strategies for quality assurance. Contributions should provide insights into methodological approaches, interdisciplinary collaborations, research practice and therefore also emphasise the potentials of multilingual research.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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Volume 14

Title:
Digitalization and Migration: Rethinking Socio-Economic Inclusions and Exclusions


Editor(s):
Colleen Boland (Radboud University) and Giacomo Solano (Radboud University)

Submission of Abstracts: 15-31 January 2025
Submission of Full Papers: 15-31 June 2025
Publication of the Issue: January 2026

Information:

Contemporary societies are increasingly digitalized and the use of digital technologies is spreading across all sectors. Digitalization refers to the “complex and heterogeneous process leading to increased relevance of digital technology and digital data in contemporary society” (Büchner et al., 2022).

Digitalization influences people’s social lives and connectedness, with particular inherent implications for migrants. Many studies indicate that digital technologies have a direct impact on migrants by affecting their decision to migrate, their migration trajectories, their life in the country of destination, and their continued relationships beyond this new physical residence.

In addressing digitalization and migration, this thematic issue explores how digital technologies influence the social inclusion of migrants in the country of destination, a matter that is receiving particular attention in the current academic and public debate. The issue seeks to tackle some of the challenges that such a heterogeneous process presents. In particular, it explores the inclusions and exclusions of evolving digitalized phenomena or processes in both the implementation of policy schemes and practices and in the everyday experience of migrants.

Proposed articles should fall within two of the three paradigms that Leurs and Prabhakar (2018) identify in digital migration studies: (a) research into migrants in cyber-space (digital-media-centric cyberculture) or (b) non-digital media-centric ethnographic approaches (i.e., exploring quotidian digital migrant life or online–offline relationships). Given the inherent interdisciplinarity of these themes, the issue will gather contributions from the fields of political and social sciences, economics, communications, and law. In doing so, it aims to wholistically explore to what extent digitalization phenomena manifest as simple reconfiguration of pre-existing socioeconomic inequalities, or whether there are any newly created dynamics (including empowerment) facilitated by digitalized processes. It also seeks to present the relevance of these observations for various multilevel stakeholders.

References

Büchner, S., Hergesell, J., & Kallinikos, J. (2022). Digital transformation(s): On the entanglement of long-term processes and digital social change: An introduction. Historical Social Research, 47(3), 7–39. https://doi.org/10.12759/hsr.47.2022.25

Leurs, K., & Prabhakar, M. (2018). Doing digital migration studies: Methodological considerations for an emerging research focus. In R. Zapata-Barrero & E. Yalaz (Eds.), Qualitative Research in European Migration Studies (pp. 247–266). Springer.


Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).


Open Access:
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.