Research on Social Exclusion, Marginalization and Vulnerable Social Groups

Given that in the corresponding course of the first semester of studies, the phenomenon of social exclusion in modern societies was highlighted, described and analyzed in its individual aspects, the course aims to introduce students to the methodology and empirical tools of research on issues of social exclusion. In this context, participants should, by the end of the semester, acquire familiarity with basic tools of empirical research on social exclusion, as well as a general ability to design and implement social research in the relevant social field. The majority of research on issues of social exclusion in our country is carried out in ways that favor either a journalistic superficial approach, or administrative and bureaucratic priorities that ignore or downgrade the subjective factor. That is, they highlight social exclusion more as an objective fact (given situation), rather than the socially excluded as subjects of social processes that push them towards exclusion. Thus, the need to train a new generation of researchers and scholars of social exclusion who will possess the basic tools of research and the knowledge that the living subjects of society themselves offer both the elements of understanding the parameters under investigation, as well as the priorities of the policies that will be called upon to address the problems of the excluded becomes apparent. For this reason, the tools of qualitative empirical research were chosen within the context of the course. At the current stage of knowledge of the problem, qualitative research can effectively highlight: a) the structural dynamic processes of the exclusion process, b) the subjective parameters of the exclusion process and, by extension, c) the collective actions that the excluded sometimes develop in order to break through their exclusion.