Edited by a leading scholar in the field, this new title in the Routledge Major Works series, Critical Concepts in Sociology, is a four-volume collection of canonical and cutting-edge research on the intellectual origins and the development of ‘socal exclusion’, a critical concept in the social sciences in general and sociology in particular.

The pervasiveness of the concept is well illustrated by the fact that it is almost impossible to access a policy document from most governments or international agencies dealing with issues of poverty, inequality, under-development, poor educational attainment, poor health, rural development, or urban regeneration, without finding ‘social exclusion’ identified as a problem and methods for including the excluded proposed as solutions. And yet the term is a protean one and has been employed in different ways by academics across a range of disciplines and fields. Moreover, it is translated into practice in different ways which reflect its complex and contested meaning. Researchers and students in all the core social science disciplines and in a range of professional programmes-including those in health, education, social work, housing, planning and training for religious ministry-must contend with the concept, the reality it seeks to describe, and the ways in which the term has influenced both the development and implementation of public policy in the widest sense of that term.

This four-volume collection draws together key texts relevant to this important topic. Volume One reviews the nature and history of the term ‘social exclusion’ and examines ways in which the idea has been used in social research. Volume Two covers income distribution; the nature of class in post-industrial societies and the related dimensions of inequality in relation to gender, ethnicity and age; social exclusion in the changing city; and the general political context of post-democracy with special reference to partnership and participation. Volume Three explores the use of the term ‘social exclusion’ and programmes of social inclusion in specific policy areas including taxation and cash benefits, urban regeneration, health, education, housing, and transport. The final volume in the collection gathers together material to examine programmes specifically directed towards countering social exclusion, with particular reference to community development, and ‘joined-up’ government policy. It also considers radical alternatives to those policies.

Fully indexed and with a comprehensive introduction newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Social Exclusion will is an essential reference work, destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital research resource. It will also be of especial interest to policy-makers and practitioners engaged with ‘social exclusion’ as a social problem.