Social Policy for Inclusion of Children and Adolescents. The meanings on citizenship

LLOBET, VALERIA

Barcelona

Congreso; 1st. Congreso de la Asociación Internacional de Sociología; 2008

International Sociological Association

The current paper presents a theoretical discussion by analyzing data produced in the research project: ?Los discursos de las políticas sociales sobre la adolescencia y las instituciones. La ampliación de derechos de adolescentes.? I intend to argue that, while in general terms the mainstream approaches to issues related to youth and social inclusion have put an important focus on the severity of the present reality, they do not fully portray its complexity. If social citizenship as it has been conceived is being dismantled among the youth, it is necessary ask what would be replacing it or even what would it be transforming into. This paper seeks to understand the meaning of citizenship from the perspective of male and female teenagers living in impoverished metropolitan areas. In doing so, it intends to place the focus, on one hand, on the articulation between the meanings of social integration that are promoted by institutions and, on the other, on the processes of citizenship expansion that include the teenage population in socially vulnerable situations in urban contexts. I claim that it is possible to raise the issue that it is necessary to ?re-embed? the discourses of this population in institutional contexts in order to clarify the tensions and synergies between the institutional practices and discourses and the discourses of adolescents. Institutions, in the context of this paper, refer to implementation of social inclusion strategies deployed by the State in specific contexts. This process accompanies an idea of citizenship that complements the entitlement to rights with the meanings acquired by the exercising or infringement of rights in daily life.