SOCIAL EXCLUSION, CHILDREN AND EDUCATION: Implications of a rights-based approach.

In this paper, I am applying a rights-based approach to childhood social exclusion that, following Sen's capability approach as one formulation of such a rights-based approach, sees social exclusion as the failure of people to have access to critical capabilities relating to their integration into society. The implications of this approach will then be applied to the relation between education and social exclusion, where it is shown that education has a critical impact on mitigating or reinforcing social exclusion. Taking such a capabilities-based approach implies a shift away from a concentration on average achievement generated by an education system to the low end of the achievement distribution and the ability of the education system to raise the performance and integrate the most disadvantaged students. The paper investigates how education systems in Europe and other industrialized countries are achieving this goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]