The Institute on Social Exclusion (ISE) is an integral part of the Adler School's educational programming. Its mission is to pursue the School's vision of social justice. A central theme in the work of the ISE is the idea that social injustice is often created by structural features of society such as laws, public policies, institutional behaviors, and popular ideologies and beliefs. ISE Faculty Fellows, Faculty Affiliates, and students engage in a variety of research, community outreach, and public awareness projects, designed to expose and to draw meaning from those structures.

ISE research projects have included investigations on immigrant homelessness in Chicago, the displacement of Chicago's public housing residents, and suicides rates in metropolitan Chicago. Another research project indentified and documented indicators of social exclusion such as food insecurity, supermaximum prisons, death by preventable disease, youth confined to life in prison without parole (LWOP), and the digital divide. The research results are being published in the Winter 2009 edition of the Journal of Individual Psychology.

Community outreach projects have included gun violence prevention programming in the Chicago community of Englewood where youth-involved gun violence has been extraordinarily high. The ISE also played an instrumental role in establishing a relationship with Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights which resulted in new educational programming that will address international women's issues, the needs of survivors of state-sponsored torture, and the survivors of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The ISE's public awareness programming have included implementation of the Social Exclusion Simulation which highlights the barriers that formerly incarcerated women face as they try to re-enter society. Additionally, the ISE hosted a series of speakers that included UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's first Cabinet Minister for Social Exclusion, the Right Honorable Hilary Armstrong, MP, who described the experience of the United Kingdom in tackling health care and education disparities; the president of the Sabin Institute, Peter Hotez, whose internationally-noted work on Neglected Tropical Diseases illustrates how poverty is a key social determinant of infectious disease, which has chronic and debilitating effects on physical and mental health; and Dorothy Roberts, professor of law at Northwestern University who spoke about the intersection of race, science and public policy. The ISE also hosted a summer film series on marginalized populations – including American Indians, the Romany of Eastern Europe, and the Aboriginal populations of Australia.

Other ISE projects include working with the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to integrate the concept of social inclusion into mental health care policy, and collaborating with the AIDS Foundation in its efforts to address the social determinants of HIV/AIDS, such as poverty.

Students can become involved in the work of the ISE through independent study projects, the Community Service Practicum, work study, and host of volunteer activities. For more information, please contact the Director of the Institute on Social Exclusion, Lynn Todman, Ph.D. at ltodman@adler.edu.

• Social Exclusion Simulation (SES): We use evaluation and feedback data to assess the effectiveness of the SES in changing attitude and behaviors vis-à-vis key social issues.
• Social Exclusion Indicators: We develop social exclusion indicators for the U.S.
• Social Justice Definition: We create a working definition of "social justice" for the Adler School.
• Institutional Research: We develop methods for measuring attitudinal and behavioral changes in Adler students resulting from ISE programming.

Community Outreach

We engage in outreach efforts that are rooted in and informed by community-identified needs. Projects this year will include:

• Young Women's Leadership Charter School (YWLCS): We assist the Programs and Policies Sub-Committee of the School's Board to develop and implement two School programs: an internship program which will place YWLCS students as interns in a variety of workplaces (e.g., banks, law firms, non-profits, community-based organizations) throughout the city; and, a summer program that provides students with enrichment activities and experiences during the summer months.
• Teamwork Englewood: We assist this community-based, resident-directed organization in efforts to address the mental health effects of recent increases gun and other forms of physical violence on the community's youth. There is growing evidence that the lack of access to care is distorting youths' expectations and views of life (e.g., if I grow up) with the result that they are engaging in increasingly destructive behaviors. 
• Illinois Institute for Community Law and Affairs (IICLA): We work with the IICLA to develop the content (e.g., profiles, scenarios, stations) required for the development of the 2nd generation Social Exclusion Simulation (SES), which will focus on Juvenile Justice System reform.

Public Education

Designed to reach two audiences, our presentations, events and newsletters are meant to engage the Adler Community and the general public. One of our central goals is to create opportunities for Adler students to engage in topical discussions and to integrate new ideas into their academic and professional work. Another goal is to clearly highlight for all audiences the otherwise obscured social exclusion and/or social justice implications of current events. In addition, the behavioral health implications of social exclusion and social justice related issues will be highlighted.

The public education programming is designed to address several key questions.

• What is social exclusion?
• Why does it matter?
• How is it manifested in the US? What are some possible policy and programmatic prescriptions?
• How is it manifested globally? What are some of the policy and programmatic prescriptions that have been successfully used in other parts of the world? 

The ISE encourages the general public to engage in civic action projects designed to reduce or eliminate social exclusion.

For additional information on project outcomes...

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