Sociological Study of the Sense of Exclusion in Female-Headed Households Supported by Welfare Office in Mashhad

The present research attempts to understand and examine how actors interpret the concept of social exclusion with a constructivist approach. The qualitative method of grounded theory has been used to analyze the issue. 30 female householders visiting the Welfare Organization of Mashhad were interviewed semi-structurally. This paper is due study the women’s perception about social exclusion, how do they encounter with and what are their strategies to cope with this phenomenon. Through conducting the analyses, 8 main categories including self-imposed exclusion, cultural habitus, femininity of poverty, reproduction of gender stereotypes, and mistrust in consistent institutional and familial support, were extracted from the concepts, and finally, a core category called capability failure was introduced. Findings indicate a gender-based discourse space that has dominated the relations and is a factor of intragroup and intergroup exclusion. Female householders are actually facing with challenges such as their gender, which provides the context for their social exclusion. Key words: social exclusion; female householders; gender