In this study we answer the question ‘to what extent recent migrants’ consump¬tion of movies and music from their country of origin and from the Netherlands is affected by the identification with the country of origin and the Netherlands?’ Using the Social and Cultural Integration Processes among recent migrants 2011 data (n = 3,355) we found that Bulgarians, former Dutch Antilleans, Moroc-cans, Poles, Surinamese and Turks consume more music and movies from the Netherlands if the identify stronger with the Netherlands. And the consumption of music and movies form the country of origin is higher if they identify stronger with the country of origin. This is in accordance with the idea that the origin of consumed cultural goods sustain ethnic boundaries. Moreover, cultural orien-tation towards the Netherlands is not necessarily associated with a less strong cultural orientation on the country of origin, which argues for the existence of a dual identity.
gelijksoortige omschrijvingen mögen we afleiden dat de cultuursociologie een breed onderzoeksgebied bestrijkt.Zo breed, dat het moeilijk is om over 'de' cultuursociologie te spreken of om cultuursociologie bei der af te bakenen van andere sociologische subdisciplines.
Since the beginning of the reflexive or second modernity in the middle of the 20th century, volunteering is said to be subject of far-reaching consequences concerning the involvement of volunteers. The most important repercussion is a decline in the duration of involvement, most thorough within younger genera¬tions. Engagement became volatile and more focused on the short term. On the base of national administrative data of all 31851 volunteers started between 2000 and 2011, we investigate these tendencies for the Scouts and Guides movement in Flanders. We conclude that there is a significant decline in the duration of involvement throughout the years studied, with a decreasing gender difference in the duration of involvement. Men are overrepresented in leading positions of the organization, though women are getting more and more involved. A ques¬tionnaire of 1076 quitted volunteers shows that both sexes indicate significant different reasons to quit their involvement.
Within the cultural sociology of Pierre Bourdieu the value of artworks is conceptualized as the outcome of an attribution of symbolic value by authoritative positions in the artistic field. This paper develops an operationalization of such symbolic investments by presenting them as a process of contextualization. Throughout repeated confrontation with artworks under certain, rather specific conditions, the public learns to establish associations between the perceived elements in both artefact and context. When confronted with an (unfamiliar) artwork, the context therefore offers the perceiver a clue that can be taken into account in the assessment. Using an experimental design, this study presents a collection of paintings by acclaimed artists anonymously to a group of 59 university students. Some of the paintings are viewed in a museum for contemporary art, others in a parish hall. In the legitimate context for artistic presentation the works are appreciated notably more on various criteria.
Online content related to sex and sexuality is widely available. Both the amount as well as the variety of Internet sexuality have been growing since the nineties. However, little is known about adolescents’ characteristics that may lead them to seek out more sexual content online. Using the media practice model as founda¬ tion, this study examines the relationship between sexual attitudes and Internet use for 1,581 university students in Flanders. Regression analyses reveals that students with positive attitudes towards masturbation, who find pleasure more important than love and who feel unsecure about performing sexually more frequently screen the Internet for sexual contents. Moreover, the relationship between attitudes towards masturbation and reporting more uncertainty about sex and searching for sexual contents on the Internet was moderated by gender. This study underscores the need for more comprehensive, longitudinal studies of adolescents’ consumption of sexual content online and its connections to sexual development in youth.
How should political parties deal with extremist parties? In the Netherlands an accommodating approach to Wilders prevails, while in Flanders political actors pursue a much more repressive approach against Vlaams Belang. Although the democratic coalition against the extreme right in Flanders is maintained, the effectiveness and legitimacy of the exclusion politics is regularly under discus¬ sion. Mostly, the political or normative debate is at the forefront, while there is little data about public opinion. In this article we try to determine how Flemish citizens think about the cordon sanitaire using the results of in-depth interviews. The results show that public opinion is based on pragmatism, strategy and prin¬ ciples. The pragmatic vision depends on citizen’s definition of the party and citizen’s assessment of the risks associated with the participation to government, while principled arguments are dependent of the fundamental meaning of de¬ mocracy.
This article argues for an intergenerational perspective on migrant religiosity. Social integration theory is used to derive the hypothesis that second generation immigrants are less religious than the first generation. Perceived discrimination is introduced in the migrant-religion research to account for the stress buffering capacities of religion. On the contextual level we suppose a positive effect of na¬ tive religiosity and religious diversity. Three aspects of religiosity are examined, religious affiliation, subjective religiosity, and praying. We use four waves of the European Social Survey in a 3-level random intercept multilevel model. Among others, the most interesting results are that (1) second generation immigrants are less religious than their first generation counterparts, (2) perceived discrimina¬ tion has a positive effect on immigrant religiosity and the effect is greater for the second generation and (3) native religiosity has a positive effect on immigrant religiosity with a larger effect on the second generation too.
Confronted with rising immigration, extreme right parties have mobilized voters who want to defend their own people. Within the framework of the welfare state these voters advocate a welfare chauvinism that reserves solidarity for our kind of people. Quantitative analysis illustrates the results of the political polariza¬tion, but provides little insight into the reasons and the arguments leading to the protectionist defense. Using qualitative data, we reconstruct the reasoning on solidarity and welfare state among Vlaams Belang voters. The resistance towards the entrance of the stranger into the welfare state is not only motivated by self¬ interest and identity, but it refers also to norms and values of equality, reciprocity and justice. The critique on the welfare state goes beyond welfare chauvinism. There are diverse arguments - ranging from the ideological left to right - that fi¬nally merge in a welfare populism eroding the universal and inclusive ambitions of the Belgian welfare state.
Unlike ballet, contemporary dance neither knows distinct aesthetical or technical conventions nor strongly directive work relationships. Based on 18 in-depth interviews with dancers and/or choreographers who are predominantly associated with the Brussels dance scene, we examine the most important factors ensuring a minimal order in the semi-directive mode of artistic collaboration that dominates within contemporary dance. We successively discuss (i) the motives to initiate or break off a collaborative relation, (ii) the importance of mutual artistic trust and a particular personal fascination in the one whom one cooperates with, and (iii) the expectation of a considerable creative contribution and a sufficient degree of personal recognition. In the conclusion, we first briefly signal the relatively scant interest for processes of co-creation within the sociology of the arts. We then conceptualize the analysed semi-directive work relation in light of the model of symbolic exchange (the dynamic of gift and counter-gift) developed by Marcel Mauss and point out the relevance of both this interpretation and the presented empirical findings for the study of work relationships in other artistic fields and the so-called creative economy.
Since the 1970s, the so-called ‘crisis of sociology’ has sparked intellectual quests for a ‘disenchanted’ sociology. This is a sociology that acknowledges its incapacity to legislate ‘objective’ meaning on the basis of an alleged scientific insight in ‘social reality as it really is’. One major outcome of these quests for intellectual reconstruction was the emergence of cultural sociology as a new field that takes the cultural understandings of those who are studied much more seriously than other types of sociology have traditionally done. Despite the field’s vitality and popularity today, it displays two weaknesses that detract from its potential significance within sociology and beyond. The first is its tendency to confine itself thematically to the social aspects of art, popular culture and media and the second its excessive reliance on ethnographic and other¬ wise qualitative research methods. This article therefore pleads for the use of culturally enriched experimental research designs by cultural sociologists to convincingly demonstrate the causal consequences of culture to non-(cultural] sociologists. Two recent examples are given, one about intercultural communi¬cation and one about science communication, and promises of cultural-experimental research for fields like psychology and medical science are discussed.
Next to the mainstream and the underground, the alternative mainstream con¬stitutes the third segment within the popular music circuit: music that combi¬nes economic mainstream-qualities with an artistic imago. Inspired by the up¬ coming sociology of valuation and evaluation and the work of Pierre Bourdieu, we examine which general selection logics are used by Flemish professionals when dealing with the extensive offer in alternative mainstream music. Our 24 depth-interviews with a well-reasoned sample of radio programmers, journalists, artist managers and festival or concert programmers indicate that four selection logics are at stake. Because of the importance attached to it, also normatively, we focus on the so-called individual logic or ‘selecting out of one’s personal artistic taste’. This logic is closely related to the underlying value of authenticity: ‘good music sounds honest and truthful’. We therefore speak of a romantic discourse that we also characterize, inspired by other authors, as ‘the rock aesthetic’. We subsequently discuss how the individual selection logic is deployed as a means of distinction in the delineation of the alternative mainstream towards the main¬ stream. We then highlight the definition struggle within the Flemish alternative mainstream that is grafted onto the individual logic and the boundary with the mainstream. Next, we show how that very same individual logic goes hand in hand with a binding legitimate taste or ‘doxa’, which the respondents have clearly interiorized. In the final section we examine the relationship between the dominant criterion of choice and the other selection logics, particularly the organisational-economic one. We thereby look at possible frictions and the thus generated ambiguity in the interviewees’ discourse. We conclude with a broader contextualization of our research findings by relating them to the tension between ‘the artistic’ and ‘the economic’ in most sectors of the creative or cultural economy.
In this article we investigate which structural characteristics of siblings within the dyad cause that some adolescent siblings experience more conflict with each other than others. Regarding the family as a system with a certain status hierar¬ chy, four hypotheses can be formulated about the effects of birth order, spacing and gender constellation. Especially for this study data has been collected of adolescents between 12 and 18 years old from the region of Bruges. Using multilevel analysis, the hypotheses were tested in a sample of 139 dyads. Results indicate that the birth order of the siblings within the dyad and the gender constellation of the dyad determine the amount of perceived conflict in the sibling relation¬ ship. The spacing of siblings does not play a role for sibling conflict in this study. Structural characteristics of siblings and dyads explain thus differences between dyads and between siblings within a dyad.
