Understanding the religious behaviour of Muslims in the Netherlands and the UK

The position of Muslims in Western societies is the subject of intense study and debate. However, remarkably little attention has been paid to the practice of European Muslims and how Muslim religiosity relates to conventional measures of social and economic integration. In this paper we draw on theories of secularization, assimilation, revitalization and integration to explore the correlates of attendance at religious meetings for Muslims of different backgrounds in the Netherlands and the UK. We conclude that patterns of religiosity and secularisation cannot be generalised across national contexts

De opkomst van de 'nieuwe' sociale klassen binnen de dienstenklasse in Nederland: Politieke oriëntatie van de 'nieuwe' sociale klassen tussen 1970 en 2000 [The rise of ‘new’ social classes within the service class in the Netherlands: Political orientation of the ‘new’ social classes between 1970 and 2000]

Contains fulltext : 54875pub.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)The employment structure of the Netherlands and other advanced countries is evolving from an industrial structure to a post-industrial structure. Yet existing social class schemas, like the well-known EGP class schema, were constructed for an industrial employment structure. In this study we adjust the EGP class schema to account for this transformation by using ‘new class’ theories and the literature on post-industrial class structure. Our research question is to what extent does the adjusted EGP class schema explain people’s political orientation better than the standard EGP class schema in the transition from an industrial to a post-industrial employment structure. Our first hypothesis states that the ‘new’ social classes distinguished in the adjusted EGP class schema differ in their political orientation from the ‘old’ social classes in the service class. Our second hypothesis states that, during their formation, the ‘new’ social classes will become increasingly effective in explaining differences (effect size) in people’s political orientation. Experts’ knowledge has been employed to classify the occupations within the service class. Furthermore, we used 18 data sets gathered in the Netherlands between 1970 and 2000. The total number of respondents was 32,700. The adjusted EGP class schema proved substantially better at explaining people’s political orientation than the standard EGP class schema; the ‘new’ social classes did differ substantially in their political orientation from the ‘old’ classes. Furthermore, our results showed that the political orientation of the low-grade social and cultural specialists became more crystallized from 1970 onwards.23 p

Career Class (Im)mobility of the Social-Cultural Specialists and the Technocrats in the Netherlands

Scholars have long argued that there are two occupational fractions within the middle class forming two separate classes. They are commonly referred to as the technocrats and the social-cultural specialists. In this article, we distinguish two ‘new’ classes of the highand low-grade social-cultural specialists and two ‘old’ classes of the high- and low-grade technocrats within the middle class. The classes of the social-cultural specialists are expected to be as closed as the other social classes. If the classes of the social-cultural specialists indeed form ‘new’ classes, they should become more closed over time. Therefore, we investigate whether the social-cultural specialists and the technocrats have different patterns of intragenerational class (im)mobility compared to other classes and whether these patterns change over time. We use Dutch mobility data from 16 representative surveys (n¼12,548). The results strongly support the ‘new’ class division and show that the class of the high-grade social-cultural specialists are more closed than all other social classes. The class of the lower-grade social-cultural specialists is also rather closed and indeed becomes more closed over time

De opkomst van de ‘nieuwe’ sociale klassen binnen de dienstenklasse in Nederland : Politieke oriëntatie van de ‘nieuwe’ sociale klassen tussen 1970 en 2000

The rise of ‘new’ social classes within the service class in the Netherlands: Political orientation of the ‘new’ social classes between 1970 and 2000 The employment structure of the Netherlands and other advanced countries is evolving from an industrial structure to a post-industrial structure. Yet existing social class schemas, like the wellknown EGP class schema, were constructed for an industrial employment structure. In this study we adjust the EGP class schema to account for this transformation by using ‘new class’ theories and the literature on post-industrial class structure. Our research question is to what extent does the adjusted EGP class schema explain people’s political orientation better than the standard EGP class schema in the transition from an industrial to a post-industrial employment structure. Our first hypothesis states that the ‘new’ social classes distinguished in the adjusted EGP class schema differ in their political orientation from the ‘old’ social classes in the service class. Our second hypothesis states that, during their formation, the ‘new’ social classes will become increasingly effective in explaining differences (effect size) in people’s political orientation. Experts’ knowledge has been employed to classify the occupations within the service class. Furthermore, we used 18 data sets gathered in the Netherlands between 1970 and 2000. The total number of respondents was 32,700. The adjusted EGP class schema proved substantially better at explaining people’s political orientation than the standard EGP class schema; the ‘new’ social classes did differ substantially in their political orientation from the ‘old’ classes. Furthermore, our results showed that the political orientation of the low-grade social and cultural specialists became more crystallized from 1970 onwards.

The Rise of ‘New’ Social Classes within the Service Class in The Netherlands : Political Orientation of Social and Cultural Specialists and Technocrats between 1970 and 2003

The employment structure of The Netherlands and other advanced countries is evolving from industrial to postindustrial. Yet existing social class schemata, like the well-known Erikson, Goldthorpe and Portocarero (EGP) class schema, were constructed for an industrial employment structure. In this study, we adjust the EGP class schema to account for this transformation by using new class theories. We distinguish a ‘new’ class of social and cultural specialists and an ‘old’ class of technocrats with both a higher and a lower version in the service class. Our research question concerns the extent to which the adjusted EGP class schema is a better predictor of people’s political orientation than the standard EGP class schema. We assume that the ‘new’ classes differ in their political orientation from the ‘old’ classes. We also assume that, during their formation, the ‘new’ classes become increasingly effective in explaining differences in people’s political orientation. Experts’ knowledge is employed to classify the occupations. In addition, we use the data of 34,856 respondents gathered between 1970 and 2003 in The Netherlands. The adjusted EGP class schema explains people’s political orientation substantially better than the standard EGP class schema; the ‘new’ classes vote significantly more for leftist parties and differ substantially in their political orientation from the ‘old’ classes. Furthermore, our results show that the political orientation of the low-grade social and cultural specialists has become more crystallized since 1970.

Does intergenerational social mobility affect antagonistic attitudes towards ethnic minorities?

Item does not contain fulltextUp till now, no study satisfactorily addressed the effect of social mobility on antagonistic attitudes toward ethnic minorities. In this contribution, we investigate the effect of educational and class intergenerational mobility on ethnic stereotypes, ethnic threat, and opposition to ethnic intermarriage by using diagonal mobility models. We test several hypotheses derived from ethnic competition theory and socialization theory with data from the Social and Cultural Developments in The Netherlands surveys (SOCON, waves 1995, 2000, and 2005) and The Netherlands Kinship and Panel Study (NKPS, wave 2002). We find that the relative influence of social origin and social destination depends on the specific origin and destination combination. If one moves to a more tolerant social destination position, the influence of the social origin position is negligible. If on the other hand, one is socially mobile to a less tolerant social position, the impact of the origin on antagonistic attitudes is substantial and may even exceed the impact of the destination category. This confirms our hypothesis that adaptation to more tolerant norms is easier than adaptation to less tolerant norms. We find only meagre evidence for the hypothesis that downward mobility leads to frustration and consequently to more antagonistic attitudes.21 p

Understanding the religious behaviour of Muslims in the Netherlands and the UK

The position of Muslims in Western societies is the subject of intense study and debate. However, remarkably little attention has been paid to the practice of European Muslims and how Muslim religiosity relates to conventional measures of social and economic integration. In this paper we draw on theories of secularization, assimilation, revitalization and integration to explore the correlates of attendance at religious meetings for Muslims of different backgrounds in the Netherlands and the UK. We conclude that patterns of religiosity and secularisation cannot be generalised across national contexts