Ethnicity and Youth Cultural Participation in the Netherlands

Ethnicity, youth cultural participation, and cultural reproduction in the Netherlands

“…It also appears that young people and their best friends influence each other culturally, though this may be less important than the stimulation or modeling effects of mothers. The present results concerning the role of mothers are consistent with those of prior studies (Van Beek and Knulst, 1991;Nagel, 2002) and with those of our own 1993 study (Van Wel et al, 1996), in which we also emphasized the importance of mothers as compared with fathers (but did not consider the role of best friends). According to DiMaggio (2004), this role of women as 'cultural specialists' in many families is not a recent phenomenon, but dates back to the nineteenth century.…”

“…According to De Graaf et al (2000) and De Graaf and De Graaf (2002), parents with relatively high rates of cultural participation, like parents who read relatively frequently, tend to have children who do significantly better in school. In line with prior research (Van Beek and Knulst, 1991;Nagel, 2002Nagel, , 2004Van Wel et al, 1996), we hypothesized that the mother would be the central role model in the cultural domain. Extending reproduction theory, we predicted that cultural participation by adolescents during leisure time would be influenced not only by family and educational factors, but also by peers.…”

“…In the context of the recent political interest in cultural participation by adolescents in general and ethnic minority youth in particular, we investigated the cultural participation of minority and nonminority youth in Utrecht in 2002. Utrecht was chosen because a largescale study comparing the cultural participation of Dutch and ethnic minority youth was conducted in this city nine years earlier Van Wel et al, 1994;Van Wel et al, 1996). The findings of the 1993 study showed that only certain subgroups of ethnic minority youth (e.g., those of Moroccan descent) had extremely low rates of participation in high culture.…”

Youth cultural styles

“…Closer examination of these two groups furthermore revealed no associations with educational level, although there was a clear link with gender: within these groups the feminine omnivore was overrepresented at a rate of two to one. That Dutch girls show more interest than Dutch boys in classical, elite expressions of culture is already well established (Ter Bogt and Van Praag, 1992;Van Wel et al, 1996;Van Wel et al, 2006). The present research suggests that their greater cultural enthusiasm also extends to the popular domain.…”