Comparing Cultural Consumption

Transcription

1 Comparing Cultural Consumption of Ethnic Groups in the Netherlands Paper presented at The 8 th conference of European Sociological Association Conference Research Stream 8: Europe and Immigration September 3rd 6th 2007, Glasgow Andries van den Broek Research group Time, Media & Culture Netherlands Institute for Social Research / SCP a.van.den.broek@scp.nl

2 1 Changing Cultures: Comparing Cultural Practices of Ethnic Groups Roughly speaking, changes in cultural practices may result from two types of change: either people start behaving differently or the number of people behaving in a certain way rises or drops in numbers, giving their behaviour more or less weight in the population as a whole. The former points at change in the behaviour in the population, the latter at change in the composition of the population. In the case of cultural practices, an example of the first type of change is the swift general embracement of the television for entertainment and information. This paper explores the second type of change, focusing on the cultural practices of the ethnic groups that over the past decades migrated to the Netherlands. The population of the Netherlands has become more colourful, as people from various ethnic backgrounds entered its ranks. Apart from the indigenous Dutch, the four largest ethnic groups are the Turks, Moroccans, Antilleans and Surinamese. Knowledge about the life of these groups tended to be strongly biased towards structural indicators, relating among others to sheer numbers, labour-market enrolment, and educational attainment. Considerably less was known about their day-to-day life, including their leisure at large and their cultural activities in particular. In view of discussions about and policy initiatives concerning issues of immigration and integration, the lack of knowledge about cultural indicators is remarkable. In an attempt to fill this knowledge gap, the Social and Cultural Planning Office of the Netherlands commissioned a survey into the Life Situation of Ethnic City Dwellers. This survey was carried out in the 50 largest cities (as only few people from immigrant groups settled outside those cities) among people aged (as the questionnaire was thought to be too complicated for the young and as few Turks and Moroccans are older than 65). Computer assisted personal interviews were conducted with over 800 persons from each ethnic group mentioned above, thus the total n exceeds 4000 respondents (response rate was app. 45%). Cultural activities are among the main foci of this survey. This enables this paper to offer a comparison of cultural practices of ethnic groups in the Netherlands. The practices studied include participation in canonized cultural activities, such as visits to museums and theatres, but neither the survey nor the paper stops short there. Involvement in popular culture, such as attending pop concerts and cabaret, cinema going and media consumption, is also addressed. So is informal cultural participation within ethnic communities taking place outside the arenas of canonized or popular culture. Apart from this receptive cultural participation in terms of attendance, active participation in an art-discipline as leisure pastime, such as painting or singing, is addressed. In addition to the bare counts of cultural activities, some of the cultural content of these activities and of the social and ethnic contexts in which these cultural activities unfold are mapped out. The outline of this paper is as follows. Before going into detail, the general picture of cultural participation is sketched ( 2). Then cultural activities are looked into in more detail ( 3), after which the content and context are addressed ( 5). A brief summary concludes this paper ( 5). The outcomes presented go beyond the statistics that immediately surface. In order to move closer to the ethnic factor in differences between these groups, differences in the composition in terms of age, gender and educational attainment need to be taken into account. Controlling for composition yields a more direct view of cultural differences in cultural practices. Here, the adjective cultural happens to pop up in two guises: referring to cultural differences between groups in the anthropological or broader sociological meaning; and referring to cultural practices in terms of participating in the arts. To forego such confusion, this paper addresses the former as ethnic differences, knowing of course that it is culture in the broader sense rather than mere ethnicity that makes the difference. 1

3 2 Cultural practices of ethnic groups At first glance For a start, the general picture is sketched out. In talking about cultural participation, four domains are distinguished here: canonized, pop, informal and amateur culture. Each domain is treated in more detail in later sections. The focus first is on whether or not people are involved in either activity in these domains. Canonized cultural participation here consists of having visited a museum, having attended a play or having attended a concert of classical music. Participation in pop culture is measured as having attended a cabaret show, a pop concert, a dance party, a musical or having been to a movie. The above measurements are open to critique for being directed exclusively to Western forms of cultural participation. In order not to oversee a possible lively cultural life among ethnic groups outside the arenas of canonized and pop culture, people were asked about going to parties where live music or live theatre were performed. Amateur culture, finally, measures whether people in their free time are involved in drawing, painting, sculpting, playing music, singing, acting or ballet. In this section, people qualify as a participant in a given cultural domain if they undertook at least one of the activities mentioned in the 12 months preceding the interview. This general count points at major differences in the level of cultural participation between ethnic groups (table 1). Leaving informal culture out of the discussion for a second, a clear general picture unfolds: Turkish and Moroccan city dwellers engage in cultural participation the least, indigenous city dwellers do so the most. Surinamese and Antillean city dwellers take a middle position, leaning more towards the indigenous with respect to informal and amateur culture, but more to the Turks and Moroccans with respect to canonized culture. In terms of informal culture, the picture is indeed very different. Not only are differences less pronounced, they also take a radically different direction. Here Turks and Surinamese report higher levels of attendance than the others. Table 1: Cultural practices by ethnicity % participants in past 12 months, city dwellers aged Canonized culture Pop culture Informal culture Amateur culture These figures certainly tell us a story, but do certainly not tell us the full story. One important fact has to be taken into account: ethnic groups vary greatly in their socio-demographic composition. A dramatic example of the importance of the choice what story to tell? is the replication of the above table, taking into account only those people born in the Netherlands. A very different picture emerges (table 2). This time, indigenous city dwellers lag behind in pop and informal culture, while differences in canonized and amateur culture are smaller and also partly different in direction, Surinamese and Antilleans reporting higher levels of participation in amateur culture. 2

4 Table 2: Cultural practices by ethnicity % participants in past 12 months, city dwellers aged 15-65, second generation only (i.e. people born in the Netherlands). Canonized culture Pop culture Informal culture Amateur culture Looking more closely What story to tell? Here, the answer is: both. Or better even: these two and more. Since with these two stories, still other questions remain. For in both instances, there are differences in composition. Immigrant groups are younger and less educated than the indigenous group. Reversely, in comparing only the second generations (born here) of immigrant groups to the indigenous group, the latter is older. The obvious solution, at least the one chosen here, is to control for these two variables. In addition, gender is controlled for, as response rates were higher among men in some groups and among women in some other. So both previous tables are replicated, controlling for age, gender and level of educational attainment. The earlier figures are printed together with the new ones. For the (complete) ethnic groups, the controlled results differ markedly from the uncontrolled results (table 3), though with variations. In the cases of canonized and pop culture, the differences between groups become smaller. The difference in participation in canonized culture between the least active groups (Turks and Moroccans) and the most active group (indigenous) drops from 30 to 18 percentage points. With respect to pop culture, this drop is from 31 to 24 percentage points. In both cases, the pattern remains the same, but differences are less outspoken. Reversely, differences in participation in informal culture increase somewhat after controlling for composition effects. Different again, controlling does not make much of a change in the domain of amateur culture. Table 3: Cultural practices by ethnicity % participants in past 12 months, city dwellers aged 15-65, uncontrolled and controlled for age, gender and education. Canonized culture uncontrolled controlled Pop culture uncontrolled controlled Informal culture uncontrolled controlled Amateur culture uncontrolled controlled

5 The same exercise is conducted for people born in the Netherlands. Again, controlling makes a difference, although in part along different lines this time (table 4). Again, participation in canonized culture is less skewed along the by now familiar lines after controlling. Before controlling, taking part in pop culture was higher among second generation ethnic groups then among the indigenous group. This difference disappears with controlling, the indigenous group moving towards the middle position. In the case of informal culture, relatively little change appears to occur. Yet the differences found initially then loose their statistical significance. With respect to amateur culture, differences become smaller and the pattern changes. Controlling lowers the levels of participation in all immigrant groups, reducing the edge of the Surinamese and Antilleans, and aggravating the leeway of Turks and Moroccans. Table 4: Cultural practices by ethnicity % participants in past 12 months, city dwellers aged 15-65, second generation only (i.e. people born in the Netherlands), uncontrolled and controlled for age, gender and education. Canonized culture uncontrolled controlled Pop culture uncontrolled controlled Informal culture uncontrolled controlled Amateur culture uncontrolled controlled Looking even more closely? Now that we have learned that controlling for composition effects matters a great deal, the question becomes whether there are other differences in composition worth controlling for. A word of caution is in place here. With controlling, we aim at getting closer to the ethnical difference (or more precisely, as stated earlier, to the cultural difference in its anthropological or broader sociological meaning). What we want to do, therefore, is to control for effects that intervene with the effect of ethnicity while having nothing to do with ethnicity as such. Age and educational attainment are cases in point here. What we do not want to do, reversely, is to control for effects that relate directly to what we want to get closer to, i.e. for effects related to the core of ethnical differences. It is not helpful, for instance, to control for the effect of belonging to the one or the other religion, as we assume that religious denomination is part of the difference we want to get a closer look at. We do not want to control the very effect we are interested in out of existence, so to speak. Somewhere in between are effects of having (large) families and of labour market participation. Controlling for these variables too, in addition to age, gender and education, does make little difference (table 5). A lengthy theoretical discussion about the pro s and con s of controlling for effects that may or may not be related to ethnicity itself is cut short by the empirical observation that is hardly matters at all. 4

6 Table 5: Cultural practices by ethnicity % participants in past 12 months, city dwellers aged 15-65, controlled for age, gender and education (3 variables) and controlled in addition for family composition and labour market participation (5 variables). Canonized culture controlled for 3 variables controlled for 5 variables Pop culture controlled for 3 variables controlled for 5 variables Informal culture controlled for 3 variables controlled for 5 variables Amateur culture controlled for 3 variables controlled for 5 variables The sections to come contain more detailed figures on separate activities as well as additional figures on the content and context of cultural consumption. For the time being, and for lack of time at the moment of preparing this paper, only observed figures (uncontrolled) are presented below. 3 Cultural activities Canonized culture The general picture is that Turkish and Moroccan city dwellers engage in canonized culture the least, that indigenous city dwellers do so the most and that Surinamese and Antillean city dwellers take a middle position, being more like the Turks and Moroccans than like the indigenous (table 1). Does this picture hold evenly for all specific canonized cultural activities, or more for some than for others? Clearly, the former is the case (table 6), with a few minor qualifications only. In terms of attending plays, Surinamese and Antilleans are more like the indigenous, while in terms of visiting museums they do not distinguish themselves from Turks and Moroccans. Table 6: Canonized culture by ethnicity % visitors in past 12 months, city dwellers aged 15-65, all and second generation. Visited a museum all second generation Attended a play all second generation Attended a classical concert all second generation

7 In line again with the earlier observation (table 2), the second generation of all immigrant groups still lag behind the indigenous group across the board, with the exception of watching plays among second generation Surinamese and Antilleans. A breakdown of museums into historical and art museums shows that visiting art museums is more unevenly distributed than visiting historical museums (table 7). This suggests an even larger cultural divide between ethnic groups in the field of arts than the already considerable one in the field of history. Table 7: Visits to types of museums by ethnicity % visitors in past 12 months, city dwellers aged 15-65, all and second generation. Historical museum all second generation Art museum all second generation Both cultural divides are only partially narrowed in the second generations of the immigrant groups, most so by Antilleans. An additional aspect of canonized culture, not included in the summations in the previous section, is reading books. According to cultural policy, sustaining public libraries is conducive to fostering reading (and to fostering chances of communication as well, but this argument is rooted in a discourse of democracy rather than in one on participating in high culture). Reading books follows the pattern just described with respect to canonized culture (table 8), in as much that participation levels are highest among the indigenous and lowest among the Turks and Moroccans, though this divide is smaller in relative terms and though this divide persists less among the second generation. Table 8: Reading books and visiting libraries by ethnicity % readers/visitors in past 12 months, city dwellers aged 15-65, all and second generation. Read a book all second generation Visited a library all second generation For libraries the picture is different altogether. Here, there hardly is a cultural divide to start with, and in as much as there is one for the second generation, it has the direction of higher turnout at libraries among immigrant groups. Popular culture As is the case with high culture, participation in low culture shows ethnic differences. It is not just high arts that have less appeal to members of minority groups, but art in general. Taking a closer look at some specific specimen of participation in popular culture (table 9), 6

8 this picture again holds across the board. Going to the movies is less unevenly distributed, while cabaret acts, musicals and pop concerts show huge differences in attendance. Table 9: Popular culture by ethnicity % participants in past 12 months, city dwellers aged 15-65, all and second generation. Cabaret all second generation Pop concert all second generation Dance party all second generation Musical all second generation Movie all second generation Second generations within immigrant groups fare better, narrowing the gap with respect to cabaret acts, pop concerts and musicals, and surpassing them with respect to dance parties and movies (in part an age effect, most likely, see observations made on page 3). Informal culture As noted above (table 1), cultural participation in the informal setting of parties is indeed distributed less unevenly, immigrant groups even reporting more of it than the indigenous group. A breakdown of this participation by type of live entertainment performed (table 10) shows that this levelling is due to music concerts rather than to theatre acts performed. Table 10: Attending parties with live acts by ethnicity % visitors in past 12 months, city dwellers aged 15-65, all and second generation. Party with live music all second generation Party with live theatre all second generation The higher propensity to visit parties where music is performed holds for the total immigrant groups as well as for the second generation. Amateur culture The earlier observation that indigenous city dwellers are more often involved in practicing cultural activities in their leisure time (table 1) holds for each of the three more concrete 7

9 activities distinguished in this survey, though not without qualification (table 11). Surinamese and Antillean city dwellers report equal levels of involvement in amateur music and amateur theatre as their indigenous neighbours, lagging behind only with respect to drawing, painting and sculpting. Table 11: Amateur culture by ethnicity % participants in past 12 months, city dwellers aged 15-65, all and second generation. Drawing, painting, sculpting,.. all second generation Singing, playing an instrument all second generation Acting, ballet all second generation Second generation immigrants are considerably more active in amateur culture than their elders. Second generations Surinamese and Antilleans are more active in this respect than the average indigenous person, Turkish and Moroccan second generations reduce their leeway. 4 The content and context of cultural practices After this description of frequencies in which cultural activities are undertaken, we now turn to the cultural (in its broader sociological or anthropological meaning) content and context of those activities. The information gathered is reported in the same order, starting with canonized culture. Canonized culture With respect to the content of activities related to canonized culture, no questions were asked about the exhibitions and the performances visited, as the supply largely consists of canonized Western culture. Only with respect to reading, the content of consumption was asked about among Turks and Moroccans (table 12). Turkish book readers more often report the last book read to have originally been written in their own language. At much lower level, Turks also more often report to have read something in their own language in the library Table 12: Cultural orientation in reading by ethnicity % participants in past 12 months, city dwellers aged 15-65, all and second generation. Turks Moroccans Last book read originally written in own language all (n=451, n=417) second generation (n=138, n=139) 20 3 Reading in library more/only in own language all (n=293,n=310) 18 5 second generation (n=113,n=112) 3 0 8

10 Levels of reading texts (originally) written in their own language are much lower among the second generations within these two groups. There is more data about reading newspapers and magazines, but this was regarded to far off the mark in a paper on cultural practices. Popular culture A considerable minority of Turkish cinema visitors report the last movie seen to have had a Turkish background. This is the case also for Turks born in the Netherlands. The incidence of the last movie seen in the cinema to be of one s own cultural background is considerably lower among the other ethnic minorities. Table 13: Cultural orientation in watching movies by ethnicity % participants in past 12 months, city dwellers aged 15-65, all and second generation. Turks Moroccans Surinamese Antilleans Last movie seen rooted predominantly in own culture all (n ranges ) second generation (n ranges ) More information on media use (television, radio, internet, the various printed media) was gathered than can be revealed in this paper. Some information on television consumption is given here to wet the appetite, though this was not part of the participation in popular culture reported earlier. Among the things asked was the frequency of watching (national) public channels, (national) commercial channels and channels from the region of origin (the latter question was asked to Turks and Moroccans only). A number of observations can be made (table 14). Though large majorities within all groups watch both public and commercial national Dutch channels, the indigenous do so the most. Secondly, commercial channels have some edge among second generation immigrant groups (as among the young indigenous, as is known from other sources). Third, it is common among Moroccans to watch Arabic channels and even more common among Turks to watch Turkish channels. Finally, those foreign channels (from the indigenous point of view, that is) are somewhat less the popular among the second generation, though especially among second generation Turks, a large majority watches those channels. This may in part be due to the fact that, within families, the parents decide the choice of the channel that is watched. Table 14: Cultural orientation in watching television channels by ethnicity % watching five or more days per week, city dwellers aged 15-65, all and second generation. Dutch public television all second generation Dutch commercial television all second generation Television from region of origin all second generation Turks and Moroccans were asked on what channel they preferred to watch various types of programs. The results again point at a more pronounced orientation to the home channels among Turks than among Moroccans (table 15). Unexpectedly, perhaps, second generation 9

11 Moroccans hardly ever prefer Arabic channels for any type of program. Among Turks, a quarter to a third, depending on the type of program, prefers the home channel. Among second generation Turks, this preference is still present though at a lower level. Especially series and shows on Turkish television, however, have a considerable appeal also to second generation Turks. Table 15: Preference for own television by type of program by ethnicity % watching a type of program more or only on own channel, city dwellers aged 15-65, all and second generation. Turks Moroccans News all 23 7 second generation 14 0 Movies all second generation 15 0 Series all second generation 27 2 Shows all second generation 24 1 Culture all second generation 14 2 Discussions all 25 8 second generation 10 0 Lacking precise knowledge, it is not yet clear to what extent the attraction of Turkish channels relates to the availability and quality of those channels rather than to the cultural orientation of the Turks. Informal culture About the informal culture consumed at parties with live performances, questions were asked about the cultural background of both the act and the public. In both respects, Moroccans and especially Turks report such parties to have a Moroccan respectively Turkish character, in terms of the performers as well as of the other visitors (table 16). This holds less for second Surinamese and Antilleans, and less also for second generations. Table 16: Cultural background of acts and of public at parties with live acts by ethnicity % visitors mentioning the act or the public at the last party visited to be predominantly from their own ethnic background, city dwellers age in past 12 months, city dwellers aged 15-65, all and second generation. Turks Moroccans Surinamese Antilleans Act at last party was from own cultural background all (n ranges ) second generation (n ranges ) Public at last party was from own cultural background all (n ranges ) second generation (n ranges )

12 5 Summing up: Ethnic differences in cultural practices The results presented in this paper suggest a number of conclusions and observations. The more general conclusions are stated first, followed by some more specific observations. General conclusions one in understanding cultural practices, ethnicity matters; two participation in canonized, popular and amateur cultural activities is relatively low among Turks and Moroccans, relatively high among the indigenous, with Surinamese and Antilleans in the middle; three in addition, immigration generation matters too; four participation in cultural activities is higher among second generation immigrants; five in understanding exactly how much ethnicity and immigration generation matter, composition effects need to be taken into account. More specific observations one high and low cultural participation are about equally related to ethnicity; two cultural participation less unequal after controlling for composition effects; three cultural participation less unequal in second generations; four art museums affected more badly than historical museums; five attending parties with live music reveals opposite inequality; six Turks more attracted to their own cultural industry than Moroccans; seven Moroccans and especially Turks report last party s public to be largely of their own ethnic background. And next? With respect to these data, a closer look needs to be taken at individual cultural activities ( 3) and at their content and context ( 4), controlling for composition effects. Moreover, these results need to be put in perspective of and discussed with reference to theoretical literature, policy documents, and other research outcomes. Then, this material will constitute a chapter in a forthcoming SCP-book about the daily life of ethnic groups in the Netherlands, a book that presents results from the same survey on a range of issues: time use, organization of private households, volunteering, sports, (more) media use, social contacts and mobility. 11