Suchergebnisse

AbstractEqual Opportunity programs (EO) continue to be at the center of the debate about promoting equality in higher education. While support for EO has been well‐studied in American higher education, this research is the first to investigate the attitudes towards and support for a range of EO policies among professors in Europe. We specifically examine faculty support for seven different EO measures used in European universities that require varying levels of involvement and commitment. From a sample of 689 professors, findings show that women professors tend to show more support for all EO programs compared to men professors. We also see differences across disciplines. Professors from the humanities and social sciences are more likely to endorse such programs than their counterparts in STEM disciplines. Moreover, the differences across disciplines and gender decrease substantially when controlling for racial and gender attitudes. Finally, soft/differential programs, which prioritize merit but take group membership into account are preferred over hard/preferential programs which prioritize achieving equality by targeting members from marginalized groups. This research is innovative for its geographical location, sample of study, and range of included measures.

AbstractSince the 1980s, everyday racism has gained ground within the social sciences. However, the theory of everyday racism has not been properly adopted and, consequently, varies across different research fields. The main goal of this study is to improve the scientific rigor within research on everyday racism in the human and social sciences. Following a review of the ground-breaking work of Philomena Essed, three main components in everyday racism literature are theoretically distilled and conceptualized: (1) repetitiveness and familiarity, (2) racism and (3) the interdependent link between micro-interactions and macro-structures. This is followed by a critical assessment ofwhateveryday racism means andhowit is assessed in research today, by performing a systematic electronic review of qualitative-methods papers. We make three suggestions towards a more complete and sophisticated understanding of everyday racism. Firstly, the concepts of everyday racism and microaggressions need to be disconnected from each other. Secondly, research should focus more on the symbiotic relation between micro-interactions and macro-structures and should also identify relevant situational features at the spatial meso-level. Lastly, it is important to be cautious of the pitfall of cultural determinism that is still a popular perspective in today's field of (everyday) racism.

Young adults are feeling the pressure to have a steady relationship. Using data from 'Young in Ghent' (N = 735), this study examines whether (1) young adults (18-25 year) with a (cohabiting) partner also have a better mental health, and whether (2) there exist gender differences. Furthermore, (3) the deficit paradigm as a dominant explanation model is challenged by looking at the specific social support advantages of singles. The results show that there is only a positive association between relationship status and mental health among young women, but not among men. To a great extent, this association can be explained by differences in the perceived stress. Moreover, young adults who are single compensate the lack of social support from the partner by expecting more social support from their friends and parents. These complementary support is buffering the negative effect of the relationship status on depression among young women.

This study investigates how the socio-economic positions of the parents shape the access to social capital of their children. We examine the influence of three parental socio-economic positions on the access to three job-finding resources from the family among labour market entrants. In addition, we examine how ethnic differences in family social capital are rooted in the unequal socio-economic positions of different ethnic categories. For these purposes, we collected data from 2,176 labour market entrants in Belgium and designed an instrument to measure three types of job-finding resources: labour market information, job information, and encouragement to search for a job. Moreover, we used a multidimensional perspective on social stratification by examining the educational levels, the social class positions, and the employment statuses of the parents. Our results show substantial socio-economic inequalities in family social capital: labour market entrants whose parents are higher educated, employed and/or from the service class have more access to job-finding resources from the family. Moreover, ethnic minorities in Belgium, especially the Turks, Moroccans, and Balkans, have less access to job-finding resources from the family than natives. These findings demonstrate the powerful interplay of parental socio-ethnic influences in shaping inequalities in social capital. Moreover, it is the first crucial step to establish how socio-economic inequalities are reproduced over generations through the functioning of social capital. © The Author 2012.

AbstractThis article deals with individual and contextual effects on the religiosity of first and second generation migrants in Europe. Noticing that little attention has been directed towards intergenerational transmission of religion in processes of integration, we argue for an intergenerational perspective on immigrant 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 immigrant‐religion research to account for the stress buffering capacities of religion. On the contextual level we expect a positive effect of native religiosity and religious diversity. Three aspects of religiosity are examined: (1) religious affiliation, (2) inner religiosity and (3) praying. We use four waves (2002–2008) of the European Social Survey (ESS) in a 3‐level random intercept multilevel model with 19,567 individuals, 235 regions and 26 countries. Among others, the most interesting results are that (1) second generation immigrants are less religious than their first generation counterparts, (2) perceived discrimination has a positive effect on immigrant religiosity and the effect is greater for the second generation, (3) native religiosity has a positive effect on immigrant religiosity with a greater effect on the second generation as well and (4) the influence on migrant religiosity is more salient at the regional than at the national level.