1 bowling apart sport clubs as bridges or as walls between social groups in the netherlands wout...
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BOWLING APART
SPORT CLUBS AS BRIDGES OR AS WALLS
BETWEEN SOCIAL GROUPS
IN THE NETHERLANDS
Wout Ultee
Tel Aviv University
Mortimer and Raymond Sackler Institute of Advanced Studies
March 24, 2005
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This lecture consists of three parts:
* How I got to the question of BOWLING APART as a supplement to
the question of BOWLING ALONE
* Findings for the Netherlands from administrative and existing survey data
* Findings for the Netherlands from a recently conducted survey
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The findings I present are to become part of the ph.d. by
Ruud van der Meulen,
currently employed in the sociology department in
Nijmegen.
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Three Sackler lectures:
sociology of education sociology of sport
sociology of religion
What kind of sociologist deals with all these
specializations?
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There is something like general sociology and theoretical sociology,
And I am one of those persons doing two things.
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For the first part of this lecture theories are not that important.
What is pertinent is that sociology, given its history and traditions, has
three general or main questions.
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Each of these main questions cannot simply be traced back to one of sociology’s founders,
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Each of these main questions cannot simply be traced back to one of sociology’s founders,
If they are to be traced back and sociology’s founders are involved,
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Each of these main questions cannot simply be traced back to one of sociology’s founders.
If they are to be traced back and sociology’s founders are involved,
Sociology’s founders did something to the questions raised by social philosophers,
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Each of these main questions cannot simply be traced back to one of sociology’s founders,
If they are to be traced back and sociology’s founders are involved,
Sociology’s founders did something to the questions raised by social philosophers,
And later sociologists not only reframed, but restated and recast the questions of sociology’s
founders.
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Sociology’s three main questions:
Rationalization
Inequality
Cohesion
Mortimer and Raymond
Sackler lectures:
Religion
Education
Sport
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Take the question of societal rationalization.
Max Weber raised it and it looks like an umbrella.
It was an overarching question comprising as one of its sub-
questions the question of a more efficient economy as posed by the social philosopher Adam Smith.
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Thinking about questions in terms of an umbrella is
useful for finding interesting questions, for
finding theories answering them and for finding research techniques.
What does Weber’s umbrella of rationalization
questions look like?
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rationalization
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rationalization
wealth of nations
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rationalization
efficient economy
rise ofscience
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rationalization
efficient economy
rise ofscience
inventionin art
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rationalization
efficient economy
rise ofscience
inventionin art
formalstate
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rationalization
efficient economy
rise ofscience
inventionin art
formalstate
bureau-cratization
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rationalization
efficient economy
rise ofscience
inventionin art
formalstate
codificationof laws
bureau-cratization
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Weber implicitly assumed that if more inhabitants of a society have a practical-rational mentality,
rationalization processes at the societal level will have gone further.
Since the theory of collective goods and external effects, it is known that
this assumption is false.
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In the Netherlands there now is sociologist Abram de Swaan with
the following umbrella of questions about the formal state.
A micro-macro level paradox:
Individual rationality does not always make for societal rationality.
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rationalization
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rationalization
optimal productionprivate goodsby markets
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rationalization
optimal productionprivate goodsby markets
optimal productioncollective goods
by states
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rationalization
optimal productionprivate goodsby markets
optimal productioncollective goods
by states
municipalpiped water
and sewerage
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rationalization
optimal productionprivate goodsby markets
optimal productioncollective goods
by states
compulsoryschooling
municipal piped water
and sewerage
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rationalization
optimal productionprivate goodsby markets
optimal productioncollective goods
by states
state moneyfor the poor
compulsoryschooling
municipalpiped water
and sewerage
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How about that other main question of sociology,
societal inequality?
Marx did not begin it, if he did, he did it with Engels,
Engels and Marx improved upon social philosophers Ferguson and Millar,
and Sombart and Weber improved upon Engels and Marx.
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The umbrella of inequality questions:
from Ferguson and Millar
to Engels and Marx.
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inequalities
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inequalities
actual differences in standard
of living
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inequalities
actual differencesin standard
of living
formal subordination
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inequalities
actual differencesin standard
of living
formal subordination
ruler andruled
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inequalities
actual differencesin standard
of living
formal subordination
ruler andruled
men andwomen
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inequalities
actual differencesin standard
of living
formal subordination
ruler andruled
men andwomen
fathers andchildren
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inequalities
actual differences in standard
of living
formal subordination
ruler andruled
men andwomen
fathers andchildren
masters andservants
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inequalities
actual differencesin standard
of living
formal subordination
less servantsubordination,
smallerdifferences?
ruler andruled
men andwomen
fathers andchildren
masters andservants
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Once more the umbrella of inequality questions:
from Engels & Marx
to Sombart, then on
to Goldthorpe,
and to Mayer.
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inequalities
less servant subordination,smaller differences?
one momentdisparities
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inequalities
less servant subordination,smaller differences?
one momentdisparities
two momentmobility
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inequalities
less servant subordination,smaller differences?
one momentdisparities
two momentmobility
structuralmobility
circulationmobility
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inequalities
less servant subordination,smaller differences?
one momentdisparities
two momentmobility
structuralmobility
circulationmobility
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inequalities
less servant subordination,smaller differences?
one momentdisparities
two momentmobility
totalmobility
relativemobility chances
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inequalities
less servant subordination,smaller differences?
one momentdisparities
two momentmobility
occupationalhistories
totalmobility
relativemobility chances
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Yet again the umbrella of inequality questions:
from Sombart to Weber:
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inequalities
less servant subordination,smaller differences?
two momentmobility
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inequalities
less servant subordination,smaller differences?
openness
two momentmobility
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inequalities
less servant subordination,smaller differences?
openness
two momentmobility
who marrieswhom?
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inequalities
less servant subordination,smaller differences?
openness
two momentmobility
who marrieswhom?
who befriendswhom?
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Does the inequality question have a levels paradox too?
Firebaugh:
Incomes disparities right now increase in most countries, but
world income disparities decrease.
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That third main question of sociology: societal cohesion.
Hobbes started it with the question of violence/order,
Durkheim completed it with the question of order but no ties/order and ties.
Putnam’s BOWLING ALONE is a recent question about specific ties: ties
through sport clubs.
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The umbrella of inequality questions
from Hobbes to Durkheim:
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cohesion
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cohesion
living togetherPEACEFULLY
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cohesion
living togetherPEACEFULLY
living peacefullyTOGETHER
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cohesion
living togetherPEACEFULLY
living peacefullyTOGETHER
suicide
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cohesion
living togetherPEACEFULLY
living peacefullyTOGETHER
suicide gods and
rites
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cohesion
living togetherPEACEFULLY
living peacefullyTOGETHER
division of labour
suicide gods and
rites
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cohesion
living togetherPEACEFULLY
living peacefullyTOGETHER
marriage and birth
division of labour
suicide gods and
rites
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cohesion
living togetherPEACEFULLY
living peacefullyTOGETHER
marriage and birth
(family ties)
division of labour
(economic ties)
suicide (no ties at all)
gods andrites
(religiousties)
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Now I am going to change the metaphor:
from an umbrella of questions to
question trees with various branches.
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Can the branches of two different question trees come together?
Yes, and these questions allow for progress on two fronts.
In recent years I have been hunting for ‘double questions’,
and perhaps moving away from inequality to cohesion.
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income inequality
openness
who marries whom with
respect to income?
poor-richcohesion
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It is obvious that to the extent that rich and poor intermarry, income inequality at
the household level decreases.
If people marry within their own income category, the rich and poor form strongly integrated groups, weakening cohesion of
society as a whole since there are no marriage ties between categories.
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There also are interesting variations
economic ties
who has a job?
who workswith whom?
cohesioninequality
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There also are nice complementarities
family ties
who marries when?
who marries whom?
cohesion
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The scheme allows for finding incomplete series of questions:
gift relationship
whoreceives?
who gives towhom?
cohesion
who gives?
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Is there a levels paradox for cohesion, just like there is one for
rationalization and inequality?
Yes, people may be highly integrated, but if they have ties with their own
group only, the society they belong to is segmented and prone to intergroup
violence.
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The Netherlands from the 1920s to the 1960s was a segmented society,
given the fact that protestants, catholics and non-churched persons
not only had their own political parties, and own labor unions,
but also their own sport clubs, and own radio- and television broadcasting companies.
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The Netherlands may turn into a segmented society again and perhaps
already did so in two senses:
Did the larger inequalities in the wake of the retrenchment of the welfare state lead to fewer ties
between rich and poor?
Do immigrants and particularly moslims form parallel societies?
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How to tackle these issues? More questions on ties.
sport ties
who sportsin teams?
who sportswith whom?
cohesion
whosports?
inequality
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Why study sport ties across stratification categories?
Putnam’s BOWLING ALONE painted a rosy picture of 1950s USA:
‘communists’ lost academic jobs, blacks had separate places in buses,
golf clubs refused Jews.
Next to BOWLING ALONE,
there is BOWLING APART.
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Why questions about ties through sports between stratification categories?
People do not only work, they have more leisure.
Welfare states funded high culture and sport, and welfare state retrenchment
means less support of sport.
Governments will not target marriage or friendship patterns, they may target sport.
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Who sports with whom regarding income?
Who sports with whom regarding descent?
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Two competing hypotheses: Bourdieu versus Putnam.
Bourdieu is the man of walls, Putnam the man of bridges.
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Bourdieu’s hypotheses:
economic inequalities
are reproduced across generations,
they are expressed in high culture, and reflected in separate sports.
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Putnam-like hypotheses:
In sportclubs people meet,
leading to friendships across borders,
and to more trust between groups, and to less intergroup violence.
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It is easy to show inequalities in sports,
But Bourdieu takes
extremes for averages,
and sophisticated techniques
such as odds ratios
may not tell much about ties.
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A string of four Bourdieu questions:
* popularity of sports compared
* representativity of sports compared
* sports compared with high culture
* interconnectivity of sports compared
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The popularity question.
Two trend ‘hypotheses’:
‘democratization’ but recently ‘aristocratization’.
Status devaluation: the growth of a high status sport, makes for later growth of
another high status sport.
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Administrative data, members of sport clubs as percent of the population
195019601970198019902000
91116272830
Democratization has stopped, but no aristocratization yet
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Most popular and one but most popular sport
195019601970198019902000
3.03.84.87.56.66.5
0.50.40.83.34.64.5
soccer tennis
Popular sports decline, aristocratic sports grow the most.
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Highest growers
50-60 volleyballOR 6.7 60-70tennis OR 2.0 70-80tennis OR 4.3 80-90golf OR 4.3 90-00golf OR 2.9
Status devaluation confirmed
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Largest decline or slowest growth
50-60 tennis OR 0.860-70 walking OR 0.570-80 cricket OR 0.780-90 soccer OR 0.990-00 volleyballOR 0.8
Aristocratization for last decades confirmed
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The question about inequality in sport is answered with a representativity index.
Hypothesis: inequalities lately became larger through the
retrenchment of the welfare state.
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In the sociology of sport it is taken as evident
that as a club sport becomes more popular, its members became more representative
of the whole population.
There is no logical necessity for that, and empirically it is not true for the Netherlands.
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Existing survey data for the Netherlands for 1979-1983 and for 1995-1999; each year an N
of more than 20,000.
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Taking 2000 administrative-data
popularity and 1995-1999 survey-data
popularity for 20 sports,
the correlation is 0.93.
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Representativity of a sport is usually calculated as the Lueschenindex.
However, the Lueschenindex has two drawbacks:
* It assigns ordinal classes an arbitrary interval score.
* The index changes if the number of persons in a class changes.
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If the Lueschen index is not right, how then to
determine representativity?
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We determine the representativity of a sport by dividing household
income into 25% categories,
and then computing the odds for membership in a club for some
sport or not for the highest 25%
divided by the odds for membership in a club for that
sport or not for the lowest 25%.
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The three most exclusive sports in 1979-1983:
hockey OR 16.2 tennis OR 12.1 rowing OR 7.2
no data for golf
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The three most plebeian sports in 1979-1983:
cycling OR 0.7 motor cross OR 0.9 soccer OR 1.0
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Of the three sports with the lowest ORs in 1995-1999, two are above 1:
walking OR 0.9 gymnastics OR 1.1 swimming OR 1.3
soccer OR 2.0
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The three most exclusive sports in
1995-1999:
golf OR 12.8 tennis OR 7.2 hockey OR 6.7
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Most sports became more exclusive. More exclusivity because of a large
increase in sport for the highest 25% and a small decrease for the lowest 25%.
any sport 79-83 95-99
highest 25% 41.8% 45.6% lowest 25% 20.7% 20.1%
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Does all this show that Bourdieu is right and Putnam wrong?
NO!
How exclusive is high culture?
PLUS:
Representativity does not measure ties, it is not the same as interconnectivity!
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Hypothesis:
Doing sports is less exclusive and more representative than
attending classical concerts etc.
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1995-1999
any sport OR 3.3
cabaret OR 3.2 plays OR 2.9 ballet OR 2.3 opera OR 2.0 classical music OR 1.9
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Hypothesis that high culture is more exclusive
and sport more representative
is rejected.
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Are ties and interconnectivity, as should be done since
Putnam, measured by odds ratios?
Not really.
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From mobility research we know that relative
chances plus marginal
differences result in total
mobility.
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From mobility research we know that relative
chances plus marginal
differences result in total
mobility.
In a similar way popularity plus representativity
result in ties through sport clubs between
income categories.
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In examples:
Gymnastics is almost representative, but since few people do it, all practitioners taken together yield few ties between
the highest and the lowest 25%.
Tennis is quite exclusive, but a lot of people do it, still yielding a lot of
highest-lowest ties.
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The available survey data do not ascertain the income composition
of a person’s sport club.
We therefore performed a thought experiment with two assumptions
and two empirical findings.
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First empirical finding:The total numbers doing a sport
(popularity).
Second empirical finding:
Although the composition of a particular sport club is not known, we know the income of all persons doing
a sport (something like representativity), and therefore the
average composition of a club.
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First assumption: any person doing a sport does it with ten other persons.
Second assumption: sport teams do not differ in composition, that is they
all have the composition of all persons involved in a sport after
income.
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The first assumption is a bit arbitrary, but the ranking of sports after
interconnectivity does not depend upon the exact number.
Of course, the number of persons in a training group is important. It may
differ from sport to sport. We did not find strong evidence for that.
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The second assumption is obviously false.
But we defend the thought experiment by arguing that improvements will not strongly
affect the ranking of sports.
It would be too skeptical to maintain that every sport has only high income clubs and
low income clubs, and that differences between sports in representativity are to be
explained as ‘composition effects’.
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We now may calculate the number of ties in a team.
We know how many persons are highest 25% and lowest 25%,
So we can compute the number of highest-lowest ties.
We can compute the number of teams,
So we can compute the number of highest-lowest ties for every sport.
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If the number of highest-lowest ties for tennis is put at 100, we obtain the following interconnectivity indices for 1995-1999:
tennis 100 soccer 92 swimming 81 gymnastics 68 judo etc 36 badminton 27 volleyball 23
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The two most popular sports are on top,
one quite egalitarian, the other quite inegalitarian!
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The correlation between the scores for 25 sports between
their popularity and their interconnectivity is 0.93.
The correlation between their representativity and their interconnectivity is -0.21.
The correlation between popularity and
representativity is -0.09.
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Putnam seems more right than Bourdieu.
Sport clubs build bridges, they do not erect walls –
between income categories.
We should not confound popularity with representativity.
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The Netherlands may turn into a segmented society and perhaps
already has done so in two senses:
Did the larger inequalities in the wake of the retrenchment of the welfare state lead to fewer ties
between rich and poor?
Do immigrants and particularly moslims form parallel societies?
120
Descent in the Netherlands is measured in official statistics as foreign born (first
generation) and as at least one parent foreign born (second generation), with a
subdivision after region of the world.
Some now argue that official statistics should measure at least one grand
parent foreign born (third generation).
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Of course it is possible to ask in surveys of people who sport, how
their team is composed.
We did so in a 2003 survey and we know the composition with respect to
descent, education and class.
I will only report on descent now.
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The survey I will be using, only interviews persons who master the Dutch language, upon judgment of
the interviewer.
This means that of al persons of foreign descent, a bit more than
50% drops out.
I only report on Dutch natives now.
N = 2086.
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We address a string of questions inspired by Putnam’s BOWLING
ALONE hypotheses,
expanded into
BOWLING APART hypotheses.
These hypotheses strongly resemble those of Allport from
1954 about the nature of prejudice.
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* What do Dutch people think about foreigners in their sport club?
* How many are there in their own training group?
* Do they find foreign acquaintances this way?
* Does having foreigners in school, neighborhood, sport club, occupation make for a more favorable attitude towards foreigners in
general?
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In our survey we asked people who stated they do a
club sport, after the composition of their
training group in terms of the percentage foreigners.
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In our survey we also asked persons how many foreigners
there are among their acquaintances and in which setting they met them first,
plus a couple of other things to test Putnam-like hypotheses.
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‘Black or white, everybody is welcome in my sport club’
1 = totally wrong
2 = a bit wrong
3 = neutral
4 = about right
5 = totally right
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Is there a lot of social desirability in such data?
Apparently not, given the following results for, among
others, highly exclusive tennis.
Results pertain to persons of Dutch descent only.
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all clubs 1 2 23 37 37 solo sports 1 2 26 35 36 team sports 1 2 15 43 40
swimming 0 0 14 21 64 badminton 0 0 12 36 52 soccer 2 0 10 46 43 tennis 0 0 29 48 24 aerobics 2 2 31 40 24 volleyball0 8 28 40 24
1 2 3 4 5
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How many acquaintances of foreign descent you have now, have you made in the following settings?
1 = zero
2 = 1 to 3
3 = 4 or five
4 = five or more
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study/work 81 12 3 4 neighborhood 82 14 2 2 sport 95 3 1 1 church 97 2 0 1
1 2 3 4
Sport clubs are not important settings for getting acquainted with people of
foreign descent.
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Does sporting with foreigners make for
more foreign acquaintances?
The following linear regression suggests so.
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Linear regression of the total number of foreign acquaintances on foreigners in own sport group
constant 4.79 5.14 no sport ref. ref. no foreigners -0.30 s -0.26 s 0%<x<5% -0.00 ns -0.00 ns 5%<x<10% -0.10 ns -0.15 ns x>10% 0.25 s 0.17 ?s? education outside 0.03 s age outside -0.01 s urbanization outside -0.09 s
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We also asked Dutch descent persons about their opinion (favorable –
unfavorable on a five point scale) on the presence of foreigners in the Netherlands.
We are now struggling with the shift from linear regression to ordinal regression and
the best parameterization of ordinal models.
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We are also struggling with recoding nominal four digit occupational codes into the percentage of foreigners with
this occupation.
We do this so as to compare the effects of various settings.
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If I summarize in words the results so far of the ordinal regression:
Sporting in a club with more foreigners goes together with a more favorable attitude, compared with sporting in a
club with less foreigners.
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Of course here selection issues crop up.
Yet I do not like to raise the issue of correlation versus causation.
Causation never can be proved, and I do not want to prove anything.
I am after falsification, and I might already have been dealt a blow.
138
We find that a more favorable attitude right now goes together with a higher proportion
of foreigners in school around age 12.
A higher proportion foreigners in the neighborhood also makes for a more
favorable attitude.
Church going does not affect the attitude.
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All effects are independent of education and age.
The difference in attitude between people who sport and people who only do so with Dutch natives, is significant: non-sporters have a
more positive attitude.
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For the near future:
We asked people to state retrospectively their attitude towards
foreigners.
We have not analyzed these data yet.
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People who sport right now, could answer for two sports. They indicated how long
they have been doing this sport.
People who do not sport right now, could mention two previous sports. People who
sport now, were asked so too. Persons then were asked about the composition of the training group and from when until when
they did this sport.
We have not analyzed these data yet either.
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PUTNAM
FARES BETTER THAN
BOURDIEU
SPORT CLUBS BUILD BRIDGES, THEY DO
NOT ERECT WALLS - BETWEEN NATIVES AND FOREIGNERS
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Next to the question of bowling apart or who sports with whom,
should stand the question of
who goes to school with whom,
who works with whom,
and who lives close to whom.
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We are back at Borgadus’ old scale of social distance,
but then in Laumann’s version of actual ties, rather than Bogardus’
opinion version,
plus additions about specific and general attitudes and perhaps about
intergroup violence.
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The findings on sport are work in progress.
Some are coming out in Dutch right now.
Others will be featured in the ph.d. of Ruud van der Meulen, with separate chapters hopefully coming out in international
journals.
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This presentation may be viewed in full on my website
under the heading foreign presentations:
socsci.ru.nl/maw.sociologie/ultee/
Or just type in google: wout ultee
It is the first hit.