This paper investigates how the 2008–9 recession affected civic participation in disadvantaged and affluent neighbourhoods in the city of Rotterdam. We hypothesize that levels of civic participation may either diverge or converge across neighbourhoods with a different socioeconomic status. We build upon a recent wave of studies examining how civil society has been affected by the 2008–9 recession. Using five waves from the Rotterdam Neighbourhood Profile survey (N = 63,134; 71 neighbourhoods), we find converging trends in civic participation. Between 2008 and 2013, civic participation declined in affluent neighbourhoods but increased slightly in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This convergence is partly due to the level of perceived problems in the neighbourhood and differences in the types of volunteering found in disadvantaged and affluent neighbourhoods. In addition, we argue that these converging trends can be better understood by considering the neighbourhood organizational infrastructure and local policy configurations. Next to examining the impact of the 2008–9 recession on civic participation, we contribute to research on civil society by comparing the UK and Dutch context.
Social class plays a central role in understanding the urban structure, yet its conceptualization and operationalization in urban studies are limited. We have used the Bourdieusian conception of social class, which conceives of class as the possession of economic, social and cultural capital, to establish the class structure of Rotterdam. We make a theoretical contribution to the literature by discussing how this conception provides new insights into the professionalization-polarization debate. Furthermore, we examine the spatial distributions of different class fractions, known as the geography of class. Based on two waves of a comprehensive city survey, we applied latent class analysis to develop an elaborate class typology consisting of seven social classes. We investigate how the class structure developed between 2008 and 2017 and analyze the changes in spatial class divisions. Our findings show that the transformation of the class structure is mainly driven by changes in cultural capital, that is, middle classes with high cultural capital replacing lower and middle classes with low cultural capital. Spatial analyses further reveal that classes are dispersed in specific ways and that these patterns of dispersion change over time. Finally, we reflect on the relevance of Bourdieu's work in studying the urban class structure ARTICLE HISTORY
The current retrenchment of European welfare states is putting more emphasis on citizen participation as an alternative for public services. This study examines differences in neighbourhood participation between urban neighbourhoods in Rotterdam in which, given their population composition, active citizen’s participation is expected to differ. We also examine to which extent neighbourhood characteristics such as neighbourhood deprivation, ethnic diversity and organizational infrastructure and individual characteristics of residents explain variations in neighbourhood participation between neighbourhoods. Using a large survey dataset, bivariate analyses show strong associations between neighbourhood characteristics and average levels of citizen participation. Multilevel regression analysis reveals that these differences in citizen participation are predominantly explained by individual characteristics such as education and age. Our findings show that the current focus on civic participation may result in more inequality: citizens in advantageous positions are at least better equipped to adapt to the retrenchment of the welfare state than those in disadvantaged positions.
This study examines to which extent neighbourhood ties relate to employment status for the less-well educated inhabitants of 71 neighbourhoods in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. Previous research has produced different expectations as to whether having contact with neighbours is either positively or negatively related to being employed and how this relation differs across neighbourhoods. Two waves from the Neighbourhood Profile survey (N ¼ 8507) were used, which included measures of the contact frequency with neighbours and their willingness to help. We find that for the less-well educated neighbourhood ties have a modest negative relation to employment. Moreover, this relation does not vary across neighbourhoods with different socioeconomic statuses, with the exception of part-time working men. Our research implies that neighbourhood ties in mixed neighbourhoods do not positively relate to employment for the less-well educated, thereby questioning policy assumptions about 'social mix'. Contributions to the field of neighbourhood studies are made by employing measures of the social networks mechanism and taking into account the conditionality of effects across neighbourhoods.
Studies by Savage et al. (2013) and Vrooman, Gijsberts and Boelhouwer (2014) introduce new class typologies that combine Bourdieu’s work with latent class analysis. This paper identifies this new research approach as Bourdieusian latent class analysis. We discuss the role of these studies within the social class debate and we review the merits and limitations of this approach. In addition, we show how the class structure of Rotterdam can be empirically established by studying the distribution of economic, social and cultural capital. We use the Neighbourhood Profile data (N = 14,040; 71 neighbourhoods) to develop a class typology that includes eight social groups. This class typology complements conventional indicators of neighbourhood socioeconomic status and can be used to study ‘social mix’ and gentrification.
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