Macht Kultur glücklich? Überlegungen und Befunde zum Verhältnis von kultureller Partizipation und Lebenszufriedenheit

The article focuses on the relationship between life satisfaction and participation in “high culture” activities (attendance of opera, theater, classical concerts, and museums). The empirical basis is made up by four mail surveys of the adult population in three German cities. It is shown that life satisfaction is correlated with cultural participation and this also holds when the social background of the respondent—sex, age and education—is taken into consideration. However, when anomie and social contacts are brought into the analysis, the relationship diminishes. Life satisfaction is not result of the aesthetic experience that is tied up with cultural participation, but at best a result of the social involvement linked to the respective life style.     

Abbau ethnischer Grenzen durch Nationensport. Eine Analyse von Internetforen über willkommene und unwillkommene Zuwanderer

Sport-stars of foreign descent are sometimes role-models for integration of immigrants in a wider sense. Those kind of sport-stars are perceived as representatives of a new kind of national we-image that no longer stresses the ideal of a constitutive ethnic group. However, it is not clear, yet, that sport-stars are role-models in this sense, at all. The paper argues that parts of the main population just perceive those athletes as one of them because they are helpful in increasing national pride and prestige. Thus, this paper will discuss the concept of the ‘topos of benefits’ that is related to the process of dismantling ethnic boundaries. The paper is based on an analysis of discourses about immigrants in sport and outside of sport in internet-fora.     

Generationenabfolge – ein Faktor des Wandels in Modernisierungsprozessen. Shmuel N. Eisenstadts Beitrag zur Generationensoziologie

This paper will highlight to what extend Eisenstadt’s theory connects to the approach of historic generations. At first, his early comparative work “From Generation to Generation” is reconstructed. In this book, Eisenstadt presents a model of generations based on structural-functionalist assumptions; he conceptualizes the relation between generations and social change as a problem of system integration of specific age-groups on the one hand and the regulation of tensions between these groups on the other hand. Using the youth- and student movements as an example, this article shows how Eisenstadt’s interpretations change with the development of his theory. In the second part of this paper, it will be proposed how his approach can be developed further by interlocking his concept more closely with Mannheim’s theory of generations as well as other recent findings of socialization theory. It will furthermore be discussed, how his modernization theory has the potential to solve a theoretical problem inherent in Mannheim’s approach.