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.