Cultural participation beyond the individual

A new INVENT study by Jordi López-Sintas, Giuseppe Lamberti, Jörg Rössel, and Željka Zdravković shows that cultural participation in Europe is shaped not only by individual social position, but also by broader national conditions such as socioeconomic and cultural modernization.

Published in the International Journal of Comparative Sociology, the study examines patterns of both highbrow and lowbrow cultural participation across European countries using data from the Eurobarometer, European Values Study, and the World Bank. The researchers used the 2008 financial crisis as a quasi-experimental case to explore how economic shocks affect cultural engagement.

The findings reveal that in countries with higher levels of socioeconomic and cultural modernization, social background plays a smaller role in determining whether people participate in cultural activities. These countries were also more resilient to the negative effects of the 2008 debt crisis on cultural participation.

By identifying several distinct participation patterns and country clusters, the study highlights how national contexts can reduce inequalities in access to culture and support more stable cultural engagement during periods of economic uncertainty.

Link to the article: https://doi.org/10.1177/00207152251324171