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Previous studies have used language proficiency, citizenship, labour indicators, educational outcomes and political rights as measures of migrants’ socio-cultural integration. However, little is known about the migrants’ participation in volunteering activities, music concerts, theatrical plays and artistic activities, among others, and how this is compared to the participation of natives, defined as people of German descent and born in Germany. The study aims to investigate and compare the cultural and social involvement between migrants and natives.

The analysis relies on information from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey (GSOEP). Panel data models, in particular, the random-effects ordered Logit model, are utilised because the investigated outcomes are recorded in frequency and are ordered variables. The authors compare the participation in socio-cultural activities among immigrants of the first, second and 2.5 generations.

The findings indicate that first-generation immigrants are less likely to engage in various socio-cultural activities. However, the 2.5 generation immigrants are more active than the native population, as this generation of immigrants participates more frequently.

The findings highlight the importance of fostering interaction between natives and immigrants in the workplace and the social and cultural realms. Participation in social and cultural activities may increase intercultural awareness and contribute to the eradication of bias and prejudice.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to use a large panel dataset to compare the participation of natives and migrants in various social and cultural activities. In addition, this is the first study to analyse second and 2.5-generation immigrants.

Countries have implemented various migration policies targeting the migrants' economic and political integration and social inclusion. However, little is known about the impact of migration policies on migrants' participation in socio-cultural activities and their link with well-being. The first aim of this study is to explore the effect of the Migration Act of 2000 in Germany on participation in socio-cultural activities of first-generation migrants. The second aim is to examine the impact of socio-cultural activities on subjective well-being (SWB), measured by life satisfaction, and how it is compared between first-generation immigrants and natives.

The Migration Act of 2000 was extended in 2005 to provide permanent residence permits to high-skilled migrants and deliver cultural orientation and German language courses. The author will implement a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) methodology comparing the relationship between socio-cultural participation and SWB of first-generation immigrants and natives.

The results show that while first-generation immigrants participate less frequently in the socio-cultural activities explored, they experience an increase in participation after the implementation of the 2000 Migration Act. Furthermore, migrants report lower levels of SWB than natives, but their life satisfaction significantly improves with the increase in socio-cultural participation.

The findings of this study have implications for researchers and policymakers, such as income, education and employment promoting migrant integration. Providing employment opportunities and a permanent residence permit, cultural participation, and thus, the integration of migrants can be successfully achieved.

While there is a long debate about the effectiveness of migration integration policies, this is the first study investigating the effect of the Migration Act of 2000 on migrants' socio-cultural participation and well-being.

The purpose of this article is to illuminate the relations of work-related practices of local managers of live music events in Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL) and barriers and needs of vulnerable customers (VC) in order to explore possibilities to increase cultural participation of VC.

This article explores work-related practices of managers of live music events in OWL and asks if and to what extent these practices have an influence on the cultural participation of “vulnerable customers” (VC). It combines the findings of two studies: a) an explorative investigation on the work-related self-conceptions of managers of live music events in OWL (Study 1), and b) a sub-project on cultural participation of VC, which is part of the research project “kulturPreis. Increasing cultural participation through innovative and economically sustainable pricing concepts”, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Study 2).

It can be stated that there is an imbalance of knowledge: while VC tend to have a clear understanding of which barriers are the responsibility of managers of live music events, managers tend to lack knowledge regarding the needs of VC, and regarding the interrelationships between financial and social barriers facing them. Whether this knowledge and understanding can be developed in the future depends on the possibilities of exchanges between managers of live music events, cultural institutions, welfare organisations, political institutions and not least VC.

Based on these studies, this article combines different approaches by linking work-related practices of managers of live music events with cultural participation of VC.

This paper aims to study possible differences between the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) defined in the designation of Cuenca as a World Heritage (WH) site and its inhabitants' perceptions of heritage value. The study is based on research conducted in the historic centre of Cuenca in Ecuador, which was accorded WH status in 1999.

The research employs both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, providing a complementary approach to the research subject. Quantitative research involved a probability survey of 400 informants randomly selected from the population of the canton of Cuenca, while qualitative research included 40 semi-structured interviews with residents and traders in the historic centre and 150 further written consultations with residents of the city.

Following the introduction, methodology and description, the paper presents the data gathered from the survey and interviews. These indicate inhabitants' perceptions of the meaning, values, and uses of WH in Cuenca and reveal differences between their perceptions and those of the official OUV.

Although there are several studies on WH residents' perceptions of UNESCO OUV, few highlight the mismatch between local community views of heritage and those established by UNESCO. This study reflects critically on the concept of OUV, which is based on technical and political criteria rather than social participation. The study employs methodologies that could be applied in other case studies and used to improve heritage management. This is the only study on local perceptions of Cuenca's OUV.

The paper studies the simultaneous effect of formal and informal volunteering on self-perceived individual health across nine European countries while controlling, among other things, for socioeconomic characteristics and social and cultural participation.

This paper employs the 2006 wave of the EU-SILC dataset for estimating recursive trivariate probit models using instrumental variables.

The paper finds that although formal volunteering and informal volunteering are correlated with each other, they have different impacts on health. Formal volunteering is never correlated with higher self-perceived individual health except in the Netherlands. In contrast, informal volunteering is related to lower self-perceived individual health in Austria, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy.

The first limitation concerns the absence of other measures of volunteering, such as volunteering hours that are not available in the employed dataset. The second limitation is that the dataset collection on social and cultural variables in EU-SILC is cross-sectional while the optimal dataset should be a panel data. The third limitation is that instrumental variables are observed in the same year of declaring self-perceived individual health while the optimal timing would be at least one year before.

Findings of the paper show that formal volunteering has no effect on self-perceived individual health while informal volunteering has negative consequences.

Volunteering is performed because of an individual decision and could be considered a consequence of how social responsibilities are distributed within countries. Our results show that informal volunteering has a negative effect on health; this is likely to depend on how people manage stress coming from performing this altruistic activity. It is likely that a more cautious distribution of social responsibilities could prevent the negative effects of informal volunteering on health.

The originality of the present paper is in simultaneously examining the impact of formal and informal volunteering on self-perceived individual health. Furthermore, most of the existing studies on formal volunteering and health focus on a single country; this paper compares nine European countries characterized by different social, cultural, economic, and institutional features. Finally, the paper addresses the issue of reverse causation.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2017-0548

In this chapter, we explore perceptions of exclusion and inclusion among students registered with the office of disability services at a large urban university in the United States. Our goal is to extend the current discourse on inclusion in higher education settings by drawing attention to social and cultural participation as an underemphasized aspect of educational inclusion and by bringing the perspectives of university students themselves into the discourse. While the general consensus among our interviewees seemed to be that schools and universities do a reasonably good job of developing classroom accommodations to meet their individual academic needs, stigma and social exclusion persist in damaging ways, in and outside of the classroom. A number of participants found solace and empowerment in interactions with other students with disabilities and suggested that until the forces of exclusion and stigmatization can be entirely eradicated, disability-friendly social and cultural activities and spaces designed by and for students with disabilities might provide an oasis of relief in a disabling world. Thus, we conclude that in addition to working towards the ultimate goal of making all aspects of university life disability-friendly, universities might better serve needs of current students by providing social spaces in which students with disabilities can socialize with each other and through which they might co-create and promote their own agendas for future institutional change.

The purpose of this paper is to show if and to what extent in the EU countries the probability of being an active citizen depends on individual/household social capital endowment, other than on individual/household socio-economic characteristics. The paper provides a deeper insight of the determinants of active citizenship due to the growing concern of the European Commission with citizens’ issues.

The core of the paper, which adopts a micro-level perspective, is an empirical analysis, based on a logistic model, of the EU-SILC 2015 survey data.

The statistical analysis reveals that individual/household social capital, other than individual/household socio-economic characteristics, represents an important prerequisite for a citizen to be defined as “active.”

There may be a possible reverse causation between active citizenship and social capital, making this last endogenous. Therefore, results should be taken with some cautions; nevertheless, the estimated effects of the individual/household socio-economic characteristics are coherent with the literature, giving strenght to the results obtained in estimating social capital effects.

The results show that active citizenship could be enhanced by promoting “desirable” aspects of social capital through specific policies addressed to raise people’s civic and political awareness, active solidarity and connectedness and cooperation between individuals within the communities for their own benefit. Moreover, a crucial role in enhancing active citizenship can be undoubtedly played by a lifelong learning process, from school to adult age, directed to maintain and acquire skills as drivers for active citizenship.

This study fills a significant gap in the literature, since so far little attention has been paid to individual/household social capital endowment as possible determinant of active citizenship.

The purpose of this paper is to adopt a critical relational dialectics framework to identify and explore gender discursive struggles about social inclusion observed in an online gaming community, in South Africa.

The paper uses a technique called contrapuntal analysis to identify and explore competing discourses in over 200 messages on gender struggles about social inclusion posted in the local community’s gamer discussion board, based on seven threads initiated by women gamer activists.

The findings show how four interrelated gender discursive struggles about social inclusion and social exclusion animated the meanings of online gamer relations: dominance vs equality, stereotyping vs diversity, competitiveness vs cooperativeness and privilege vs empowerment.

Game designers should reinforce more accurate and positive stereotypes to cater for the rapidly growing female gamer segment joining the online gaming market and to develop a less chauvinistic and more diversely representative online gaming community. Enlightened gamers should exercise greater solidarity in fighting for gender equality in online gaming communities.

The critical relational dialectics analysis adopted in this study offers a promising avenue to understand and critique the discursive struggles that arise when online gamers from the different gender groups relate. The findings highlight the unequal discursive power and privilege of many white male gamers when discussing social inclusion. Advancing our understanding of these discursive struggles creates the possibilities for improving social inclusion in online gaming communities.

The concept of a creative place has been considered by experts, but a review of the research background shows that the definitions provided for creative place are different, and the factors that make an urban space a creative place are not clear. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the concept of creative place and to extract the indicators that make an urban space considered a creative place.

By extensive library studies and using a specialized panel, 59 items in the form of 12 indicators were extracted as identifiers of a creative place and a researcher-made questionnaire was prepared and tested in a case study. Data analysis of this study was performed in two stages by using the factor analysis method in R software.

The factors of “competitive advantage (economically)”, “freedom”, “attractiveness”, “entrepreneurship and professionalism”, “culture and art”, “vitality”, “diversity”, “distinction”, “participation”, “reconstruction, nobility and infrastructure”, “meaning” and “creative experiences” are important as identifiers of creative place, respectively. The evaluation of the case study showed that the total score of creative places in this urban space is 69.6 (out of 100) and “meaning” gained the most point in this urban space.

The factors of this research can be provided to architects and urban planners as identifiers of a creative place and a case study can be evaluated in terms of the degree of compliance with creative place identifiers.

There is significant debate regarding the necessity for and existence of moral exemplars in business. We believe it is both necessary and beneficial for free market economic systems to be viewed as a moral exemplar by business students, educators, practitioners, and ethicists. Since much of the world operates under some type of free market economic paradigm, it is important that there be a moral base for these operations.

Free market economic systems are usually defended on utilitarian grounds, that they produce better results than other systems. In this chapter we take a micro approach and show that free market economic systems support individual rights and dignity. This is important because business persons need moral exemplars based in their own discipline’s theory to recognize the vocational aspects of business. That is, business persons must understand why free market systems serve the greater good.

Free market systems are not a complete or perfect moral exemplar. Business persons need to know the limits of the economic system and find other moral exemplars for their role as citizens. We illustrate this with the discussion of monopoly and Option for the Poor.

Catholic Social Teaching (CST), the moral exemplar of the Roman Catholic Church, has been developed over many centuries. The purpose of this chapter is to show how free market economic outcomes are compatible with CST goals. Illustrating the consistency between CST and free market systems provides compelling evidence that such systems are indeed a moral exemplar for business persons.