European inventory of
societal values of culture

The Influence of Social Inequalities on Culture

López-Sintas, J., Cveticanin, P., Katz-Gerro, T., Kim, J., Lamberti, G., Rössel, J., Walo, S., & N. Yodovich (2022). The Influence of Social Inequalities on Culture. INVENT report (43 pages).

This report provides an overview of the sources of unequal cultural opportunities faced by ordinary people in present-day Europe. It adopts a bottom-up perspective to  unequal cultural opportunities, which means that 
instead of starting from some pre-defined  concepts, it  summarises  the findings of several exploratory  studies  of  the Influence of  social inequalities on cultural  participation  among people across different European countries and social indicators. The report opens with a brief discussion on  the societal values of culture,  the sources of  social inequalities  in  cultural participation, and how the various societal megatrends in Europe since the latter part of the 20th century have affected both the socioeconomic environment (the macro context in which we  live)  and  the  individual’s position in the social space. We  conclude  that  inequalities in cultural access negatively influence the societal values of culture. Follows a synthesis of  the main findings of  several reports conducted within  this work package  (WP), unequal access to culture  is  organised  according to the WP  objectives:  1) perception of changes due to growing social inequalities, 2)  sources of unequal access to culture within and between countries, 3) unequal lifestyles, and 4)  the  stratification of the social values of culture (the association between cultural participation and life satisfaction, social openness, and the social distribution of exclusive and inclusive views of culture).  Findings are based on wide-ranging and nationally representative survey datasets collected by INVENT in 2021 in its nine countries (Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK) and on Eurobarometer data. We have also collected data on social media and the stratification of  the meanings of culture, and  interviews have been conducted with a sample of migrants and  local residents. In addition, the meanings of culture as expressed  in social media have been analysed regarding the social inequalities in ascribed meanings. We end with a summary and implications for cultural policies.