Test Case Poverty. On the Relationship Between Inequality Attitudes and Social Position
Julian Heide
KZfSS 75, 2023: 117-142

Abstract: In contemporary social theory, it is often assumed that cosmopolitan attitudinal complexes are found in upper social strata, whereas lower social strata are characterized by communitarian values. This article focuses on the poor as the lowest segment of the social stratification structure in order to examine attitudes toward various social inequalities, using this group as a test case. Three socially controversial fields of social inequality, namely sexual diversity, migration, and social security, are integrated into an analytical context. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), it is shown that people in poverty are no more skeptical about homosexuals or transgender persons than nonpoor people are. However, people experiencing poverty are more likely to oppose migration movements. Skepticism about migration is greater among people in long-term and intense poverty than among people with discontinuous poverty histories. In the field of social security provision, people with experience of poverty prefer state security measures over private security. The test case of the poor shows that it is not possible to make general assumptions about attitudinal complexes in certain social positions; rather, attitude fields must be considered in a differentiated manner.

Keywords: Polarisation · GSOEP · Migration · Diversity · Social policy attitudes

Seven Decades of Gender Differences in German Voting Behavior
Ansgar Hudde
KZfSS 75, 2023: 143-170

Abstract: This article describes long-term changes in gender differences in voting behavior in Germany, using a globally unique data source: information from real ballots. Compared with self-reports in available surveys, actual votes counted by gender and age groups have three advantages: neither representativeness issues nor social desirability bias, a huge sample, and coverage of seven decades, beginning in 1953. Besides party-specific voting patterns, I analyze summary measures for gender dissimilarities, both overall and separated by age groups. The modern gender gap—women voting more left-wing than men—first appeared in Germany in the 2017 election, surprisingly late compared with previous international research. The speed and structure with which the modern gender gap grew suggest that it is due to period effects rather than cohort effects. The modern gender gap differs by age group and, in post-World War II Germany, women and men have never been as divided about politics as the youngest voters in 2021. These findings partly contrast with previous survey-based results. To explore whether this contrast stems from the smaller sample sizes of previous studies or gendered survey bias (e.g., more social desirability bias among women), I compare results from real ballots with estimates from two survey data sources. Findings suggest that large surveys might provide reasonable estimates at the aggregate level but might overestimate the gender gap for more radical parties such as the AfD (Alternative for Germany).

Keywords: Political sociology · Modern gender gap · Germany · Survey bias · Social desirability bias

Secularity at the Pool. Attitudes Toward Own and Other Body Practices
Ines Michalowski
KZfSS 75, 2023: 171-201

Abstract: This study investigates the negotiation of secularity in public organizations based on the example of body practices in German swimming pools. The question is whether the emergence of the burkini has led to a renegotiation of the role of religion in pools, which are usually considered a completely secular space. The analysis is based on 101 short interviews with pool visitors conducted on site. It shows that people justify their own body practices mostly by referring to their adoption of the majority norm. When body practices deviate from this majority norm, functional and value-based arguments are used as a legitimization. If individuals support other individuals’ body practices even though these are more conservative than their own, they do so by referring to higher values such as diversity or self-expression. An understanding of religiously motivated body practices through connection with own experiences could not be observed. The findings contribute to the literature on the relationship between the secular and the religious body by illustrating that the perceived irrationality of religiously marked body practices is accepted exclusively through value-based tolerance, not genuine comprehension. The study also discusses the role of organizational rules for the accommodation of religious body practices by focusing on both the rules’ enabling forces and their limits that mainly come along with other users’ reactions.

Keywords: Burkini · Religion · Islam · Attitudes · Germany

Dying Requires Latency. Organized Palliative Care Between the Poles of Acting and Experiencing
Armin Nassehi · Irmhild Saake · Niklas Barth · Katharina Mayr
KZfSS 75, 2023: 203-233

Abstract: In sociological studies on hospices and palliative care units, it is often criticized that the organizational form of such facilities shapes the experience of the dying. Using problem-centered expert interviews with doctors and nurses as well as narrative interviews with dying persons, this study examines the criteria according to which all those involved attribute opportunities for action and the experience of dying to themselves and to others. This way we can show that professional actors experience the process of dying as “good” if it can be interpreted as a shared experience of professional actors on the one hand and dying people on the other hand, who wanted the process to happen in this way. This is remarkable against the background of another finding of this study; namely, the systematic differences between the perspectives of professional actors on the one hand and dying persons on the other when experiencing the process. While the dying in our study experience their dying as a threatening discontinuity, the professional actors experience dying as a continuously expected process. The consensus fiction of the shared experience of dying obviously represents a helpful expansion of the options for dealing with dying, since the irreconcilability between ideal and practice, the differences between the perspectives of those dying, and the professional actors and thus the insoluble problem of finiteness can be kept invisible. Anyone examining hospices and palliative care units should reckon with enormous freedom in the work of interpretation, which creates latency in dying.

Keywords: Palliative care · Studies of ceath and cying · "Good" Sterben · Systems theory · Different perspectives

Increasing Poverty Persistence and the Role of Path Dependencies in Individual Life Courses
Jan Brülle · Markus Gangl
KZfSS 75, 2023: 1-35

Abstract: The probability to exit poverty has been declining in Germany since the 1990s. We assess the contribution of shifts in the composition of the population in poverty and the changing structure of exit probabilities using a nonlinear decomposition analysis and data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. We find that the growing proportion of single-adult households has contributed to declining exit probabilities but that more frequent past experiences of unemployment and a self-reinforcing effect of longer durations of episodes in poverty have been even more important. Thus, our results emphasize the importance of path dependencies in individual life courses. At the same time, we show that younger adults and members of the working classes face the strongest decline in exit rates from poverty. Furthermore, the hardening of poverty is mainly found in eastern Germany. Trends toward declining probabilities to exit poverty are counterbalanced by other developments in western Germany—for example, rising education levels of the population in poverty.

Keywords: Poverty · Labour market · Household structure · Path dependency · Decomposition analysis · Event history analysis

Does Neighborhood Really Matter? Associations Between Neighborhood Characteristics and Educational Success
Cornelia Gresch · Lars Hoffmann · Georg Lorenz
KZfSS 75, 2023: 37-61

Abstract: Only a few studies have examined the possible effects of neighborhood characteristics on educational success in Germany. According to epidemic theories, neighborhood effects are nonlinear and occur only when certain thresholds are met. We investigated the effects of socioeconomic neighborhood characteristics on students’ academic achievement while considering possible confounding effects of individual and family characteristics as well as the school composition. The data basis came from the cross-sectional IQB Trends in Student Achievement studies in 2015 (N = 1467, 9th grade) and 2016 (N = 1546, 4th grade) merged with sociospatial data from the Bremen State Office of Statistics. Findings from cross-classified multilevel models reveal that neighborhood characteristics are associated with academic achievement. These associations are mainly attributed to the confounding effects of individual, family, and school characteristics. We find no evidence for nonlinear effects or differences in neighborhood effects between the two age groups. The study’s findings contribute to the discourse on the consequences of sociospatial segregation for educational inequality.

Keywords: Neighborhood · residential environment · Segregation · School context · Educational inequality

The Role of Values as Mediator in Relationships Between Social Position and Cultural Omnivorousness in Germany
Yevhen Voronin
KZfSS 75, 2023: 63-89

Abstract: Research on cultural omnivorousness—the concept conceptualized originally as the ability to expand one’s cultural preferences—continues to grow in prominence in studies of the cultural dimension of social stratification. Given recent inconsistent empirical findings, this study returned to the origins of the concept and examined the role of values in developing omnivorous cultural taste. Based on the example of Germany and relying on data from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS/GGSS) in 2014, this study empirically examined the indirect effect of social position on cultural omnivorousness via postmaterialistic values using structural equation modeling. The findings suggest that postmaterialist values could be mediators; a higher position in the social structure implied a higher likelihood to hold postmaterialist values, which led to higher cultural omnivorousness. The indicators of social position were also analyzed separately, given that the explanatory power of educational attainment in predicting cultural omnivorousness was approximately the same as that of occupational characteristics. The proportion of the relationship mediated by values did not differ significantly in models with education or occupational characteristics as predictors of cultural omnivorousness.

Keywords: Cultural sociology · Music taste · Postmaterialist values · SEM · Mediation analysis