Kenneth Hemmerechts

The relationship between parental literacy involvement, socio-economic status and reading literacy

Abstract In this article, we explore the relationship between parental literacy activities with the child, socio-economic status (SES) and reading literacy. We draw upon the Bourdieusian theory of habitus development to explore this relationship. Multilevel analyses of a survey of 43,870 pupils (with an average age of 10 years) in 10 Western European regions reveal a positive relation between early parental involvement in literacy activities (before primary school) and an increasing level of reading literacy and parental education. Students with a lower SES also have lower reading literacy and reading attitudes than students with a higher SES. We also find that children with a lower SES experience more late parental involvement in literacy activities (during the fourth year of formal schooling) than children with a higher SES. We also show that late parental involvement in literacy activities is an adjustment for worse or better reading literacy during primary school.

The Relevance of a "Culture of Migration" in Understanding Migration Aspirations in Contemporary Turkey

Abstract This article investigates the relevance of the presence of a “culture of migration” and related migration feedback mechanisms for explaining migration aspirations. This study focuses on the districts of Dinar and Emirdağ in Turkey—which have a distinct migration history toward Europe. The question is raised whether and how migration aspirations of potential migrants change according to the presence of a “culture of migration”—living in a migration-impacted region or not. This study relies on data collected in these two regions on the basis of a representative survey and in-depth interviews collected in the context of the EUMAGINE project (2010–13). Migration aspirations in a region characterized by a “culture of migration”—Emirdağ—prove to be significantly lower than that in a similar socioeconomic region, but with no “culture of migration”—Dinar. Perceptions of the economic opportunities in Europe and of the working and living conditions of immigrants in Europe are more negative in the migration-impacted region of Emirdağ than in Dinar. It is interesting to note that the population in Emirdağ has still a similar (positive) vision on the democratic and human rights capital in Europe, as the population in Dinar.

Imagining Europe from the Outside: The Role of Perceptions of Human Rights in Europe in Migration Aspirations in Turkey, Morocco, Senegal and Ukraine

During the last decade, debates about the meaning of Europe have been prominent in various disciplines (Christiansen et al., 2001; Malmborg and Strath, 2002; De Teyssier and Baudier, 2006; Wilson and Millar, 2007). With the enlargement of the European Union (EU) to 28 Member states, discussions about what exactly Europe is and where it is going are gaining importance (Strath, 2006). However, perceptions of Europe are usually studied from within the EU. In contrast, perceptions of Europe from the viewpoint of non-EU states and their citizens remain largely unexplored — although the field is growing, as this volume demonstrates. The concept of Europe is now of interest not only to European societies but also elsewhere in the world (Wilson and Millar, 2007). Human rights and democracy are central features of the EU, also in its international policies and in its migration and asylum policies. The international EUMAGINE research project,3 which ran from 2010 until 2013 covering four major emigration and so-called transit countries, studied the links between such outside perceptions of the democracy and human rights of Europe and the desire to migrate to Europe. Given that democracy and human rights are core values of the EU, the focus on the role of perceptions of human rights and democracy in migration aspirations and decision-making fits in with (EU) policy as well as academic needs.

Immigrant students’ educational expectations: The role of religious affiliation and practice

Abstract A body of scholarly work has emerged on educational expectations. More recently, the relationship between educational expectations and immigrant background in Western Europe has been investigated. Although the results of this type of inquiry show that students with an immigrant background tend to have higher educational expectations, potential explanations of this relationship remain unarticulated. In this article, we investigate whether religious affiliation and practice help explain the relationship between immigrant background and educational expectations. We use the Flemish survey data from the 2009 wave of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS). In comparison with students who claimed to have no religious affiliation, students with a Muslim and other religious affiliation were more likely to have these expectations. This relation does not hold for the students with a Christian religious affiliation. However, the effect of religious affiliation disappears when the effects of religious participation were included. We also found that the more religiously active, the higher the educational expectations are for the students. This effect diminished when we controlled for talking with parents about political or social issues. The relationship between immigrant background and educational expectations is partially explained by the level of religious practice and religious affiliation of students.

Social Capital and Mathematics Achievement of Fourth and Fifth Grade Children in Segregated Primary Schools

ABSTRACT Scholars have consistently demonstrated that the socioeconomic composition of the pupil body is related to academic achievement. The effect of ethnic/immigrant concentration, on the other hand, is more controversial, as some have found no impact of the ethnic/immigrant composition when other aspects were taken into account. Social capital theory claims that it is possible to compensate for a disadvantaged background or school composition when pupils benefit from being integrated in specific social structures. This article tests whether social capital is positively related to the mathematics achievement of pupils in the fourth and fifth grades of Flemish primary schools in which most of the pupils have a low socioeconomic and/or an ethnic/immigrant background (i.e. segregated schools).

The Order of Human Interdependencies: Simulating Elias’ One-level Multi-person Models

Sociologist Norbert Elias made it his lifework to describe and explain long-term processes. According to Elias, these processes cannot be studied voluntaristically by only focusing on human intentions or motivations. This is because they are the unplanned result of a whole spectrum of interactions of different people over time. According to Elias, these interactions between individuals interweave to produce a development that is relatively autonomous from the actions of individuals. To illustrate how the actions of individuals interweave and produce emergent dynamics, Elias constructed several theoretical models that are simplified versions of social processes. Importantly, the different models state precise propositions and consequences of specific types of interweaving that can be formally tested. This article simulates the Eliasian approach to social life. We reproduce the theoretical models of Elias with a method that is highly suited to investigate their emergent dynamics: agent-based modelling. Agent-based models are computer models that simulate agents (i.e. individuals or groups of individuals) and their interaction with other agents. More specifically, we test whether the theorized consequences of the Eliasian models exist when we implement their propositions in a computational framework.

Barriers to Peace in Civil War

In conflict studies, quantitative analyses of civil war have grown in popularity. The onset, continuation, termination of civil war and their determinants are the focus of this growing subfield of conflict studies. Research institutions now exist that specialize in the statistical study of civil war, such as the Centre for the Study of Civil War at the Peace Research Institute, Oslo, and the Department of Peace and Conflict Research in Uppsala. Furthermore, peer-reviewed journals that regularly publish quantitative studies of civil wars, such as Civil Wars, the Journal of Peace Research and the Journal of Conflict Resolution, have been founded. Over the years, multiple datasets have been developed to further investigate specific aspects of civil war. Advances in this subfield have been numerous. An increased knowledge has been gained of relations among different variables, such as the democratic level of a state and phases and types of civil wars. An important contribution to the quantitative literature on civil war is Barriers to peace in civil war by David E. Cunningham. His work adds to our knowledge of civil conflicts, especially their continuation and termination. In this book, the author seeks to investigate ‘why some civil wars end quickly and others last so long’ (p. 1). To answer this question, Cunningham adopts the theory of veto players originally developed by political scientist George Tsebelis to investigate governmental bargaining and the workings of political institutions. With veto players, Cunningham means actors who ‘have the ability to “veto” any settlement that does not give them what they want’ (p. 23). According to Cunningham, the number of veto players has an influence on the duration and termination of civil war. He argues that more veto players in conflicts means a longer duration of the conflict. With more veto players engaged, the likelihood of reaching a peace agreement decreases (p. 15). In addition to the relationship between veto players and war duration, Cunningham argues that ‘the more diverse the preferences among veto players, the longer the duration of the civil war will be’; ‘the stronger the veto players in the conflict are, the longer the duration of the civil war will be’; and ‘conflict between the state and individual rebel groups will be longer when there are other veto players in the conflict’ (pp. 60–61). BOOK REVIEWS