Semi Purhonen

Highbrow culture in Finland: Knowledge, taste and participation

This article explores the social distribution of involvement in highbrow culture in light of three issues being discussed in cultural sociology. One is that highbrow cultural orientation is an indicator of cultural capital or of social status. A second, the ‘meltdown scenario’, suggests that not only the popularity of highbrow activities, but also their distinctiveness, has decreased among younger cohorts in comparison to older cohorts. A third deals with the ‘feminization’ of highbrow culture. These issues are empirically addressed in contemporary Finland using nationally representative survey data. Highbrow culture is measured in three dimensions of cultural practices – knowledge, taste and participation – covering four different fields: music, literature, cinema and the visual arts. The results support all three arguments: First, education and occupational class are important social determinants of involvement in highbrow culture in Finland. Second, younger age cohorts show less interest in highbrow culture than do older Finns. Third, women tend to be more involved in highbrow culture than men. The results indicate considerable stability across the measures of highbrow culture and cultural fields. Social determinants of knowledge and cinema, however, are different from those in other dimensions and fields.

Slimness and self‐rated sexual attractiveness: Comparisons of men and women in two cultures

The relationship between body mass index (BMI) and self‐rated sexual attractiveness was studied on the basis of representative surveys of adult populations in Finland and in St. Petersburg in order to find out whether the body ideals related to sexuality differ in the two cultures. Data were analyzed by calculating correlations and by conducting regression analyses. In both countries, the connection between BMI and sexual attractiveness was stronger for women than men. St. Petersburg men were the only group in which thin people did not rate themselves as sexually more attractive than corpulent people. Regression analyses showed that (a) the impact of BMI on sexual attractiveness was not totally caused by the controlling variable age; (b) the hypothesized mediating variables, sexual activity and satisfaction, did not diminish the relationship between BMI and sexual attractiveness; and (c) the relationship was stronger in Finland than in St. Petersburg.

Methodological Issues in National-Comparative Research on Cultural Tastes: The Case of Cultural Capital in the UK and Finland

Drawing on two projects which develop the methodological model of Bourdieu’s Distinction in the UK and Finland, this paper explores the issues raised by the use of multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and mixed methods in comparative work on cultural tastes. By identifying the problems in the construction of two comparable yet nationally relevant research instruments, the paper considers the importance of the similarities and differences in the meaning of items in different national spaces for Bourdieu-inspired comparative analysis. The paper also reports on the evident similarities between the two constructed spaces and draws on the dialogue between quantitative and qualitative methods enabled by MCA in examining what different positions in social space appear to mean in these countries. It concludes by suggesting that, whilst Bourdieu’s model provides a robust set of methods for exploring relations between taste and class within nations, when used appropriately, it can also provide particular insight for the comparison of national fields.

Comparing “Cosmopolitanism”: Taste, Nation and Global Culture in Finland and the UK

This paper adds a comparative perspective to the study of taste, cosmopolitanism and social organisation. Drawing on material provided by two similar projects in the UK and Finland it explores the relationships between national and cosmopolitan taste cultures. Whilst there have been some recent attempts to study taste in a comparative perspective, the weight of sociological inquiry into taste is focussed on specific national spaces, including the France of Bourdieu’s (1984) seminal contribution. This tendency persists even as the production and circulation of culture is increasingly accepted as global. Global culture is assumed to be the driver of cosmopolitan ways of being, but is also interpreted as a threat to distinct national cultures. Studies of taste provide an empirical setting where the lived experience of global culture and the ambiguities of cosmopolitanism can be observed. Based on interviews and focus group discussions from the UK and Finland, the paper broadly concurs with those critics who see cosmopolitanism in the context of the maintenance of privileged political or symbolic positions of classes/status groups.

Generations on paper: Bourdieu and the critique of ‘generationalism’

This article first examines the role of the concept of generation in Pierre Bourdieu’s work. It shows that Bourdieu’s usage of the concept of generation varied throughout his œuvre and that Bourdieu seldom if ever used the concept in the same sense as Karl Mannheim and many subsequent sociologists who have understood generation as a potential source of identity and political mobilization. However, and second, the article argues that Bourdieu’s sociology does have much to offer for the sociological study of generations, but only if we stop concentrating on those rare passages in which he explicitly used the word ‘generation’. We should focus instead on his more general approach to the genesis of social groupings, classification struggles and the difficult relationships of representation. The application and extension of Bourdieu’s ideas demonstrated here can provide a welcome antidote to so-called generationalism – a simplified and exaggerated picture of generations, which dates back to early 20th-century European intellectuals and which can still be found in today’s popular discourses as well as in academic studies.

Polarizing Appetites?: Stability and Change in Culinary Tastes in Finland, 1995–2007

Abstract This paper presents an analysis of trends in culinary taste in Finland since the mid-1990s, a period characterized by rapid socio-cultural change, including changes in the area of food and drink. What culinary taste patterns can be identified among food and drink preferences in Finland? Are these patterns differentiated by socio-demographic characteristics? Have the shapes of culinary taste patterns and the way they are socially structured changed in recent years? These questions are analyzed using data from two nationally representative surveys collected in 1995 and 2007. The results show that the basic structure behind Finnish culinary taste revolves around the distinction between “modern” light/ethnic eating and “traditional” (often national) heavy/meat eating. Both patterns have clearly differentiated social profiles in terms of gender, age, education and geographical region. Somewhat unexpectedly, the main results show a striking stability over time. However, a more pronounced change could be detected in table beverage preferences than in foods.

The crisis of cultural journalism revisited: The space and place of culture in quality European newspapers from 1960 to 2010

The media is a key institution in producing, legitimizing and disseminating cultural classifications. From this perspective, newspapers and their sections devoted to culture are particularly interesting. This article examines how the structures of quality European newspapers have changed over time and in different socio-historical contexts, especially regarding the amount of space allocated to and the placement of articles related to culture. We draw on data from Helsingin Sanomat (Finland), Le Monde (France), ABC/El País (Spain), Dagens Nyheter (Sweden) and The Guardian (United Kingdom) – covering the time frame from 1960 to 2010. We use three types of data: individual articles about culture (N = 11,775), data on all the issues (N = 585) and full editions of the newspapers (N = 30). We show that the amount of space dedicated to culture has increased but that the placement of articles on culture has shifted slightly. We detect only weak signs of the assumed crisis of cultural journalism.

Cultural globalization on the printed page: Stability and change in the proportion of foreign cultural products in European quality newspapers, 1960–2010

To bring empirical scrutiny to the often very general and theory-driven debates on cultural globalization and to broaden the geographical scope of previous studies on the topic, this paper presents an analysis of the changes in the relative weight of national and global culture in the culture sections of quality European newspapers from 1960 to 2010. Through content analysis of newspaper articles, the paper examines how the composition of geographical origin of the cultural products discussed has changed over a half-century. The paper asks whether globalizing trends exist in newspaper coverage of culture or whether coverage of national culture remains dominant; to what degree is there variation, based on the art form discussed; and whether newspapers embedded in their national contexts differ from each other in these respects. The results show only a moderate increase in coverage of global products. However, clear trends were found that are associated with both the geographical origin of cultural products and the art forms discussed in the articles, highlighting that post-1960s cultural globalization is best understood as being intertwined with the rise of popular culture and the corresponding decline of traditional – and very European – highbrow culture.

Food, music and politics: The interweaving of culinary taste patterns, ‘highbrow’ musical taste and conservative attitudes in Finland

This article addresses two key debates in cultural sociology: one on coherent lifestyle patterns crossing several cultural fields and one on pervasive lifestyles, which also includes, apart from the cultural elements, wider socio-political orientations. The study takes the point of view of three fields rarely studied together – food, music and political attitudes – employing a rich empirical research design utilizing both representative survey data (N = 1,388) and qualitative interviews (N = 28). Starting from the analysis of how culinary tastes are socially stratified in present-day Finland, three culinary taste patterns are identified: preferences for ‘heavy/meat’, ‘light/ethnic’ and ‘fast food’. The most salient distinction is established between the light/ethnic taste (indicating a trend towards high status, female and urban) and the heavy/meat taste (inclined towards low status, male and rural). Culinary taste patterns are closely related with ‘highbrow’ musical taste and politically conservative attitudes. In particular, the light/ethnic culinary pattern is strongly associated with highbrow musical taste and liberal attitudes. The results support the ideas of structural homology between cultural fields and lifestyle patterning, including an important political component. At the individual level however the ‘homology’ is often far from perfect.