Bram Spruyt
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 208360 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Bram Spruyt |
| PRENOMES | Bram |
| SOBRENOME | Spruyt |
| ASSINATURA | SPRUYT B |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Vrije Universiteit Brussel |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0573-724X |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 101 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 992 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 101 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2009 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 13 |
Social Differences in Youth Volunteering in an Increasingly Diverse Society
Volunteering offers young people valuable opportunities for personal and social development, yet social inequalities in access and participation persist. This study examines how ethnicity/migration background, gender and social status shape formal volunteering among Flemish youth, with special attention to how these characteristics intersect. Using survey data from students (age: 15–20) in urban areas and a rural control group ( n = 2,354), we ap…
Negotiating alternativity within boundaries
Introduction This paper examines how a specific type of alternative education in China—Innovative schools—negotiates its legitimacy within a particular social and political context. Methods Drawing on neo-institutional theory, we conducted a qualitative thematic analysis of the promotional materials of five Innovative schools. Findings Our analysis shows that these schools discursively negotiate their legitimacy by managing their relationships wi…
(In)visible young volunteers
Youth volunteering is often promoted to boost civic engagement. Yet concerns persist about social inequalities in access to and participation in volunteering activities, as well as the exact nature of these social differences. Besides formal volunteering, young people often participate in informal forms of volunteering, that is, they volunteer outside an organisational context, often for friends, family, or the community. Therefore, this study us…
The state and its schooled elite across 84 countries
Educational attainment is related to more political trust. In this study, we adopt a global perspective, arguing that this ‘education effect’ is conditional on the development of ‘schooled societies’. In such societies, schooling as a central institution installs educational attainment as a main source of social status, granting the higher educated a dominant position in the political field. Consequently, higher educated citizens have high levels…
Health, financial means and cultural participation in Flanders
Calling it quits
This article investigates whether experiences of the PhD trajectory during the first year of enrolment predict dropout during a later stage.More specifically, we studied how supervisor support, time pressure and passion for research relate to dropout among PhD students and assessed the role of discipline in this process.We used longitudinal data from four waves of the PhD Survey (2018 through 2021; N = 589), conducted at a university in Belgium, …
Informal caregiving and mental health
Our findings suggest that the stress of caregiving is more directly related to the nature and intensity of the caregiving tasks themselves rather than the demographic characteristics of the caregivers. Interventions aimed at reducing the adverse effects of caregiving might need to be universally applicable to all caregivers, focusing on reducing the intrinsic burdens of caregiving tasks rather than targeting demographic subgroups
United we stand, divided we fall
Public Communication about Science in 68 Countries
This 68-country survey ( n = 71,922) examines science information diets and communication behavior, identifies cross-country differences, and tests how such differences are associated with sociopolitical and economic conditions. We find that social media are the most used sources of science information in most countries, except those with democratic-corporatist media systems where news media tend to be used more widely. People in collectivist soc…
Navigating a precarious environment? Chinese middle-class parents’ choice for alternative education and the negotiation of their parental identity
Cross-national variation in teachers’ status as professionals
Whether teaching qualifies as a profession has been a longstanding debate. Inspired by the work of Ingersoll and Collins (2018), this paper studies cross-national variation in seven characteristics of the teaching profession. We examine their mutual interrelationships and relate these characteristics to job satisfaction and PISA results. Data from the Teaching and Learning International Survey 2018 (TALIS; 49 regions/countries) show that in gener…
Preference versus salience
Education-based affective attitudes
The Schooled Society Index
Since the end of World War II, a worldwide educational revolution has led to the development of what David Baker has termed schooled societies . In such societies, school-based education has become a central and authoritative institution, transforming individuals, groups and society at large. Up to this point, research on schooled society has focused mainly on its global similarities. Yet as within this global trend there exist important national…
Backlash among the dominant
In recent decades, populism has gained momentum in many Western countries and has increased the salience of the category “the people” in contemporary politics. This success of populist politics may evoke a backlash effect among more dominant groups in general, and the higher educated in particular, potentially triggering support for elitism. Based on preregistered analyses of survey data from four countries (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, D…
The nature and structure of European belief systems
We investigate the structure of political belief systems across Europe to investigate what belief systems in European societies, and those who hold them, have in common. In doing so, we answer three questions: First, are political belief system structures similar across Europe? Second, which demographic groups are likely to have similar belief systems within countries? Third, how are belief systems related to voting behaviour? Results from Correl…
Experienced student or rookie employee? A quantitative study on PhD candidates’ role perceptions and its influence on their expectations and self-efficacy
Taking it slower
Caught Between Ideology and Self-Interest
Belief in meritocracy and social status are central to understanding how people think and behave in relation to economic conflict. In this paper, we investigate how belief in meritocracy is moderated by (subjective) social status for three different aspects of citizens' attitudes towards economic inequality and conflict, namely (1) perceived conflict, (2) anger about economic inequality and (3) intentions to change economic conflict (egalitariani…
Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries
Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries, most p…
The perceived quality, fairness of and corruption in education in Europe
Although education is arguably one of the most central institutions in contemporary European societies, only recently scholars have started to study opinions that relate to the perceived legitimacy of education among the public at large. This paper contributes to this emerging literature. Based on data from the most recent wave of the European Quality of Life Survey (N = 23,073; 30 countries) we assess what individual- and country-level factors p…
Caught between academic calling and academic pressure? Working time characteristics, time pressure and time sovereignty predict PhD students’ research engagement
PhD students come to work in academic environments that are characterized by long working hours and work done on non-standard hours due to increasing job demands and metric evaluation systems. Yet their long working hours and work at non-standard hours are often seen as a logical consequence of their intellectual quest and academic calling and may even serve as a proxy for their research engagement. Against that background, quantitative data from…
Negotiating for distance
In recent years, Innovative Schools in Dali have received increasing coverage in Chinese social media and have also attracted middle-class parents from cities, as viable bottom-up educational initiatives. This paper explores the rationales for Chinese middle-class parents’ choice of Innovative Schools in Dali. Analysis of data from online interviews with 33 parents from seven Innovative Schools in Dali revealed three types of narratives parents p…
How consumers value sustainable packaging
Purpose This study investigates the combined impact of two packaging cues (i.e. packaging material, recycled content claim) and a price premium on young consumers’ product perceptions and choices. Design/methodology/approach Experimental data were collected online via a questionnaire and a hypothetical choice task completed by 221 young consumers (i.e. 19–25 years). We manipulated two packaging cues for a liquid food product: the packaging materi…
The Use of Machine Learning Methods in Political Science
In the past decade, applying machine learning methods in political science has grown in popularity. The increase in data volume and sources motivated researchers to turn to these data-driven methods as an alternative to classical statistics. Several review papers have proposed theoretical typologies for applying machine learning in social sciences. We present an overview of how and why machine learning methods are actually implemented in the fiel…
Who Supports Populism and What Attracts People to It
In this paper, we engage with the emerging literature that studies the support for populism by means of attitudes among the public at large. More specifically, our paper has two objectives. First, we extend recent research by Akkerman et al. by showing that their measure performs rather well in a context that differs from the one it was originally formulated in. Data from Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, N = 1,577) also demonstrate t…
Populism, Persistent Republicanism and Declinism
Populism is usually studied by looking at the electoral and rhetorical strategies of parties considered to be populist. In contrast, this article attempts to measure the support for the core propositions of populism among voters and explain the social differences in that support. On the basis of a survey of the Dutch-speaking population of Belgium (N: 2,330) we find that this support for populism turns out not to be directly influenced by a weak …
We the People’ or ‘We the Peoples’? A Comparison of Support for the Populist Radical Right and Populist Radical Left in the Netherlands
Research on thesupply side of politicsdemonstrates that populism acts as a common denominator even though populist parties possess very different ideological positions. However, it is uncertain whether this translates to the demand side: Do voters support left and right‐wing populist parties for similar reasons? Using the Netherlands as our case study, we investigate the commondemand sidecharacteristics of supporters of populist radical right and…
Educationism and the irony of meritocracy
Are anti-Muslim feelings more widespread than anti-foreigner feelings? Evidence from two split-sample experiments
This article tests the claim that anti-Muslim feelings are more widespread than general anti-foreigner feelings. It reports on two split sample experiments, in which a randomly selected part of the respondents evaluated statements for which the target group was identified as ‘foreigners’ and the other part evaluated the identical statements but with the target group identified as ‘Muslims’. By using open-ended questions we are able to separate th…
Burnout among senior teachers
The contemporary contradictions of egalitarianism
This paper deals with the often-observed complex relationship between the so-called old, ‘economic’ left/right alignment (egalitarianism) and the new, ‘cultural’ alignment. Many authors have observed that the less educated members of society occupy an apparently contradictory position, combining a leftist stand in favor of more equality and government intervention, with a rightist stand on minority rights, the treatment of criminals, and other as…
Religion and Negative Attitudes towards Homosexuals
Public opinion research has repeatedly shown that religious persons report more prejudice against homosexuality when compared to their non-religious counterparts. This article contributes to a better understanding of this relationship by studying attitudes of youth in two of the three largest cities of Flanders ( N: 1907). The ethnic and religious heterogeneous population of these cities allows us to empirically disentangle the relevance of both …
Education-based thinking and acting? Towards an identity perspective for studying education differentials in public opinion and political participation
Ever since scholars started studying public opinion and political acting, they have reported substantial educational differences. Much debate remains, however, about how to interpret these differences. Recently a number of scholars using a variety of terms and theoretical reasoning have proposed interpretations that suggest education has become a source of (inter)group processes. Against this background, the objective of this paper is twofold. Fi…
The Culture of Academic Disciplines and the Sociopolitical Attitudes of Students
Objective. Using cross‐sectional and panel data, this article estimates to what extent the association between students' choice of academic discipline and their sociopolitical attitudes is due to socialization and selection effects. Methods. This is done on the basis of seven incoming cohorts of students and one panel of students. Changes in the panel are controlled for contextual influences by comparing them to a control group. Results. Both sel…
Ideologically consistent, but for whom? An empirical assessment of the populism-elitism-pluralism set of attitudes and the moderating role of political sophistication
Scholars who study populism from an ‘ideational approach’ consider populism as a set of ideas based on a moralised anti-establishment thinking and a strong people-centrist view of politics. From this perspective, at a theoretical level, populist attitudes have the following two main contrasts: pluralism and elitism. In this article, we investigate the ideological consistency of the populism-pluralism-elitism set of attitudes among voters. Analysi…
Early career teacher retention intention
Subjective status and perceived legitimacy across countries
The relationships between subjective status and perceived legitimacy are important for understanding the extent to which people with low status are complicit in their oppression. We use novel data from 66 samples and 30 countries ( N = 12,788) and find that people with higher status see the social system as more legitimate than those with lower status, but there is variation across people and countries. The association between subjective status a…
An asymmetric group relation? An investigation into public perceptions of education-based groups and the support for populism
The “Islamized Stranger
There is an ongoing debate whether anti‐Muslim prejudice in Western countries is more widespread than prejudice towards other ethno‐cultural groups or general ethnic prejudice. Previous research used different methodologies and yielded contradictory results. In this article, we combine a population‐based split‐sample survey experiment (N = 1,323), where half of the respondents judged items about Muslims and the other half statements about strange…
The road less travelled’
In recent decades there has been an increasing number of parents opting for alternative forms of education worldwide. However, most studies on this phenomenon are conducted within Western contexts, while little is known about alternative education in China. This paper addresses this gap by providing an overview of alternative education in China over the past 20 years. This paper consists of four parts. First, we review the definition, categories,…
Warm, cold, competent or incompetent? An empirical assessment of public perceptions of the higher and less educated
Growing educational differentials in different domains have made some scholars wonder whether these differences have the potential to grow into an educational conflict and associated education-based group consciousness. In this article that question is contrasted with a body of literature which considers educational credentials a form of symbolic capital, that is, institutionalized social status. Theoretical insights derived from the social psych…
Universalism and anti-Muslim sentiment
Talking Politics? Educational Category Salience Reinforces Differences in People’s Willingness to Participate in Deliberative Initiatives
Against the background of an ever‐growing body of literature that documents educational differentials in different forms of political participation, scholars have started to study whether education itself becomes the object of intergroup behavior. Informed by social identity theory and self‐categorization theory, we examine whether making educational categories and the associated status differences salient affects people’s prospective political p…
Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries
Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries, most p…
The Salience of Perceived Societal Conflict in Europe
Over the last two decades, European countries have struggled with several crises (e.g., the Great Recession, the refugee crisis) which had a tremendous impact on (some) societies. Typically, these crises were accompanied by divisive public discourses that rely heavily on a sharp and moralistic us-them distinction. Especially extreme right- and left-wing parties have adopted such conflict discourses and have gained much electoral support. Against …
Do teachers have worse mental health? Review of the existing comparative research and results from the Belgian Health Interview Survey
The nature and structure of European belief systems
We investigate the structure of political belief systems across Europe to investigate what belief systems in European societies, and those who hold them, have in common. In doing so, we answer three questions: First, are political belief system structures similar across Europe? Second, which demographic groups are likely to have similar belief systems within countries? Third, how are belief systems related to voting behaviour? Results from Correl…
Classified out of society? How educational classification induces political alienation through feelings of misrecognition
Less educated citizens are both descriptively and substantively outnumbered by higher educated citizens in political and societal institutions. While social science has devoted much time to explain why such education effects exist, it has largely neglected the role of feelings of misrecognition in inducing political alienation among less educated citizens. We argue that education has become so central in processes of economic and social stratific…
In the Shadow of the Schooled Society
Over the past decades, the education system has gradually grown into a central and universal institution of society, the impact of which plays a primary role in economic and social stratification. This stratification, and the way this inequality is legitimated, contains serious moral judgements that favor the higher educated over the less educated. This article focuses on the socio-psychological consequences of living in such 'schooled societies'…
Kiezen en verliezen - Een analyse van de keuze na het krijgen van een B-attest in het Vlaams secundair onderwijs als een replicatie van Kloosterman en De Graaf (2009)
To choose and to loose: An analysis of educational choices after receiving a B-certificate in Flemish secondary education as a replication of Kloosterman and De Graaf (2009) .This study replicates the main findings of a recent Dutch study of Kloosterman and De Graaf (2009) using data from Flanders. We examine the educational choices made after receiving a ‘B-certificate’. This certificate is given to pupils who fail the year in a particular educa…
The Culture of Academic Disciplines and the Sociopolitical Attitudes of Students
Objective. Using cross‐sectional and panel data, this article estimates to what extent the association between students' choice of academic discipline and their sociopolitical attitudes is due to socialization and selection effects. Methods. This is done on the basis of seven incoming cohorts of students and one panel of students. Changes in the panel are controlled for contextual influences by comparing them to a control group. Results. Both sel…
The contemporary contradictions of egalitarianism
This paper deals with the often-observed complex relationship between the so-called old, ‘economic’ left/right alignment (egalitarianism) and the new, ‘cultural’ alignment. Many authors have observed that the less educated members of society occupy an apparently contradictory position, combining a leftist stand in favor of more equality and government intervention, with a rightist stand on minority rights, the treatment of criminals, and other as…
Are anti-Muslim feelings more widespread than anti-foreigner feelings? Evidence from two split-sample experiments
This article tests the claim that anti-Muslim feelings are more widespread than general anti-foreigner feelings. It reports on two split sample experiments, in which a randomly selected part of the respondents evaluated statements for which the target group was identified as ‘foreigners’ and the other part evaluated the identical statements but with the target group identified as ‘Muslims’. By using open-ended questions we are able to separate th…
Violence, fear of crime, and Islam scepticism
Many authors have raised the question whether Islam scepticism is different from more general expressions of xenophobia. This paper argues that in order to give the thesis of a differentiation between these attitudes a fair chance (1) it should be tested among the more highly educated part of the population, and (2) the analysis should include controls for determinants that might be specific to Islam scepticism. Therefore this contribution resear…
Keeping on track and growing apart
Forewarned is Forearmed? A Survey-Experiment concerning the Impact of Pre-Notification Letters on Response in a Postal Survey
The use of pre-notification letters is thought to increase the response rate of postal surveys. The empirical evidence for that claim, however, is not conclusive. In this research note we assessed the impact of pre-notification by means of data from a large-scale survey-experiment conducted in Flanders (N: 4000). Three outcomes were studied: overall response rate, timing of the response and quality of the response. No significant positive impact …
Talent, Effort or Social Background
Little research has been conducted into the way citizens explain educational outcomes today. This is remarkable because scholars have always claimed that education as an institution contributes to a representation of society in which success is ‘achieved’ on strictly meritocratic grounds. This paper attempts to fill this gap by examining public opinion on three explanations for educational success and failure – namely talent, effort and social ba…
Burnout among senior teachers
Universalism and anti-Muslim sentiment
An asymmetric group relation? An investigation into public perceptions of education-based groups and the support for populism
Dé spijbelaar bestaat niet
The typical truant does not exist: An empirical research on different categories of occasional truants in Flanders .1This study provides insight into the conceptual understanding of truant behavior by exploring different types of occasional truants among 4189 youngsters in secondary education in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). Occasional truancy can be interpreted as the most accessible form of truant behavior, a category that is o…
Education-based thinking and acting? Towards an identity perspective for studying education differentials in public opinion and political participation
Ever since scholars started studying public opinion and political acting, they have reported substantial educational differences. Much debate remains, however, about how to interpret these differences. Recently a number of scholars using a variety of terms and theoretical reasoning have proposed interpretations that suggest education has become a source of (inter)group processes. Against this background, the objective of this paper is twofold. Fi…
Religion and Negative Attitudes towards Homosexuals
Public opinion research has repeatedly shown that religious persons report more prejudice against homosexuality when compared to their non-religious counterparts. This article contributes to a better understanding of this relationship by studying attitudes of youth in two of the three largest cities of Flanders ( N: 1907). The ethnic and religious heterogeneous population of these cities allows us to empirically disentangle the relevance of both …
Do teachers have worse mental health? Review of the existing comparative research and results from the Belgian Health Interview Survey
Warm, cold, competent or incompetent? An empirical assessment of public perceptions of the higher and less educated
Growing educational differentials in different domains have made some scholars wonder whether these differences have the potential to grow into an educational conflict and associated education-based group consciousness. In this article that question is contrasted with a body of literature which considers educational credentials a form of symbolic capital, that is, institutionalized social status. Theoretical insights derived from the social psych…
Not for People Like Us? A Six-Year Panel Study of the Mutual Relationship Between Feelings of Relative Deprivation and Occupational Status Among Young Adults in Flanders
De Brusselse jeugd
Deze synthesenota, voorgesteld als een thematische nota, strekt ertoe een portret te maken van zowel de Nederlandstalige als Franstalige Brusselse jongeren van 12 tot 25 jaar aan de hand van een groot aantal diverse gegevens en wetenschappelijke werken die sinds 2005 zijn gepubliceerd. De complexe situatie op het vlak van de instellingen en het gebruik van de talen, die zowel de Brusselse context als de onderzoeken kenmerkt, vereist een dergelijk…
Brussels youth
Presented in a thematic manner, the aim of this synopsis is to paint a picture of French- and Dutch-speaking Brussels youth between the ages of 12 and 25, based on a great diversity of data and academic research published since 2005. The institutional and linguistic complexity which characterises the situation in Brussels and the production of research makes this type of exercise absolutely necessary. This inventory of knowledge regarding youth i…
Jeunesses bruxelloises
Présentée de façon thématique, cette note de synthèse a pour objectif de dresser un portrait des jeunes bruxellois, tant francophones que néerlandophones, de 12 à 25 ans à partir d’une grande diversité de données et recherches scientifiques publiées depuis 2005. La complexité institutionnelle et linguistique caractérisant à la fois le contexte bruxellois et la production des recherches rend ce type d’exercice tout à fait nécessaire. Cet état des …
Social Differences in Leisure Boredom and its Consequences for Life Satisfaction Among Young People
If only they had a file on every pupil’
During the past years, combating truancy has been high on the political agenda. However, throughout Europe one can observe that despite the numerous action plans and anti-truancy measures, truancy rates continue to rise. In this article, we focus on Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) as a case study to get a better grip on the mismatch between the general truancy policy and the everyday reality of truancy. Based on the analysis of (1) …
Meaning matters. An empirical analysis into public denotations of the label ‘strangers’ and their relationship with general ethnic prejudice
What is it worth? An empirical investigation into attitudes towards education amongst youngsters following secondary education in Flanders
This paper argues that whereas the social relevance of attitudes towards education is commonly confined to their direct impact on educational aspirations or attainment, attitudes may also impact on educational success in a way similar to cultural capital. Survey data were used to assess the support for three different attitudes with respect to the perceived value of attending school among youngsters (n = 853) following secondary education in Flan…
Who Supports Populism and What Attracts People to It
In this paper, we engage with the emerging literature that studies the support for populism by means of attitudes among the public at large. More specifically, our paper has two objectives. First, we extend recent research by Akkerman et al. by showing that their measure performs rather well in a context that differs from the one it was originally formulated in. Data from Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, N = 1,577) also demonstrate t…
Psychology (81 obras) · Social Psychology (61 obras) · Sociology (59 obras) · Political science (57 obras) · Social Psychology (42 obras) · Law (35 obras) · Politics (34 obras) · Social science (26 obras) · Law (24 obras) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (21 obras)