The culture of official statistics. Symbolic domination and 'bourgeois' assimilation in quantitative measurements of immigrant integration in Germany
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2059930 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Martin Petzke (0000-0003-2616-1200, Bielefeld University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 213-242 |
| Publication date | 2023-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Theory and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0304-2421 • E-ISSN: 1573-7853 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s11186-022-09503-2 |
| PMID | 36969516 |
| OpenAlex | W4307048203 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 49 |
While cultural sociology has recently made a comeback in research on social inequality both in the context of poverty studies and studies of immigrant integration, it has rarely investigated how particular constructions of the problem of socioeconomic mobility are themselves culturally situated. The article addresses this neglect by investigating the problematization of disadvantaged lives within the relational framework of Bourdieu's cultural theory of the state. Here, the state exercises symbolic violence by transforming one arbitrary cultural standpoint in social space into a universal standard, or a taken-for-granted 'doxa,' against which other cultural positions can only come off as deficient. The article extends this perspective by addressing the role of official statistics in this process. Taking Germany's official monitoring of the socioeconomic integration of immigrants as its case and drawing from document analysis, interviews, ethnographic observation, and data from the German General Social Survey, the article shows how such statistical instruments of the welfare state in fact tacitly universalize a model of the good life particular to civil servants, the very constructors of the monitors, as a benchmark for immigrant integration
Bourgeoisie · Immigration · Linguistics · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Populism, Right-Wing Movements · Social and Cultural Dynamics
Participation and political equality
The Many Hands of the State
Cracks in the Pavement
The Rise of Historical Economics and Social Reform in Germany 1864-1894
Moral Classification and Social Policy
Geschichte und Gesellschaft
Poverty Knowledge
Remaking the American Mainstream
Trust in Numbers
Trust in Numbers
The New Spirit of Capitalism
Measures and Their Countermeasures
Managing the National Status Group
Introduction
Culture and Race/Ethnicity
The New Second Generation
Why Islam is like Spanish
Assimilation and the Second Generation in Europe and America
Processual Sociology
Grounded Theory
Methodological Nationalism, the Social Sciences, and the Study of Migration
What People Want
Beyond Deservingness
Reconsidering Culture and Poverty
New Life for an Old Concept
The sociologist and the state. An assessment of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology
The Deferred Gratification Pattern
From Poverty to Perversity
Time orientation and social class
Beyond SES
What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good for
Finding one's way in social space
Regulating the Social
In Other Words
What's New with Numbers? Sociological Approaches to the Study of Quantification
A Sociology of the Unmarked
Classification and Coercion
Measuring the World
Cultural Categories and the American Welfare State
The Modern State and the Primitive Accumulation of Symbolic Power
Religion, classification struggles, and the state's exercise of symbolic power
The particularity of the universal
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |