ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates how household income, wealth, respondents’ and their parents’ education, and demographic characteristics (such as gender, age, urban or rural place of residence, citizen or migrant status, and religious affiliation) influence offline cultural participation and conceptions of culture of respondents from nine European countries. Unlike most cross-national studies that examine participation in highbrow activities, this study focuses on everyday cultural practices, which help bring about social values, even if they have no commercial value or value in canonical artistic terms. The analyses reveal five different configurations of cultural participation and conceptions of culture. Although the relationship between the level of participation and the scope of the conception of culture is not always linear, a higher level of cultural participation is generally associated with a broader conception of culture and vice versa. The main part of the chapter delves into how social inequalities affect cultural practices and conceptions of culture in the included countries. The findings show that social inequalities in all analysed countries influence everyday cultural practices in the same way as art-related practices, demonstrating that the same social barriers prevent participation in both.
