The White Working Class as
‘Flawed Consumers’:
Representations and Policy
Responses
The Open Society Foundations are a family of
more than 30 foundations active in more than
70 countries around the world. The Open
Society Foundations support justice and human
rights, freedom of expression, and access to
public health and education. The Foundations
work to build vibrant and tolerant democracies
whose governments are accountable to their
citizens.
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Research and Advocacy
Mitigation of anti-minority and antiimmigrant sentiment
Equality and social cohesion in Western
Europe
Local and national government engagement
and EU where necessary
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Undertake research and advocacy on issues which
undermine open societies
Offer evidence based comparative research and contribute
to better informed policies and debate on diversity and
equality in Europe
Engage local governments to improve political will and
leadership in countering intolerance
Support the critical engagement of grassroots organisations
at city and national level
Strengthen or support the creation of a shared sense of
interest between communities
HOUSING
EMPLOYMENT
COHESION
EDUCATION
MEDIA
POLICING
POLITICAL
PARTICIPATION
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Premised on policy knowledge gaps
Evidence based comparative research
Qualitative methodology
City level
Muslims in EU Cities
Somalis in European Cities
Engaging Marginalised Majority Populations
and Communities
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Advocacy is an organised attempt to change
policy, practice and/or attitudes and
behaviour by presenting evidence and
arguments for how and why change can
happen
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Research-driven
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Sustainable change at
the local level
Local ownership
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Briefings, partnerships,
facilitation, networks,
capacity building, grant
giving, media, visual
representation,
promoting good
practices
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Local, national and
European levels
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City administrations
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Civil Society Actors
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European networks
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And what about the
other players?
Six cities
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Aarhus, Denmark
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Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
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Berlin, Germany
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Lyon, France
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Manchester,
United Kingdom
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Stockholm,
Sweden
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‘White working class’ or ‘marginalised
majority population’?
“individuals who are citizens of the country
where the research was taking place and born
in that country and whose parents were also
citizens of the country and born in that
country”
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Qualitative research
12 focus groups in each city
Semi-structured interviews with key
stakeholders (policy makers, practitioners,
civil society activists)
Berlin
Lyon
Amsterdam
Stockholm
Aarhus
Manchester
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Areas of majority ‘white working class’
population
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Traditional centre left municipalities
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Not the ‘most deprived areas’ in the city
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Significant support for far right parties
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Economic insecurity, networks of support and
identity
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Failure to involve white working class
communities in integration policies
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Stigmatized local identites
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Relative lack of attention on underachievement of white working class children
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Reforms in education have encouraged
segregation on the grounds of both class and
ethnicity
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Degrading of vocational education
Rise of negative media stereotypes
Chavs (UK), Hartz IV television (Germany), “aso-TV”
Netherlands
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Structure of media industry/professionals and decline of
traditional local media
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Symbolic neighbourhoods: Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Tuindorp,
Triegeparken,
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Community based social media challenging representations
of local areas
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Director:
nazia.hussain@opensocietyfoundations.org
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Advocacy Officer:
klaus.nielsen@opensocietyfoundations.org
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Prog. Assistant:
csilla.toth@opensocietyfoundations.org
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Senior Policy Adv.:
tufyalc@yahoo.co.uk