Sociologie

Samenvatting

This article addresses the question of why less educated white Dutch people translate their economic egalitarianism to a lesser extent into support for distributing welfare to ethnic minorities (‘welfare chauvinism’) than more highly educated white Dutch do. Three theories are tested to answer this question. According to a first theory a low level of political competence among less educated is responsible, a second theory claims this pattern is rooted in their weak economic position, whilst a third focuses on their limited amount of cultural capital. Survey data representative for the Dutch population are used to test those theories (n=1,972). Only the third theory, based on a cultural logic, stands the empirical test. The implications of this finding for debates about ethnocentrism, deservingness and welfare state legitimacy, as well as the ideological profile of the less-educated are discussed.