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This paper focusses on the experiences of Syrian refugee youth in Rotterdam with the first school closure (spring 2020), due to COVID-19 policy measures. Based on repeated qualitative interviews with 19 boys and girls – before, during and after the school closure – we examine how Syrian refugee youth have experienced the school closure, and how this influence their educational position by using the four central tasks of education of Van de Werfhorst and Mijs (2010). Syrian refugee youth in our study emphasize that online education is more difficult to understand and stress they miss their friends at school. Moreover, their circumstances at home are not ideal for online learning, and therefore reaching the appropriate level of education becomes harder. This paper highlights the importance of the social aspect of education. Whereas going to school normally also stimulate friendships and their socialization in Dutch society, the school closure makes this more challenging. Especially for refugee youth school has extra relevance for reasons of e.g. mental health, resiliency, and socialization. Through our case studies, we argue that the school closure contributes to an accumulation of risks and inequalities. We conclude that the school closure will likely increase educational inequality for young people with a refugee background and makes their educational position more vulnerable.

Detecting salient features: in defence of a multidimensional approach This paper addresses the question how salience, i.e. the perceptual and cognitive prominence of language features (Kerswill & Williams 2002: 63), can be studied and explained. Within language change studies, the concept of salience is often called upon to explain why certain language features are more prone to change than others, but empirical data to substantiate claims of salience are often lacking or non-convincing. In this paper, an overview is offered of ways in which salience can be studied empirically, building on the insights of recent perceptual dialectological research. It will be argued that a combination of techniques should be strived at, as this allows to combine the strengths of each approach. Subsequently, by offering an overview of existing hypotheses, the question will be addressed how salience can be explained. The formulated insights will be illustrated and tested by means of a multimethodological salience experiment conducted in Flanders. This case study clearly shows (1) the advantage of an approach combining dialect imitation data and several types of interview data and (2) that salience is influenced by a variety of factors, such as the linguistic background of the listener and the context in which the feature occurs.

Omnis Determinatio est Negatio. On Habermas, Myth, and Truth With his monumental genealogy of Western philosophy Jurgen Habermas delivers an achievement that is worthy of great praise. In carefully constructed arguments he presents in detail the close connection between, and the mutual indebtedness of, religion and philosophy as they developed in the West for more than two millennia. With regard to the current state of affairs he acknowledges that we should continue to engage with subjects such as purpose, meaningfulness, and how to behave. He proposes that where religion is withdrawing, philosophy should take its place. In spite of its great merits, there are some fundamental shortcomings in the overall image Habermas wishes to convey. By suggesting that Western religion and philosophy have been the major driving forces not only of cognitive but also of ethical progress, he underestimates the moral value of pre-Socratic and other holistic world views that radically differ from the idiosyncratic Western one. For example, he perceives Homer’s mythological thinking as nothing but a primitive state of mind against which the ethical and intellectual progress of later developments could come to the fore. This paper proposes that we should give much more weight to the difference between the ‘cognitive’ and the ‘ethical’ than Habermas does. In principle, as a form of argumentative reasoning, philosophy belongs to the (cognitive) domain of truth. As such, it is not a suitable successor to religion. On the other hand, provided they operate primarily within their own domain – which is the domain of meaningfulness –, religion (in whatever form), literature and the arts, ancient myth, friendship, love, and humour may still be best equipped to sharpen our sense of justice and help us deal with feelings of moral disorientation and fragmentation.

In this paper we investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on subjective well-being of higher education students in the Netherlands. More specifically, we compare international students and Dutch students, based on the Dutch data of the COVID-19 International Student Well-Being Study, a cross-sectional survey conducted between May-July 2020 among higher education students across the Netherlands (N = 10.491). Based on the sociological literature on the relationship between social capital and subjective well-being, we investigate in particular whether changes in social contact during the first lockdown can explain differences in subjective well-being between international and Dutch students. Our results suggest that although international students report lower levels of subjective well-being compared to Dutch students, these differences cannot be directly explained by (changes) in social contact during the lockdown.

A G1000 is meant for everybody: Participation in Kruiskamp, Amersfoort, theNetherlandsIn the Netherlands, citizens’ summits are employed to provide citizens aspace within the present democratic system. By using a micro lens to studyprocesses at a G1000 in a neighbourhood in the Dutch city of Amersfoort, wehave gained insights into the course of the programme of the summit. Weanalysed how deliberation, group dynamics and (differing) mind-sets affectcommunication, the creation of a common ground, and the activation ofcitizens. We found that a safe space is required to enable participants tothink out of the box during deliberation. Facilitation by skilled moderators aswell as transparency during the program are seen as preconditions for apowerful operation. We also found that interference by representatives ofthe system world – like (local) government officials – can disturb the groupprocess based on everyday life principles. Finally, this paper shows thatdiversity among participants is not easily reached, if at all. While the aim is towelcome everyone, there are some implicit values that especially attract thewhite middleclass. This makes inclusivity of different social classes, ethnicbackgrounds, religions, and age a challenge that is still difficult to accomplish.

In this paper, I treat Sophie de Grouchy as an important contributor to liberal reflection on the famous distinction between two kinds of liberty. I place her in the intellectual context of Adam Smith and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and show it is likely that Benjamin Constant was familiar with her work. Along the way, by engaging with Isaiah Berlin and with Jason Stanley and Vesla Weaver, I make some suggestions on the nature of an intellectual tradition worth having.

Recently there has been an increased interest cross-linguistically in how speakers use interjections in everyday interaction. A particularly productive line of inquiry deals with what are known as change-of-state tokens, interjections with which speakers claim that there has been a shift in their cognitive state such as their knowledge, understanding, attention, etc. In this paper I explore the variability of the Dutch interjection oh /o/. Focusing on its use in response to informing turns, I argue that as a free-standing particle speakers use it to claim that the information in that prior turn was in some way unexpected: either because it contradicted what the speaker claimed he or she knew, or because it contradicted some presupposition that was encoded in an earlier question. I subsequently discuss the most frequent ways in which oh is combined with other turn components, showing how it is used to respond to announcements of valenced news, to do now-remembering, and to make claims of now-understanding. In closing I show that when oh prefaces additional turn components such as oke, each component deals with a different action-implication of the ongoing sequence and that oh is used to receive the information being conveyed.

Social (spatial) inequality appears to be increasing in many cities across the globe, and also in Europe and in the Netherlands. Formerly rather equal societies, such as Sweden and the Netherlands, are currently confronted with much higher levels of socioeconomic inequality, potentially also resulting in increasing spatial inequality. In this paper we address these dynamics, with a special focus on Europe and particularly on Amsterdam. We refer to a range of structural and institutional factors that help understand the processes towards higher levels of social spatial inequality, and also pay attention to the potential effects of the developments that have been described. It is concluded that many governments express an intention to reduce the levels of social spatial segregation. However, we gauge that few governments will actually intervene in the structural and institutional dynamics behind the processes described. Instead, a much more pragmatic type of policy may currently be the best to expect as an effort to stay away from the most negative impacts of increasing social spatial inequality.

Cross-age friendships in 25 European countries This paper focuses on individual and country-level circumstances shaping friendships between young and old to gain insight into conditions for intergenerational solidarity. Using European Social Survey data, findings show that relatively few people have cross-age friendships (18% of the young and 31% of the old). As predicted by the ‘meeting principle’, individuals who operate in settings where there are opportunities for meaningful interactions with people belonging to a different age group are more likely to have cross-age friendships. As predicted by the ‘disposition principle’, individuals with more favourable feelings about other age groups are more likely to have cross-age friendships. Neither the Active Ageing Index nor macro-level trust and individualism show significant associations with the likelihood of having cross-age friendships. Apparently, conditions that bring generations together are meeting opportunities at the local level, underscoring the importance of decentralized initiatives aimed at increased contact and co-operation across age groups.

This paper analyses two late sixteenth-century armorials with the coats of arms of the 235 participants of a tournament, organized in May 1439 on the central market square, the Grote Markt, of Brussels. The armorials, trustworthy copies of a now lost original, recorded the performance of an exclusive social category in public space, and express in a distinctive visual way the internal hierarchy of the tourneying society: team leaders, leaders of large companies, leaders of of small companies, and 'ordinary' participants. The heraldic elements that were essential to this hierarchic arrangement - banners, pennons, shields – were actually used during the tournament, as well as the depicted helmets and crests. It goes without saying that these occasional rolls were important for the nobility of the Low Countries, both at the time of the tournament and at the time of their creation in the last decades of the sixteenth century. Inclusion of their coats of arms in the armorials ensured the participants of a place in the collective memory. The compilers of the armorials played an essential role in defining the nobility as a social category since participating in a tournament meant that you lived nobly and that your peers considered you as a nobleman. The two copies of the original armorial in the last decades of the sixteenth century reproduced the social classification within the nobility in the second quarter of the fifteenth century. It shows that the same mechanisms of social distinction still played a role at that time.

This paper analyses two late sixteenth-century armorials with the coats of arms of the 235 participants of a tournament, organized in May 1439 on the central market square, the Grote Markt, of Brussels. The armorials, trustworthy copies of a now lost original, recorded the performance of an exclusive social category in public space, and express in a distinctive visual way the internal hierarchy of the tourneying society: team leaders, leaders of large companies, leaders of of small companies, and 'ordinary' participants. The heraldic elements that were essential to this hierarchic arrangement - banners, pennons, shields – were actually used during the tournament, as well as the depicted helmets and crests. It goes without saying that these occasional rolls were important for the nobility of the Low Countries, both at the time of the tournament and at the time of their creation in the last decades of the sixteenth century. Inclusion of their coats of arms in the armorials ensured the participants of a place in the collective memory. The compilers of the armorials played an essential role in defining the nobility as a social category since participating in a tournament meant that you lived nobly and that your peers considered you as a nobleman. The two copies of the original armorial in the last decades of the sixteenth century reproduced the social classification within the nobility in the second quarter of the fifteenth century. It shows that the same mechanisms of social distinction still played a role at that time.