Researching Culture

Cultural practices indicators are widely used but their definitions are mainly specific to each analysis. The main purpose of this presentation is to provide some insights regarding the possibility of common cultural practices indicators for quantitative analysis at the individual level. This could be useful to allow easier comparisons among European societies and between individuals within countries. Moreover, this could be an appealing way for culture to become much more considered in interaction with other fields of research. Cultural practices are considered here through a broad definition: all free times activities are included. The presentation is structured as follow. First, a survey of the already existing cultural practices indicators is considered. This underlines the heterogeneity of these indicators. Second, the presentation focuses on the various potential uses of cultural practices indicators in order to identify – thus in a positive way – the broad shape of a desirable indicator. This underlines both conflicts regarding the manner cultural practices are represented and key points where these different uses could need a common approach. Third, a way to obtain common cultural practices indicators is offered and discussed. An empirical application is presented, using the Culture 2009 data set (Ministry of Culture – Luxembourg and CEPS/INSTEAD), and in comparison with already collected variables throughout Europe to ensure the practical value of proposed procedure for quantitative analysis.