122 Ethnic sorting in football member transfers. In addition, the number of members who change clubs is low compared to the total number of dropouts. Consequently, clubs do not seem to compete with one another on the basis of their ethnic composition, and members who drop out as a result of the ethnic composition of their club are likely to leave amateur football all together. The importance of ethnic similarity So where does this leave us with regard to the main research question of this dissertation: ‘What is the impact of ethnic background on membership ties to Dutch football clubs?’ The results have shown that despite amateur football’s popularity, ethnic background plays a decisive role in the likelihood that citizens will form and maintain ties to football clubs. Ethnic groups differ substantially in the degree in which they become and stay members of football clubs, which cannot be explained by differences in resources or socio-economic position. Instead, it was found that membership ties to football clubs are significantly strengthened by ethnic similarity and, vice versa, weakened by ethnic dissimilarity between members. While this effect appears to be universal, the degree in membership ties link to ethnic peers varies significantly between ethnic backgrounds. This makes the impact of ethnic background on membership for an important part not an individual but a relational issue. Namely, it is not one’s ethnic background per se that determines ties to amateur football clubs, but rather the extent to which this ethnic background does or does not overlap with the backgrounds of other club members. Composition over culture Another key insight of this dissertation is that its findings invalidate cultural explanations for ethnic disparities in the frequency and especially longevity of membership ties to sport clubs. A popular claim in public discourse is that membership ties to voluntary associations are deeply embedded in ‘Dutch culture’, as opposed to the ‘cultures’ of people with migrant backgrounds. This cultural deficit approach tends to go hand in hand with ideas that Dutch citizens with migrant backgrounds need to be educated or emancipated in order to fully participate in and contribute to civil society. While over time this claim has already become less and less tenable due to the rise of second and third generation citizens with migrant backgrounds, this dissertation serves an important piece of
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