National Research Traditions Compared
In this section we discuss differences in national research traditions in three example countries; the UK, the Netherlands and Germany. These countries were selected as
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they have produced the majority of the publications. Furthermore, in these countries research has been carried out within all of the three themes, and these countries differ regarding the political and social climate concerning immigration (or the ‘contexts of reception’; Portes & Bo¨ ro¨ cz, 1989). A first difference is in the number of studies. In Germany only few studies on this rather broadly defined research field have been executed, while in the Netherlands more studies have been done. In the UK, however, the largest number of studies has been undertaken (see Table 1). Related to this, research from the UK displayed the largest spectrum of research perspectives. Some of those were not or scarcely studied in the Netherlands and Germany, such as national identity and rural racism, social inclusion and access to greenspace. Conceptually, research from the UK emphasised subjective experiences, for example (feelings of) stereotyping and rural racism and emotions experienced in greenspace, while these issues received little attention in the Netherlands and Germany (see Table 1). Dutch and German studies focused more on ‘objectively’ measurable phenomena such as specific recreational activities and landscape preferences.