This cluster addresses large-scale social settings and involves questions related to the cultural diversity of societies with a focus on ethnicity and religion.

1. Due to migration, many contemporary European societies have become more multi-ethnic than ever before. Immigrants originate from countries with different social institutions, such as different laws on the equality of women or with hardly a distinction between the state and the church. Differences of old religious groups become less prominent while differences with more or less ‘imported' religions become more important. This leads to the emergence of new networks. The integration paradox is a key issue here: integration in social or ethnic groups at a meso-level is usually considered as something positive, but may have negative outcomes at the macro-level: solidarity within one's social or ethnic group may reinforce a lack of solidarity with other groups. The lack of solidarity between groups may become manifest in unfavorable attitudes, discriminatory behavior, and disconnected networks between groups. How can these phenomena be explained and which conditions affect the relationship between these forms of solidarity? Next to this, the relation between ethnicity and inequality becomes pertinent. Life chances of some minority groups are clearly below average. Research focuses on the explanation of these inequalities by going beyond an exclusive focus on cultural differences, and considering the specific resources available and the specific settings people live in.

2. Another topic of this cluster is religion, which is often closely linked to ethnicity. In the past decade, there has been a lively debate on the relationship between religious pluralism and religious involvement. Traditional secularization theories suggest that religious diversity induces lower levels of religious participation but supply side theory, based on market arguments, states that religious pluralism fosters religious involvement. Interestingly, this research neglects the organization of churches. Religious organizations have their own networks, which can be heavily centralized (Catholic church) or decentralized (Protestant church). It is to be expected that a highly centralized church organization will resist encroaching irreligion more than loose federations. Obviously, the same logic should apply to other religions such as Islam. Furthermore, priests, vicars, and imams have different positions in the networks of the laity. Related questions are: To what extent do we find differences in religious switching, re-churching, and un-churching among contemporary societies and how can these differences be explained? To what extent do differences in organizational structure and social context explain differences in secularization between religions?

3. The relation between religious involvement and behavior also is studied in this cluster. Behaviors like voting, civil behavior, participation in voluntary associations, various forms of solidary behavior, and intermarriage, are traditionally linked to religion. Trends in secularization are expected to imply trends in the frequency of occurrence of such kinds of behavior, but also in the strength of the links between religious affiliation and these behaviors. Various questions can be posed about trends in this domain and differences in these trends between societies. Some specific examples are to what extent the decline in particular activities has been compensated by an increase of secular associations (such as sport clubs, or environmental and human right organizations); and to what extent religious intermarriage varies among societies and over time and how these differences can be explained.