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By drawing on comparative analyses of successful second-generation Turks from disadvantaged family backgrounds in France and the Netherlands, this article examines pathways and mechanisms that lead to educational success against the backdrop of structural and familial disadvantages. We foreground the experiences and practices of successful second-generation Turks in both countries and demonstrate the importance of institutional arrangements and their interactions with individual resources to account for their success. We use data from the "The Integration of the European Second Generation" (TIES) survey to reconstruct school careers and to inventory opportunities and constraints presented to them in the most important selection processes. We illustrate our findings with life stories drawn from qualitative interviews with TIES respondents in both settings. Combining the results of both quantitative and qualitative data analysis allows us to unravel the mechanisms of the educational success of second-generation Turks from disadvantaged backgrounds.

As performative approaches to urban studies and urban transformation have continuously gained influence in recent years, this journal issue aims at charting new ways towards methodological pluralism and multidisciplinary research from a perspective of performativity. In this context, research is understood as a performative act creating outcomes and performing knowledge in multiple research media. The performative as a conceptual term also reunites arts-based, artistic, and traditional research approaches, closing the gaps created by an orthodox understanding of scientific methodology solely based on quantitative and qualitative methods. Performative research or research as performance, therefore, holds the potential to provide a comprehensive, transdisciplinary understanding of knowledge creation which can reunite a plethora of methods and disciplines under the concept of performativity as the expression and creation of knowledge as a collective, transformative endeavour. The performative and its power to change existing urban realities and collective worldviews ultimately offers a conceptual tool for bringing researchers form different disciplines together and co-developing solutions for current problems together with affected populations. In the context of urban studies, performativity may guide the way towards a participatory understanding of contemporary urbanity and societal co-evolution based on a collective ownership of urban spaces. The contributions to this issue present a methodological toolbox, indicating what performativity may imply in the field of urban studies and which benefits it entails for researchers, engaged citizens, and urbanites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exhibition 'An (Un)Pleasant Journey. The Life of Stefan Edlis after HIM' brought Maurizio Cattelan's sculpture HIM to the Jewish Museum Vienna and referred to an indelible part of collective European history from the perspective of the eponymous collector's life story. In this context, Margula Architects realized an innovative exhibition concept for the sculpture, without 'putting it on a pedestal', integrating a very specific museum space, references to different times and places in the life of Stefan Edlis and a notorious piece of contemporary art in a unique design solution. Their spatial installation guides the viewer's gaze through space on an imaginary journey through the collector's life from his emigration to the US in 1941, to successful plastics manufacturer, and finally to famous art collector. The exhibition and the narration of Edlis' life story revolved around 'HIM', one of Cattelan's wax-sculptures, as an example of the collector's approach to contemporary art, also mirrored in the documentary 'The Price of Everything' directed by Nathaniel Kahn. By adopting the concept of spatial collage Margula Architects combined multiple references to different time-spaces, mediated via fragments of design history. A rich spatial narrative was interwoven with the museum's venue, drawing visitors in, guiding them through space and referring to Stefan Edlis' eventful life. Together with the museum's curatorial team, Margula Architects realized a unique exhibition setting for a controversial piece of contemporary art, conceptually challenging traditional notions of exhibition design, while striving for new horizons for communicating meaning, emotions, and history in space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From medieval city views to contemporary urban imaginaries, imagination has always played a major role for outlining human understandings of urban life. Just recently, urban studies, urban planning, and artistic research have re-discovered imaginary approaches to urban lifeworlds as viable stimuli for urban transformation and social critique. In order to find pathways for sustainable development, creative strategies and imaginations of collective utopia have become a vital source of inspiration for urban planning and architecture. Interdisciplinary, inclusive approaches to create urban utopia have become central to thinking and writing about the urban as a shared imaginary matrix for collective sensemaking. This article provides a selective overview of the role of urban imaginaries from the Middle Ages, to the 20th century, and on to contemporary perspectives on urban spaces. In this brief tour d'horizon the potentials of images, imaginations, and utopian perspectives on urban life are sketched out for exploring and ultimately designing places of urban cohabitation. As an introduction to this journal issue on the role of urban imaginaries for creating liminal spaces for social change and critique, this article also aims to describe the use of creative strategies and urban imaginaries for urban studies, urban transformation projects, and artistic interventions in urban spaces. The articles in this issue demonstrate the multifaceted nature of urban imaginaries in contexts as diverse as exhibition design, visual anthropology, urban studies, and virtual/augmented reality. Adopting different imaginary perspectives ultimately paves the way for understanding urbanization as a utopian project, a collective struggle, and a manifestation of collective will, which continuously produces tangible and intangible outcomes. Processes of planetary urbanization, therefore, also inspire us to reflect on social, economic, and cultural co-evolution and participation on a global scale. This way, urban imaginaries become blueprints for social change, critique, and societal innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mixed reality (MR), a technology which supplements the real world with virtual objects, is increasingly becoming available as a teaching tool in medical education. The Microsoft HoloLens device allows operators to experience MR using a head-mounted device without interfering with their physical reality, stimulating a realistic learning experience using virtual objects. This project aimed to develop a MR anatomy teaching application with HoloLens for exploring the anatomy of the temporal bone. The educational application was developed from a multidisciplinary collaboration between undergraduate and postgraduate students across several academic disciplines with Medtronic, a medical technology company. 3D anatomical models were built using ZBrush and Blender, while the HoloLens1 application was developed using Windows 10, Visual Studio 2017, Unity and Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRTK). Modules developed within the application included a basic HoloLens tutorial, a virtual temporal bone with surgical anatomy landmarks and free drilling of the temporal bone. The basic tutorial allows the operator to adapt to the MR environment prior to exploring the anatomical landmarks of the 3D temporal bone. The free drilling of the temporal bone using vertex displacement and texture stretching replicates a real-time bone drilling experience and allows the operator to explore the anatomical relationship between different otological structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines academic achievements of immigrant youths in four new immigration countries: Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. The analysis based on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of 2009 and 2012 reveals large educational achievement gaps between immigrant children and natives in all four south European countries. The achievement gaps shrink substantially after accounting for differences in family backgrounds. The drawbacks faced by immigrant children in these four new immigration countries are due to fewer economic and material resources being available to them. On the other hand, the educational background of parents does not account for immigrant-native differences in academic performance. This stands in contrast to many traditional European immigration countries in which a lack of educational resources explains larger parts of the educational disadvantages of immigrant children. Our findings provide empirical evidence for the very precarious socio-economic integration of adult immigrants in new destination countries who, despite their relatively strong educational credentials, are placed into the lowest occupational positions. Such weak occupational attainments among the parental generation translate into a lack of material resources and investments available to families to foster their children's education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With ongoing immigration from 'all over the world', European cities are realising that the local level is gaining importance as a setting for interethnic coexistence. In this article, we investigate the attachment of migrants and natives to their local context in three neighbourhoods (one better-off, two more deprived) in Vienna that differ in contextual, structural, and socio-economic characteristics. We ask how the place attachment of natives and migrants is related to weak and strong social ties. In all three neighbourhoods, we found a majority of residents reported high or medium levels of attachment proving that urban neighbourhoods are still important contexts for local residents. A closer look revealed differences across groups and research areas: The strongest place attachment is displayed by natives in the middle-class area of Laudongasse, with migrants being significantly less attached, but still more than migrants (and natives) in the two deprived settings. In social housing (Am Schöpfwerk), migrants are more attached than natives, whereas in Ludo-Hartmann-Platz, the difference is not significant. The first result is that obviously deprivation reduces individual place attachment. In contrast to previous studies we found that socio-demographic factors are not relevant, it is social contacts that are important in explaining local attachment. For natives and migrants alike, close ties in the neighbourhood raise local attachment. Small talks are relevant for migrants but not for natives. This is in line with previous studies emphasising the special relevance of weak ties for migrants in supporting the integration process in a new environment. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regarding the spatial dimension of ego/alter relations, the fact whether egos and alters live within the same neighbourhood and the consequences thereof are heavily debated. Some authors argue that a network consisting mostly of people who live in the same urban area may result in lower socio-economic opportunities. Another strand of research emphasizes the importance of strong ties on the local level for neighbourhood embeddedness and social cohesion. In this article the role of the neighbourhood (a) in the formation of strong ties, (b) as the place where strong ties currently live and (c) as a meeting place for people sharing strong ties is investigated for three neighbourhoods in Vienna. In line with previous research results, it turns out that in the socially marginalized remote setting, strong ties are more often neighbourhood-based and less often interethnic. In the more affluent neighbourhood, strong ties are not so strongly bound to the neighbourhood, but are more spatially dispersed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]