Reducing Turkish Cypriot children’s prejudice toward Greek Cypriots: Vicarious and extended intergroup contact through storytelling

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 178-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shenel Husnu ◽  
Biran Mertan ◽  
Onay Cicek

Two studies investigated the effectiveness of intergroup contact in Turkish Cypriot children with the aim of improving attitudes, intentions, and trust toward Greek Cypriots. In the first study, we found that positive contact and positive family storytelling were associated with more positive outgroup attitudes and intended outgroup behavior in a group of 6- to 12-year-old Turkish Cypriots. We followed this up in Study 2 by using a vicarious intergroup contact intervention technique. Turkish Cypriot children aged 6–11 years took part in a 3-week intervention involving reading stories of solidarity between Turkish and Greek Cypriot children. Results showed that the intervention worked to improve outgroup attitudes, intended behavior, and outgroup trust. These findings suggest that indirect contact techniques such as extended contact and vicarious intergroup contact can be used as prejudice-reduction tools in intractable conflict zones, most in need of such interventions.

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 578-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deniz Yucel ◽  
Charis Psaltis

One of the major challenges in divided societies is finding ways to overcome geographical partition by increasing readiness for cohabitation in mixed areas. Cyprus has faced a protracted situation of division (between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots) for the last 44 years. In this paper, we explore the role of intergroup contact (both quantity and quality of contact) in enhancing the willingness of members of these two communities to reestablish cohabitation, using representative survey samples from both communities. We hypothesize that such an effect is mediated by a decrease in the levels of prejudice between the two communities and an increase in the levels of trust. In addition, we hypothesize that the direct effect of intergroup contact and the indirect effect of intergroup contact through trust and prejudice are both moderated by age. To explore these hypotheses, we collected data from a representative sample of 502 Greek Cypriots and 504 Turkish Cypriots. The hypotheses are tested among the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot samples separately. In both samples, the results show that the positive effect of intergroup contact on willingness for renewed cohabitation is mediated by both trust and prejudice. There is also some support for the moderating effect of age for both the direct and indirect effects of intergroup contact.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 560
Author(s):  
Ayhan Dolunay ◽  
Gökçe Keçeci ◽  
Fevzi Kasap

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>The Ottoman citizens together with the local community had generally lived a peaceful life in Cyprus, conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1571, until the island was handed over to the England in 1878. Following such period and subsequent process, the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots continued to live together in the island until the foundation of Republic of Cyprus in 1960; yet, with the impact of British policies, the Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities had started to disintegrate. In 1950s, the island began to lose its nature and the concept of living together peacefully was disappeared due to the armed attacks of Greek Cypriots launched within the scope of underground military organisation and the responses of Turkish Cypriots through their underground military organisations together with the limited resources. The events, which stopped with the foundation of 1960 Republic of Cyprus, had become more severe following the obligatory leave of Turkish Cypriots from the partnership republic in 1963, and continued until the military intervention of Turkey in 1974 and both communities had losses, more in the Turkish Cypriot side. Until 1950s to 1974, the Turkish Cypriots, who did not feel secure in the southern part of island, migrated to the northern part of island. The relevant immigrants had shared their common lives with the Greek Cypriots before 1950s and then the following conflicts through oral narratives to their children born in the northern part of Cyprus; therefore, the perceptions of children of migrated families were only shaped with the narrations and some written references since a direct communication was not possible particularly until the opening of border crossing points. The original value of this study is the non-availability of any oral history research on the Turkish-Greek Cypriot relations before 1974 conducted with the generation after 1974; the aim of this research is to identify the perceptions of Turkish Cypriots born in the northern part of Cyprus mainly after 1974 that was shaped within the framework of oral narrations within the families through the individual interviews with the reference people sharing their experiences within the history via the press screening for the identification of social-political structure during the historical process, and the formation of such perceptions through the interviews.</p><p><strong>Öz</strong></p><p>1571’de Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nca fethedilen Kıbrıs’ta, Osmanlı vatandaşları ile, yerli halk, 1878’de ada İngiltere’ye kiralanana kadar, bir arada, genel olarak huzurlu bir yaşam sürmüşlerdir. 1878’de, adanın İngiltere’ye kiralanması ve izleyen süreçte adada, 1960 Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti kurulana değin, Kıbrıslı Türkler ve Kıbrıslı Rumlar, bir arada yaşamaya devam etmiş ancak, İngiliz yönetiminin politikalarının da etkisi ile, Türk ve Rum toplumları süreç içerisinde ayrışmaya başlamıştır. 1950’li yıllarda, önce Kıbrıslı Rumlarca yer altı askeri yapılanma kapsamında başlatılan silahlı saldırılar ve Kıbrıslı Türklerin kendilerini müdafaa kapsamındaki yer altı askeri yapılanmaları aracılığıyla ve kısıtlı imkanlarla verdiği karşılıklarla birlikte, adada kayıplar yaşanmış, bir arada huzurlu yaşam olgusu yitirilmiştir.  1960 Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti’nin kurulması ile duran olaylar, 1963’de Kıbrıslı Türklerin ortaklık cumhuriyetinden ayrılmak zorunda kalmasının akabinde, yeniden şiddetlenmiş ve Türkiye’nin adaya 1974’de gerçekleştirdiği askeri müdahaleye kadar sürmüş; Kıbrıslı Türk toplumundan daha fazla olmak üzere, iki toplum da kayıplar vermiştir. 1950’lerden, 1974’e kadar, çatışmalar nedeniyle, adanın güneyinde kendilerini güvende hissetmeyen Kıbrıslı Türkler, adanın kuzeyine göç etmiştir. İlgili göçmenler, Rum toplumu ile 1950’ler öncesi ortak yaşamlarını ve sonrasındaki çatışmaları sözlü anlatımlarla, adanın kuzeyinde doğan çocuklarına aktarmış; özellikle 2003 yılında sınır kapıların açılmasına kadar, doğrudan iletişimin mümkün olamaması nedeniyle, göç eden neslin çocuklarının algısı, sadece anlatımlar ve bazı yazılı kaynaklar ile şekillenmiştir. 1974 sonrası doğan nesil ile daha önce, 1974 öncesi Türk-Rum ilişkileri hakkında sözlü tarih araştırması yapılmamış olması, çalışmanın özgün değerini ortaya koyarken; çalışmada, tarihsel süreçteki deneyimlerini aktaracak kaynak kişilerle gerçekleştirilen bireysel görüşmeler ve yine tarihsel süreçteki sosyal-siyasi yapıyı tespit adına basın taraması ile birlikte, temel olarak, 1974 sonrası kuzeyde doğan Kıbrıslı Türklerin, aile içi sözlü anlatımlar çerçevesinde şekillenen ilgili algılarının, gerçekleştirilecek mülakatlar ile şekillendiğinin tespiti hedeflenmektedir.</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 073889422110126
Author(s):  
Daniela Donno ◽  
Charis Psaltis ◽  
Omer Zarpli

How can ethnic reconciliation be achieved in conflict settings where populations are physically separated? We address this question by examining the role of “extended contact”—a form of indirect contact which entails learning about the contact experiences of others—in the context of Cyprus’s frozen conflict. We field a survey experiment in order to test two pathways through which extended contact works: (1) by helping build a common identity; and (2) by activating empathy. We find that our treatments are associated with greater trust in the outgroup and greater support for cross-ethnic interaction, but only among segments of the population that are initially less favorable toward reconciliation.


STADION ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-77
Author(s):  
Nikos Lekakis ◽  
Dimitris Gargalianos

This paper employs the history and politics of football looking at discussions about Cyprus’ national identity, the relationship between the Greek-Cypriot state and its self-declared Turkish-Cypriot counterpart, and the possibility of reunification. It explores these issues from both sides of the divide, something rarely undertaken in Cyprus, and within a wider European perspective, by comparing it briefly with the modern football histories of Ireland, Spain and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Football and its inherent developments reflect not only the political rivalries in the world of Greek-Cypriot football, but also the encounters between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots. The history of Cypriot football has no similar precedent in the selected European space. In Ireland, the peace process has not ended historic civil society divisions, while football agents with opposing political ideologies across the Greek and Turkish divide in Cyprus have been able to overcome their differences, political elites on one side of the border have prevented unification. In Spain’s Catalonia, while the football-fed movement for independence, yet to materialize, remains subject to approval by Spain’s institutions, the independence of the de facto Turkish-Cypriot state would require the approval of the governments of the Republic of Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, and Britain. Finally, while FIFA and UEFA have successfully dictated the terms for the final admission of Bosnia & Herzegovina’s football Federation into their membership, they have failed to repeat this achievement in the Cypriot case.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 441-461
Author(s):  
Tobias H. Stark

According to the extended contact hypothesis, direct intergroup contact is not necessary for prejudice reduction; it suffices to know that ingroup friends have outgroup friends. However, extended contact is typically measured in a way that does not clarify whether people know the outgroup friend of their ingroup friend or whether they are even direct friends. A social network approach is used to compare extended contact when ingroup friends’ outgroup friends are not direct friends (open triads) to when there is a direct friendship with some (mixed triads) or all of the ingroup friends’ outgroup friends (closed triads). Results from a nonprobability sample in the US predicting feelings toward Black people ( N = 313) and from a representative sample in the Netherlands predicting attitudes toward immigrants ( N = 818) show that extended contact reduces prejudice only when some of the outgroup friends of one’s ingroup friends are known. This suggests that the extended contact effect should not be interpreted as providing a solution for situations where direct contact with outgroup members is not possible.


1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-407 ◽  
Author(s):  

AbstractA series of problem-solving workshops, facilitated by the author utilizing the “interactive management” design process, was held in Cyprus over a nine-month period with a bi-communal group of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Participants addressed peacebuilding efforts in Cyprus during three phases of group work in which they (a) explored the current situation surrounding such efforts, (b) developed a collective vision for the future, and (c) created an integrated set of activities that they would lead over the next two to three years. The process and the products from the group work are described, and personal reflections are offered about the context for the training, cultural considerations, political and practical difficulties, the impact of the workshops, and an evaluation of the training.


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824402098828
Author(s):  
Fatoş Silman ◽  
Ahmet Güneyli ◽  
Osman Vaiz ◽  
Nedime Karasel-Ayda

This study aims to examine the views of primary school teachers from North and South Cyprus on Teachers’ Unions. Qualitative research and a comparative case study method were used for the study. Thirty-seven primary school teachers from North and South Cyprus participated in this study. The data were obtained through interviews and analyzed by the content analysis method. The comparison of the findings of the research suggests that the functions of trade unions are related to the pressing issues of education, teachers, and the nation in both regions. Turkish Cypriots placed emphasis on education-related functions, while for Greek Cypriots teachers-related functions mattered more. Turkish Cypriot teachers assessed the functions of their unions to be more unsatisfactory than their Greek Cypriot counterparts’.


2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (11) ◽  
pp. 1566-1581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralf Wölfer ◽  
Eva Jaspers ◽  
Danielle Blaylock ◽  
Clarissa Wigoder ◽  
Joanne Hughes ◽  
...  

Traditionally, studies of intergroup contact have primarily relied on self-reports, which constitute a valid method for studying intergroup contact, but has limitations, especially if researchers are interested in negative or extended contact. In three studies, we apply social network analyses to generate alternative contact parameters. Studies 1 and 2 examine self-reported and network-based parameters of positive and negative contact using cross-sectional datasets ( N = 291, N = 258), indicating that both methods help explain intergroup relations. Study 3 examines positive and negative direct and extended contact using the previously validated network-based contact parameters in a large-scale, international, and longitudinal dataset ( N = 12,988), demonstrating that positive and negative direct and extended contact all uniquely predict intergroup relations (i.e., intergroup attitudes and future outgroup contact). Findings highlight the value of social network analysis for examining the full complexity of contact including positive and negative forms of direct and extended contact.


2001 ◽  
Vol 12 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 297-308

The Court found continuing violations of numerous rights protected by the Convention in respect to the following subject-matters: Greek-Cypriot missing persons and their relatives; the home and property of displaced persons; the living conditions of Greek Cypriots in northern Cyprus; and the situation of Turkish Cypriots living in northern Cyprus. Turkey's responsibility under the Convention could not be confined to the acts of its own soldiers and officials operating in northern Cyprus but was also engaged by virtue of the acts of the local administration (“the TRNC”), which survived by virtue of Turkish military and other support.


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