Negative and Positive Interethnic Contact and the Association of Ethnic Neighbourhood Composition with Trust, Cohesion, and Prejudice

This study extends the literature on the relationship between ethnic neighbourhood composition and cohesion, trust, and prejudice, by considering the influence of both positive and negative interethnic contact. We employ multilevel structural equation modelling, with individuals nested in neighbourhoods, using a unique dataset collected in England in 2017 amongst 1,520 White British and 1,474 Asian British respondents. Our results show that negative interethnic contact, unlike positive interethnic contact, is not related to ethnic neighbourhood composition. Specifically, White British people who live in neighbourhoods with relatively many Asian British people have, as expected, more positive but, encouragingly, not more negative interethnic contact. For Asian people, living in neighbourhoods with relatively many White people is unrelated to both their positive and negative interethnic contact. Furthermore, White and Asian people who have more positive interethnic contact score higher on perceived cohesion, general trust, and outgroup trust and lower on prejudice. The opposite holds true for White and Asian people who have more negative interethnic contact.

A Look at Interethnic Contact and Social Distance in Vision School Environment in Malaysia

This study examines the interethnic adaptation and friendship patterns of students in the Malaysian Vision School setting. A total of 541 primary students from 11 schools within five different Vision School complexes participated in this study. Questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data from the students. Findings of friendship patterns indicate that students are more inclined towards their own ethnicity rather than students from different ethnic groups. In terms of adaptation, students prefer and choose to befriend others within their own ethnicity. It is clear that the strong preference for in-group friendship thereby draws boundaries and creates social distance among students.

The contact hypothesis during the European refugee crisis: Relating quality and quantity of (in)direct intergroup contact to attitudes towards refugees

Research shows that direct and indirect intergroup contact reduces levels of prejudice towards immigrants. However, no research so far has explored the association of these different forms of contact with attitudes towards refugees. The present study analyses the relationship between the frequency and valence of direct intergroup contact with people with a migration background, the frequency of indirect contact with news on refugees, and the perception of realistic and symbolic threat, and attitudes towards refugees among adults in four European countries (Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Sweden). Data were collected in 2017 via online questionnaires ( N = 6,000). Using structural equation modelling, findings indicate that interethnic contact is positively related to attitudes towards refugees. Moreover, valence of direct contact is found to be more important to attitude formation than its frequency. Regarding indirect contact, exposure to news on refugees and public news consumption are positively related to attitudes, while commercial news consumption is negatively related to attitudes.

How the Architecture of Housing Blocks Amplifies or Dampens Interethnic Tensions in Ethnically Diverse Neighbourhoods

This article explores how the architecture of neighbourhoods influences interethnic tensions in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods. We found that people of Dutch descent living in apartments in four storey walk-ups in ethnically diverse innercity neighbourhoods seem less likely to feel threatened by ethnic diversity than people living in in similarly diverse suburbs characterized by larger housing blocks featuring inner courtyards and galleries. Further analysis reveals that the residents of these suburbs share various types of semi-public spaces and have competing interests in using them, whereas the residents of inner-city neighbourhoods share fewer semi-public spaces and therefore have more scope to choose when and how to engage in interethnic contact with other residents. We also explore residents’ housing histories and examine differences between people who either have more negative or more positive views on diversity with regard to their active participation in various organizations. This last piece of the puzzle will be used to analyse the potential for both negative and positive messages about ethnic diversity to spread. Based on the empirical findings, we will formulate some building blocks that can help to further explain the level of perceived ethnic tensions in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods.

Interethnic Prejudice Against Muslims Among White Dutch Children

Interethnic prejudice in children has been studied mostly in the United States, but less often in Europe, where the public discourse is increasingly negative about ethnic minorities, especially the Muslim minority. This study examined in-group favoritism (White preference) and out-group rejection of children of Middle Eastern descent (representing the Muslim minority) among White children in the Netherlands. Social preference for and rejection of children of Middle Eastern descent are compared with preference for and rejection of Black children. Social preference and rejection were measured using a task in which participants were presented with pictures of children with different ethnic appearances, and asked to select who they wanted to (not) play with, (not) sit next to, and invite for their birthday party. In addition, maternal implicit prejudice against people of Middle Eastern descent and explicit attitudes toward their children’s interethnic contact were assessed. The study included 140 children aged 6 to 8 years ( M = 7.26, SD = 0.77) and their mothers. The results reveal both in-group favoritism and out-group rejection. The Middle Eastern out-group was preferred less than the Black out-group. Reporting absolutely no reservations about children’s interethnic contact by mothers was associated with less rejection of children of Middle Eastern descent. Findings reveal that young children already show interethnic prejudice and that particularly people of Middle Eastern descent are devalued. The results show that maternal acceptance of child interethnic contact seems to play a role, and provide starting points for further investigation of the relation between parental and child interethnic attitudes.

Waarom er minder empirisch bewijs bestaat voor de contacttheorie dan velen beweren : Een kwantitatieve cultuursociologische kritiek1

The finding that ethnic prejudice is particularly weakly developed among those with interethnic friendships is often construed as confirming the so-called ‘contact theory’, which holds that interethnic contact reduces racial prejudice. This theory raises cultural-sociological suspicions, however, because of its tendency to reduce culture to an allegedly ‘more fundamental’ realm of social interaction. Analysing data from the first wave of the European Social Survey, we therefore test the theory alongside an alternative cultural-sociological theory about culturally driven processes of contact selection. We find that whereas interethnic friendships are indeed culturally driven, which confirms our cultural-sociological theory, contacts with neighbours and colleagues do indeed affect ethnic prejudice. They moreover do so in a manner that is more complex and culturally sensitive than contact theory suggests: while positive cultural stances vis-à-vis ethnic diversity lead interethnic contact to decrease ethnic prejudice, negative ones rather lead the former to increase the latter.

Sailors, Tailors, Cooks, and Crooks: On Loanwords and Neglected Lives in Indian Ocean Ports

A renewed interested in Indian Ocean studies has underlined possibilities of the transnational. This study highlights lexical borrowing as an analytical tool to deepen our understanding of cultural exchanges between Indian Ocean ports during the long nineteenth century, comparing loanwords from several Asian and African languages and demonstrating how doing so can re-establish severed links between communities. In this comparative analysis, four research avenues come to the fore as specifically useful to explore the dynamics of non-elite contact in this part of the world: (1) nautical jargon, (2) textile terms, (3) culinary terms, and (4) slang associated with society’s lower strata. These domains give prominence to a spectrum of cultural brokers frequently overlooked in the wider literature. It is demonstrated through concrete examples that an analysis of lexical borrowing can add depth and substance to existing scholarship on interethnic contact in the Indian Ocean, providing methodological inspiration to examine lesser studied connections. This study reveals no unified linguistic landscape, but several key individual connections between the ports of the Indian Ocean frequented by Persian, Hindustani, and Malay-speaking communities.