Search

Gossip is often considered to have negative and exclusionary social consequences within migrant communities and multi-ethnic settings. In contrast, the current research examines whether gossip can contribute to including and integrating people with different ethnic and migration backgrounds into a local community. The empirical study is based on 11 Months of fieldwork research in Riace, a small town in Southern Italy that has hosted refugees and migrants for over 20 years. We focused on the local functions of gossip as it occurs in everyday life and is embedded in the local social context. Findings demonstrate that much of the local gossip is inter-ethnic and facilitates strong community relationships by sustaining local norms and promoting trust relationships and shared narratives. It is concluded that local gossip does not only have to be divisive but also can have inclusive and integrative implications for multi-ethnic local settings.

Ethnic minorities from more traditional countries tend to hold more conservative views towards homosexuality compared to the ethnic majority population in Western Europe. Assimilation theory predicts that this difference diminishes over time because of exposure and contact between these groups. The role of ethnic classroom composition in this process of cultural assimilation is poorly understood. Therefore, this article examines the role of the country of origin of adolescents and their classroom peers in the assimilation of attitudes towards homosexuality. Using two-wave panel data on 18,058 students in 867 classrooms in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, we find that the attitudes towards homosexuality in classroom peers’ country of origin are positively associated with attitudes towards homosexuality of respondents in the first wave but have no effect on subsequent changes in these attitudes over a two-year period. We find some variations in this association according to individual-level characteristics, but these results are not consistent across the countries that we study. Together, these results suggest that the classroom is an important socializing context in the formation of cultural values, and that its influence is relatively uniform across groups.

Across continental Europe, educational research samples are often divided by ‘migrant background’, a binary variable criticized for masking participant heterogeneity and reinforcing exclusionary norms of belonging. This study endorses more meaningful, representative, and precise research by offering four guiding questions for selecting relevant, social justice oriented, and feasible social categories for collecting and analysing data in psychological and educational research. Using a preregistered empirical example, we first compare selected social categories (‘migrant background’, family heritage, religion, citizenship, cultural identification, and generation status) in their potential to reveal participant heterogeneity. Second, we investigate differences in means and relations between variables (discrimination experiences, perceived societal Islamophobia, and national identity) and academic motivation among 1335 adolescents in Germany (48% female, Mage = 14.69). Regression analyses and multigroup SEM revealed differential experiences with and implications of discrimination for academic motivation. Results highlight the need for a deliberate, transparent use of social categories to make discrimination visible and centre participants’ subjective experiences.

Group history provides the experiential building blocks that shape social identity. When contemporary events are perceived as having created (or creating) a discontinuity with that history, collective nostalgia is likely to be elicited. Importantly, collective nostalgia is functional-it consolidates social identity, motivating group members to support a return to the group's "true" state of existence. However, no group is a monolith. Factions within a group may have differing opinions on what aspects of the past best represent core features of the ingroup. Variations in the content of the collective nostalgia can cleavage members' responses. Herein, we review research demonstrating the powerful role collective nostalgia and its contents play in intra- and intergroup relations, especially in the socio-political domain.

Discrimination has a negative impact on minority group members’ wellbeing, particularly immigrants. Yet, empirical research investigating coping mechanisms against perceived discrimination among immigrants remains scarce. The present study examined the association between perceived ethnic discrimination and eudaimonic (psychological and social) wellbeing among immigrants by assessing the role of intergroup (downward and upward) and intrapersonal (temporal) comparisons as coping mechanisms in this association. Using a representative sample comprising five foreign-born immigrant groups (N = 1250) in Spain, we found that immigrants tend to engage in more favorable downward and upward intergroup comparisons in response to perceived discrimination, but lower temporal intrapersonal comparisons. Downward intergroup comparison was related to lower psychological wellbeing and upward intergroup comparison was associated with higher psychological wellbeing. Temporal intrapersonal comparison was predominately predictive of psychological and social wellbeing. We further discuss specific indirect effects and the important roles of intergroup and intrapersonal comparisons for immigrants’ wellbeing.

Contains fulltext : 252588.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Recent studies conclude that higher-educated migrants experience less belonging to the residence country than lower-educated migrants, which has been dubbed the integration paradox. World citizenship is a possible explanation yet has been left untheorized and empirically untested. We are the first to theorize and test this mechanism for Turkish migrants in the Netherlands using a mixed-methods approach. Results based on the NIS2NL survey confirm that world citizenship is an explanation of this paradox when acknowledging its interplay with belonging to the origin country. World citizenship is associated with a lower sense of belonging to the Netherlands, albeit only when migrants feel a low sense of belonging to Turkey. These findings are underlined by in-depth interviews with purposively sampled highly-skilled Turkish migrants (N = 32). Moreover, two proposed narrative strategies are vital to understand the negative association between world citizenship and national belonging. World citizenship is thus key in understanding the integration paradox. 23 p.

Contains fulltext : 283899.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) The radical right's rise is widely assumed to go hand-in-hand with increasing economic insecurity, as manual workers are considered typical radical right voters. We question whether economic insecurity actually drives working class members to vote for radical parties, both right and left. Using European Social Survey data from 12 Western European countries (2002-2014), we tested whether less secure employment links to vote for such parties. We did this by distinguishing people in permanent employment from those in the same social class but not in permanent employment. Our outcome was surprising: whereas perceived job insecurity correlated with radical right voting, actual economic insecurity in terms of temporary employment was not associated with greater likelihood of voting for a radical right party among the working class. Instead, it was the radical left for which we found indications that it appealed more to groups of people in such an insecure economic position. 12 p.

Adolescents’ identities are multiple, yet there is very little research that investigates the importance of intersecting identities, especially in relationship to teacher ethnic/racial discrimination and mental health. Multiplicity is often approached bi-dimensional (heritage and national identities) yet this study highlights the importance of regional identity. Regions are distinct socio-political contexts in relation to migration and integration dynamics. Hence, this study investigates for different combinations of national, heritage and regional identities (i.e. Flemish, Belgian and Turkish or Moroccan) the relationship between students’ experiences with teacher ethnic/racial discrimination and students’ depressive feelings. Latent Class Analysis of survey data involving a sample of 439 adolescents (Mage = 18, SD = 0.93; Girls = 49%) with Turkish (41%) or Moroccan origin in Flanders, shows three identification classes: full integration (35%), national integration (40%) and (weak) separation (24%). All these identity profiles had in common that heritage identification was high, yet they were highly distinct due to variation in national and regional identification. Additional, multilevel modelling showed that nationally integrated adolescents were less depressed than fully integrated adolescents. This finding illustrates the importance of adolescents’ identity multiplicity for understanding their resilience in relation to teacher discrimination.

Background: Despite the growing body of research concerning affective relationships between teachers and ethnic minority students, very little is known about student-teacher relationship (STR) quality for religious minority students. Many Islamic schools have a mixed workforce consisting of both Muslim and non-Muslim teachers. This means that the quality of religiously congruent and religiously incongruent STRs can be directly compared. Aims: We investigated whether the quality of the STR experienced by Dutch Islamic school students depended on the religious background of their teacher (Muslim vs. non-Muslim). We also examined the role of teachers’ implicitly measured attitudes towards Muslims as a possible explanation for differences in relationship quality. Sample: Participants were 707 students (56.9% female) from 35 classes (Grade 3–6) (Mage = 10.02 years, SD = 1.25) and their 35 teachers (85.7% female; Mage = 32.94 years, SD = 6.37). Methods: Students reported on the quality of the relationship with their teacher (closeness, conflict, and negative expectations), and teachers’ implicit attitude towards Muslims (vs. non-Muslims) was measured with an Implicit Association Test. Results: Students reported relatively high levels of closeness and low levels of conflict and negative expectations for both Muslim and non-Muslim teachers. Conflict was slightly higher in religiously incongruent STRs, but only when teachers’ implicitly measured attitude towards Muslims (vs. non-Muslims) was included in our model. Conclusion: Results of this study indicate that religious incongruence does not play a major role in STR quality in Islamic primary education.