Merging Top-Down and Bottom-Up Influences on Fitting in at School. The Role of Ethnic Congruence in Overall and Interethnic Friendship Formation.

This study assesses whether ethnic congruence associates with students' share of cross-group friendships and number of overall friendships. We investigate differences between natives, Western-European immigrants, and non-Western European immigrants. Multilevel analyses on 11,759 students across 83 Flemish secondary schools demonstrated that, for natives and Western-European immigrants, higher congruence linearly related to lower shares of cross-group friendships. For non-Western European immigrants we observed a U-curved relationship. Moreover, for the latter, higher congruence associated with more friendships overall. As such, non-Western European immigrants are better integrated in the peer group when at least a critical share of co-ethnics is present at school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]