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Social science research has shown that interethnic contact reduces prejudiced attitudes. It has been also proven to successfully intervene in several mechanisms of prejudice formation such as when feelings of threat arise. However, there are few studies that examine the potential of interethnic contact in the reduction of prejudice transmission. Using data from PISA 2018, this article examines the impact that anti-immigrant attitudes from three socializing contexts (parents, school and country) have on young people's attitudes, as well as the capacity of interethnic contact to have a buffering effect against them. The results obtained from multilevel regression models show that the attitudes of parents, school and the broader social context of the country exert a notable influence on young people's attitudes. Our results also show that interethnic contact (friendships) lead to a reduction in anti-immigrant attitudes. However, such contact is only able to counteract contextual countrywide attitudes (not those of parents or school).

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This study examines the paradoxical effects of a perceived inclusive environment for ethnic minorities. We argue that while perceptions of an inclusive environment may be associated with more positive intergroup attitudes and affect among minority groups, they may instill a sense of threat among the majority group, resulting in negative intergroup sentiments and attitudes towards minorities. We analyzed data from two waves of a nationally representative survey conducted in the Netherlands (ntotal = 11,897) comprising minority and majority groups. We find support for the proposed paradoxical relationship between the perceived inclusionary climate towards minorities and the attitudes of the majority and minority groups. The results indicate that when perceiving the national climate to be more inclusive towards minorities, the majority group tends to report higher levels of ethnocentrism, avoid direct inter-ethnic contact, and oppose ethnic diversity in general. Among minority groups, a perceived inclusive climate is linked to lower levels of ethnocentrism and a higher willingness to engage in inter-ethnic interactions with the majority group. The results unexpectedly also show that the perception of an inclusionary climate is positively related to opposition to increased ethnic diversity among minority groups. We discuss theoretical and societal implications, while also considering the contextual relevance and limitations of our approach.

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Past research has examined the beneficial effects of contact focusing mainly on the affective dimension of intergroup relationships. Limited research has examined cognitive dimensions, in particular considering at the same time minority and majority group perspectives. This study tested whether contact in a work context relates differentially to the perception of interethnic conflict in Italian (n = 67) and immigrant (n = 40, all male) blue-collar coworkers with the potential mediation of reciprocal stereotypical content (competence and warmth dimensions), interethnic attitudes, perceived discrimination, and whether organizational identification amplifies the effect of contact. Multigroup path analysis revealed that the two stereotype dimensions, warmth and competence, mediate the relationship between interethnic contact and perceived discrimination for Italians, and between organizational identification and perceived conflict for immigrants. Results highlighted an asymmetrical effect of contact on perceived conflict, detrimental and direct for immigrant workers, beneficial and mediate via the outgroup cognitive image for the Italian workers. Findings suggest that a superordinate identity, in terms of organizational identification, may be effective in reducing conflict at the workplace for majority members, whilst a personalized strategy seems to be more suitable for minority members. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed along with the acculturation perspective.

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Background: Health literacy (HL) is considered to be an important precondition for health. HL research often identifies migrants as vulnerable for low HL. However, in-depth data on HL among migrants especially in its domains of health care, disease prevention and health promotion and its determinants are still scarce. Objective: The aim of this study was therefore to analyse the current status of HL among migrants and their descendants from Turkey and from the former Soviet Union (FSU) in Germany and factors associated with it. This has not been studied using large-scale data and bilingual interviews. We differentiate between dimensions of HL, namely the domains of health care, disease prevention and health promotion which goes beyond many previous studies. In addition, we explore new mechanisms by testing the explanatory power of self-efficacy and interethnic contacts for migrants' HL. Methods: The study includes 825 first- and second-generation adult migrants from two of the largest immigration groups in Germany, from Turkey and FSU, who were interviewed face-to-face in German, Turkish or Russian in late summer 2020. HL was measured using the HLS19-Q47 instrument. Age, gender, educational level, social status and financial deprivation, chronic illness, health-related literacy skills, self-efficacy, interethnic contacts, migration generation, duration of stay and region of origin were considered as possible determinants. Ordinary least square regressions were estimated. Results: The average general HL score was 65.5. HL in health promotion and disease prevention was lower than in health care. Low financial deprivation, health-related literacy skills, and self-efficacy were positively correlated with each HL domain. Educational level, social status, age, gender, duration of stay and interethnic contacts were positively correlated with HL in some domains. Region of origin was only correlated with the domain of disease prevention until interethnic contact was accounted for. Conclusion: Our study contributes to the existing knowledge by analyzing different domains of HL and testing its correlations with self-efficacy and interethnic contact among migrants. We reveal that migrants cannot generally be considered as vulnerable for low HL, as oftentimes outlined. There is a need for interventions e.g. to enhance the understanding of health information among subgroups with lower HL.

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Ethnically diverse neighbourhoods are generally less cohesive. A negative relationship between neighbourhood diversity and social cohesion is, however, neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to conclude that neighbourhood diversity erodes intra-neighbourhood cohesion. This contribution shows - by using data collected during the second wave of the NEtherlands Longitudinal Lifecourse Study (NELLS) - that: (1) members of ethnic minority groups are more likely to report having contact with and trust their immediate neighbours than natives (ego ethnicity effect); (2) minority group residents are less likely to be contacted and trusted by their neighbours (alter ethnicity effect) and (3) all ethnic groups prefer to mix with coethnics (dyad ethnicity effect). Once we control for these three ethnic composition effects at the ego, alter and dyad-level, neighbourhood ethnic diversity is no longer related to less contact between neighbours. Previously identified negative relationships between neighbourhood diversity and cohesion should therefore be re-evaluated, as they may be the consequence of ethnic composition effects instead of a true neighbourhood diversity effect.

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Teachers play a pivotal role in the educational discourse around collective narratives, and especially the other's narrative. The study assumed that members of groups entangled in a conflict approach the different modules of the other's narrative distinctively. Jewish and Palestinian teachers, Israeli citizens, answered questionnaires dealing with the narrative of the other, readiness for interethnic contact, negative between-group emotions and preferences for resolutions of the Israeli-Palestinian (I-P) conflict. Positive weighing of the other's narrative among Jewish teachers correlated with high levels of readiness for interethnic contact and low levels of negative between-group emotions, across the various modules of the Palestinian narrative. Preferences for a peaceful resolution of the I-P conflict and rejection of a violent one were noted in two of the modules. Among Palestinian teachers, positive weighing of the other's collective narrative was exclusively noted for the Israeli narrative of the Holocaust, and this stance negatively related to negative between-group emotions and preference for a violent solution of the I-P conflict, and positively related to readiness for interethnic contact and preference of a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Practical implications of these findings for peace education are discussed.

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This study not only shows that the empirically well-established negative relationship between residential diversity and trust in neighbors holds for the case of Germany, but goes beyond existing research by providing experimental evidence on the causal nature of the diversity effect. Respondents exposed to experimental stimuli that made salient the ethnic or religious heterogeneity of their neighborhoods display significantly lower levels of trust in their neighbors than do respondents in the control group. Further, we explore the role of interethnic contact in mediating the relationship between diversity and trust in a degree of detail unmatched by earlier studies. We consider not only positive forms of interethnic contact such as friendships, but also neutral and negative encounters between people of native and immigrant origin. We find that interethnic contacts mediate negative diversity effects on trust in different ways for both groups. For natives, distant encounters and negative experiences with immigrants in diverse contexts reduce trust, whereas for people of immigrant origin trust in neighbors suffers from the relatively small number of native acquaintances in diverse neighborhoods.

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