Evaluation of anti-discrimination interventions: focus groups MEMO in Ireland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. PolRom Project Workpackage 4

Evaluation of anti-discrimination interventions: focus groups MEMO in Ireland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. PolRom Project Workpackage

The imaginary friends of my friends: imagined contact interventions which highlight supportive social norms reduce children’s antirefugee bias

Fostering inclusive attitudes among children in host classrooms is key to integrating refugee children. A field experiment tests the prejudice reduction effects of a teacher-led activity integrating imagined intergroup contact and normative influence. To enhance the effectiveness of imagined contact, scenarios include supportive ingroup norms. In 29 classes, 545 children (Mage = 10.88, SD = 0.96) were randomly assigned to one of five conditions: standard imagined contact, imagined contact encouraged by family, class peers, or religious ingroups, or a control. Children in all norm-framed imagined contact conditions had significantly less antirefugee bias compared with the control. The class-peer norm frame significantly reduced affective and cognitive facets of bias. The family norm frame reduced affective bias, and the religious norm frame reduced cognitive bias. Standard imagined contact did not differ from the control. Potential mediating pathways are explored. These findings illustrate the utility of incorporating norms into imagined contact interventions to reduce antirefugee bias among schoolchildren

A test of the maintenance of the effects of imagined contact framed with supportive social norms as a teacher-led field intervention

As the arrival of refugees and asylum seekers continues to increase, schools continue to become a  vital center for children to develop positive intergroup attitudes. Teacher-led activities can  become useful tools in sustainable prejudice reduction. A field intervention incorporated  normative in-group influence with imagined intergroup contact to reduce children’s anti-refugee  bias. Ten primary school classes (N = 269, Mage = 10.69 years) were randomly assigned to one of  four conditions: (a) class norm-framed imagined contact (n = 88), (b) family norm-framed  imagined contact (n = 49), (c) religious in-group norm-framed imagined contact (n = 51), or  (d) standard (n = 80) imagined contact. Teachers facilitated a series of four imagined contact  activities over 4 weeks, with anti-refugee bias measured at baseline and 2 weeks after the final  activity. Imagined contact framed in the class context was associated with significantly lower  post-intervention contact intentions bias as compared to standard imagined contact. There were  no significant effects of family or religion norm framed imagined contact conditions. Findings are  discussed in relation to the feasibility of teacher-led school-based interventions and the impor?tance of a supportive normative context in the classroom for anti-refugee bias. </p

Cultural identity in bicultural young adults in Ireland: a social representation theory approach

This research investigates the nature by which first- and second-generation Irish young adults of (1) African descent, (2) Asian descent, and (3) Eastern European descent explore their cultural identity(ies) through communicating and interpreting social representations relating to their ethnic and national cultures. Using Social Representation Theory (SRT) and, more widely, Proculturation Theory as the theoretical underpinning, we examine how grown children of migrants construct their cultural identity(ies) by exploring external social representations. We conducted three separate in-depth focus groups for each continental group in virtual rooms on Zoom, lasting between 60 and 90 mins. A thematic analysis was pursued to understand how the participants discussed the representation of their cultural groups both in social and media-driven situations. The results indicated the overarching themes of Anchoring Irishness and Latent Media Representation, whereby participants communicated and dialogically explored their subjective interpretations of the social representations of their cultural groups which, in turn, may have informed their cultural identity(ies). Highlighting the dynamic nature of the cultural reality of Ireland and how it impacts generations after the initial migration period, this research highlights and exemplifies the importance of external social representations that serve to construct the multiple cultural identities of first- and second-generation migrants.</p

Evaluation of anti-discrimination interventions targeting the links between political discourse, antigypsyism and collective action, In Ireland.

no abstract availabl

'The more we stand for-the more we fight for': compatibility and legitimacy in the effects of multiple social identities

This paper explores the expression of multiple social identities through coordinated collective action. We propose that perceived compatibility between potentially contrasting identities and perceived legitimacy of protest serve as catalysts for collective action. The present paper maps the context of the “Euromaidan” anti-regime protests in Ukraine and reports data (N = 996) collected through an online survey following legislation to ban protests (March–May, 2014). We measured participants’ identification with three different groups (the Ukrainian nation, the online protest community, and the street movement), perception of compatibility between online protest and the street movement, perception of the legitimacy of protest, and intentions to take persuasive and confrontational collective action. We found evidence that the more social groups people “stood for,” the more they “fought” for their cause and that identifications predicted both forms of collective action to the degree that people saw the protest and the online movement as compatible with each other and believed protest to be legitimate. Collective action can be interpreted as the congruent expression of multiple identities that are rendered ideologically compatible both in online settings and on the street

Cross-country comparisons of the connection between political discourse, intergroup attitudes, and collective action. PolRom Project, Workpackage 2: Report on Survey results for Ireland

no abstract availabl

Anti-roma bias (stereotypes, prejudice, behavioral tendencies): A network approach toward attitude strength

The Roma have been and still are a target of prejudice, marginalization, and social exclusion across Europe, especially in East-Central European countries. This paper focuses on a set of stereotypical, emotional, and behavioral evaluative responses toward Roma people selected as representing the underlying components of anti-Roma bias. Employing network analysis, we investigated if attitude strength is associated with stronger connectivity in the networks of its constituent elements. The findings from representative surveys carried out in Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, France, and Ireland supported our assumption, as high attitude strength toward the Roma resulted in stronger connectivity in all pairs of high- versus low-attitude-strength networks. Our finding yields a solid theoretical framework for targeting the central variables—those with the strongest associations with other variables—as a potentially effective attitude change intervention strategy. Moreover, perceived threat to national identity, sympathy, and empathy were found to be the most central variables in the networks