Perceived Diversity and Acceptance of Minority Ethnic Groups in Two Urban Contexts

This paper investigates the relationship between perceived ethnic diversity at the neighbourhood level and acceptance of minority ethnic groups. We draw on a representative survey conducted in two dissimilar diversity contexts—Leeds, UK and Warsaw, Poland. The results of multilevel models demonstrate that in both cities, an increase in perceived ethnic diversity in the neighbourhood is related to an increase in ethnic prejudice of White-British and Polish people. However, the negative association of subjective perceptions of diversity with attitudes depends on the level of actual diversity in the neighbourhood. In Leeds, perceived diversity is more strongly negatively related with attitudes of residents living in more ethnically diverse neighbourhoods, while in Warsaw, in more homogenous neighbourhoods. We also find that in Leeds, the relationship between acceptance of minority ethnic groups and perceptions of diversity is moderated by the recent change in neighbourhood actual diversity (especially inflow of minorities of ‘other White’ and ‘Mixed’ ethnicity) and change in neighbourhood deprivation (increase in council housing). The findings testify to the importance of conducting comparative studies of the diversity of effects in various settings across Europe and the potential of using subjective measures of diversity in future research

Spaces of encounter and attitudes towards difference: a comparative study of two European cities

Scholars have been increasingly interested in how everyday interactions in various places with people from different ethnic/religious background impact inter-group relations. Drawing on representative surveys in Leeds and Warsaw (2012), we examine whether encounters with ethnic and religious minorities in different type of space are associated with more tolerance towards them. We find that in Leeds, more favourable affective attitudes are associated with contact in institutional spaces (workplace and study places) and socialisation spaces (social clubs, voluntary groups, religious meeting places); however, in case of behavioural intentions – operationalised as willingness to be friendly to minority neighbours – only encounters in socialisation spaces play a significant role in prejudice reduction. In Warsaw, people who have contacts with ethnic and religious minorities in public (streets, park, public services and transport) and consumption spaces (cafés, pubs, restaurants) express more positive affective attitudes towards them, but only encounters in consumption space translate into willingness to be friendly to minority neighbours

Attitudes towards the ‘stranger’: negotiating encounters with difference in the UK and Poland

Due to recent intensification in international mobility in Europe, its citizens are exposed to a much wider range of lifestyles and competing attitudes towards difference. Individuals are, therefore, increasingly likely to encounter ‘strangers’ and are, therefore, required to negotiate discontinuities and contradictions between the values that are transmitted through different sites. In response, the article explores the concept of the ‘stranger’ through original data collected in the UK and Poland. The article highlights that the construction of who is a stranger depends on national historical contexts, core values and related visions of the society. The UK and Poland have very different histories and experiences with social diversity, impacting on the ways in which individuals negotiate strange encounters. In both countries, the ‘stranger’ is often seen in a negative way and in relation to the minority groups that are perceived to be visibly different, distinct or ‘unknown’ in contemporary times. In Poland, this is now largely articulated through sexual prejudice (homophobia), whilst in the UK, attitudes towards the ‘stranger’ are largely conveyed through religious prejudice (Islamophobia). As such, the article offers a means of understanding how encounters with difference ‘produce’ strangers in different contexts

‘Big Brother welcomes you’: exploring innovative methods for research with children and young people outside of the home and school environments.

This article discusses some of the challenges involved in conducting research with children and young people outside of the home and school environments. We respond to the need to develop new child-centred research techniques which move beyond existing power relations among children and adults by anchoring our approach in the idea of mystery. The paper reports on research utilising a mixed-method design which includes one new technique – the Big Brother diary room. We discuss the unpredictable nature of the fieldwork, reflect on the ‘messiness’ of the research process, and critically evaluate our own research design

Mapping the meaning of "difference' in Europe: A social topography of prejudice

This paper draws on original empirical research to investigate popular understandings of prejudice in two national contexts: Poland and the United Kingdom. The paper demonstrates how common-sense meanings of prejudice are inflected by the specific histories and geographies of each place: framed in terms of ‘distance’ (Poland) and ‘proximity’ (United Kingdom), respectively. Yet, by treating these national contexts as nodes and linking them analytically the paper also exposes a connectedness in these definitions which brings into relief the common processes that produce prejudice. The paper then explores how inter-linkages between the United Kingdom and Poland within the wider context of the European Union are producing – and circulating through the emerging international currency of ‘political correctness’ – a common critique of equality legislation and a belief that popular concerns about the way national contexts are perceived to be changing as a consequence of super mobility and super diversity are being silenced. This raises a real risk that in the context of European austerity and associated levels of socioeconomic insecurity, negative attitudes and conservative values may begin to be represented as popular normative standards which transcend national contexts to justify harsher political responses towards minorities. As such, the paper concludes by making a case for prejudice reduction strategies to receive much greater priority in both national and European contexts

‘Other’ Posts in ‘Other’ Places: Poland through a Postcolonial Lens?

Postcolonial theory has tended to focus on those spaces where European colonialism has had a territorial and political history. This is unsurprising, as much of the world is in this sense ‘postcolonial’. But not all of it. This article focuses on Poland, often theorised as peripheral to ‘old Europe’, and explores the application of postcolonial analyses to this ‘other’ place. The article draws upon reflections arising from a study of responses to ethnic diversity in Warsaw, Poland. In doing so we conclude that postcolonialism does indeed offer some important insights into understanding Polish attitudes to other nationalities, and yet more work also needs to be done to make the theoretical bridge. In the case of Poland we propose the ‘triple relation’ be the starting point for such work

Migracja i modernizacja – alternatywa. Esej polemiczny z artykułem Marka Okólskiego pt. ‚Modernizacyjne oddziaływania emigracji’

In this polemic essay I critically engage with the migration-modernisation argument presented by Marek Okólski in his article “Modernising Impacts of Emigration” published in “Studia Socjologiczne”, issue 3, volume 206. By employing postcolonial and decolonial theory I offer an alternative voice in the discussion on theorising migration. The polemic attempts to question the prevailing thinking on the migratory situation in Poland (patterns of immigration and emigration) anchored in the rhetoric of modernity and, by doing so, provoke further discussion on theorising and researching migration in Poland.W niniejszym eseju polemicznym pragnę krytycznie odnieść się do tezy migracji-modernizacji, która została przedstawiona w artykule Marka Okólskiego „Modernising Impacts of Emigration” opublikowanym w „Studiach Socjologicznych”, numer 3, tom 206. Moja wypowiedź opiera się na perspektywie studiów postkolnialnych i dekolonialnych oraz stanowi alternatywny głos w dyskusji dotyczącej konceptualizacji migracji. W polemice pragnę zakwestionować dominujące myślenie o procesach migracyjnych w Polsce (wzorach emigracji i imigracji), które osadzone jest w retoryce modernizacyjnej, tym samym, pragnę sprowokować dalszą dyskusję na temat stosowanych podejść teoretycznych i empirycznych w badaniach migracyjnych w Polsce

Little Ukraine’ or Polish Viettown? Social or Spatial Patterns of Immigrant Settlement in Warsaw Agglomeration

Celem niniejszego tekstu jest analiza wzorów osiedlania się imigrantów w aglomeracji warszawskiej, a zwłaszcza na terenie samego miasta Warszawy. Przedmiotem analizy jest: wyłanianie się potencjalnych skupisk miejsc zamieszkiwania imigrantów i ich związek z innymi typami koncentracji imigrantów; czynniki determinujące miejsce zamieszkania i funkcjonowanie migrantów w miejskim środowisku; a także związek między miejscem zamieszkania migrantów a ich aktywnością ekonomiczną i lokalizacją miejsc pracy, charakterystykami kulturowymi i przyjętymi strategiami akulturacyjnymi. Problemy te badane są na przykładzie populacji Wietnamczyków i Ukraińców posiadających zezwolenie na osiedlenie się w województwie mazowieckim. Artykuł omawia różnice we wzorcach zamieszkiwania w Polsce obu grup oraz ukazuje wyłanianie się zalążków skupisk w przypadku Wietnamczyków.The text aims to analyse the patterns of immigrants’ settlement in Warsaw agglomeration, especially their settlement in the area of the city of Warsaw. The subject of the study is: the emergence of places where immigrants concentrate and a relation between their places of residence with other types of concentration; factors that determine the places of immigrants’ residence and how migrants operate in the urban environment, as well as a relation between the places of immigrants’ settlement and their economic activity and its localization, cultural characteristics and the adapted acculturation strategies. To study these problems the authors use the example of the population of the Vietnamese and Ukrainians possessing a permission for settlement in the Mazowieckie Province. The article discuses differences in the patterns of settlements of both groups and shows the emergence of small clusters in the case of the Vietnamese

How to Share...Survey Data

The recording and slides from the 'How to Share...Survey Data' bitesize seminar, part of the How to Share series that look at how best to share different research data types to help you make your research outputs more FAIR and open that happened on 2023-11-07.Informed by success stories across the University, researchers will help share their knowledge and experience of the tasks and processes required to get your outputs in the best shape possible for sharing.The session goes through a worked example of how to prepare and deposit survey data from a research project. It also explains the benefits of sharing research data (and other outputs), and then looks at what data should be shared, the steps you'll need to take, and the process of actually depositing the data.</p