A quantitative study investigating the association between refugee’s gender ideology and their sense of belonging in Germany

Background: Following the “refugee crisis” in 2015/16 the German migration discourse has become more and more focused on the “incompatibility” of Islam with German society and associated “oppressive” gender roles “threatening” German culture. Gender ideologies assumed to be held by refugees are often used by right-wing groups, to questioning their belonging in Germany and to reinforce racist and Islamophobic narratives. Study Aim: The aim of the following study is to examine the association between gender ideology and refugee´s sense of belonging in Germany. The study will assess the influence of a variety of aspects of integration, such as time spent with Germans, people from other countries and the refugees home country, as well as contact with Germans, German skills, employment status, marital status, religious affiliation, and residence status. Data and Methods: 1625 refugees between the ages of 19 and 93, who took part on both the second (2017) and third (2018) of the IAB-BAMF-SOEP-Surveys for refugees, made up the sample used in the study. All participants arrived in Germany after 2013 and the majority had been granted a residence permit at the time of the survey. Univariate (Descriptive Statistics, Reliability Analysis) and Bivariate analysis (Pearson-Product Moment) was performed. To assess the association between Gender Equality and sense of belonging, a Hierarchical Regression Analysis was performed, controlling for the impact of different integration factors. Results and Discussion: This study did not find any evidence that gender ideology of refugees is associated with their sense of belonging. Shared values are generally considered to be an important aspect of social belonging, but other markers of social integration, such as German skills, contact to Germans and religious affiliation, were found to be more important. Contrary to the belief held by populist groups, but supported by previous research, the study found that egalitarian gender ideologies were relatively widespread among the participants. Analysed from a political perspective, the study found, that it is the exclusionary discourse on gender ideology that is hindering social integration of refugees instead. Conclusion: This study was able to illustrate, that from a subjective perspective gender ideology has no effect on refugees´ sense of belonging. The narrative that refugees’ assumed gender ideology is the biggest obstacle in their integration process, is instrumentalising gender ideology, to push racist and Islamophobic narratives under the guise of protecting an imagined German culture and society. Future research may expand on the findings of the study by conducting a longitudinal perspective on how refugees’ sense of belonging is changing over time, as well as implementing a more multidimensional framework of gender ideologies.Master's ThesisGLODE33

Comparison of first-principles methods to extract magnetic parameters in ultra-thin films: Co/Pt(111)

We compare three distinct computational approaches based on first-principles calculations within density functional theory to explore the magnetic exchange and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions (DMI) of a Co monolayer on Pt(111), namely (i) the method of infinitesimal rotations of magnetic moments based on the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker (KKR) Green function method, (ii) the generalized Bloch theorem applied to spiraling magnetic structures and (iii) supercell calculations with non-collinear magnetic moments, the latter two being based on the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave (FLAPW) method. In particular, we show that the magnetic interaction parameters entering micromagnetic models describing the long-wavelength deviations from the ferromagnetic state might be different from those calculated for fast rotating magnetic structures, as they are obtained by using (necessarily rather small) supercell or large spin-spiral wave-vectors. In the micromagnetic limit, which we motivate to use by an analysis of the Fourier components of the domain-wall profile, we obtain consistent results for the spin stiffness and DMI spiralization using methods (i) and (ii). The calculated spin stiffness and Curie temperature determined by subsequent Monte Carlo simulations are considerably higher than estimated from the bulk properties of Co, a consequence of a significantly increased nearest-neighbor exchange interaction in the Co-monolayer (+50%). The calculated results are carefully compared with the literature