Contextual factors and prejudice at the beginning of the migrant influx: The Moroccan case in Seville, Spain

Studies addressing contextual factors associated with anti‐immigrant prejudice have focused on out‐group size and rapid demographic changes in receiving locations. However, the territorial concentration and distribution of ethnic minorities at a local and intraurban level has received little attention. We analyse the relationship between emerging territorial concentration points—alongside other contextual variables—by Moroccans and receiving society's growing prejudice towards them in a city experiencing the start of a migrant influx. We combine survey and census data from five Seville districts (southern Spain). Our results show how rapid changes in the general population's ethnic composition, coupled with Moroccan and economic migrants' territorial concentration, correlate strongly with negative attitudes towards Moroccans at this early stage. However, a weaker relationship between the immigrant percentage and degree of prejudice by the receiving group is observed. We also discuss guidelines for ensuring good, local diversity management to prevent socioterritorial fragmentation in multicultural cities.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad de España CSO2014‐55780‐C3‐1‐PMinisterio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad de España SEJ2006-14470Junta de Andalucí

Religion for the political rights of immigrants and refugees? An empirical exploration among Italian students

Contains fulltext : 198187pub.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)This article focuses on the support, or lack of support, for political rights of immigrants and refugees. Confronted with relatively big groups of migrants and refugees in the Southern part of the country, Italian youth is a highly relevant population to ask the following question: whose rights are human rights? Are political rights the property of all people residing in a country, or can they only be claimed by its citizens? This question is not merely an academic one; it touches the lives of more than ten thousand migrants arriving on the Italian shores every month while risking their lives. This burning issue engages intensely political voices and actors in civil society. One among the latter, the Catholic Church, has become more vocal in the last years in advocating an extension of the rights of immigrants and refugees, sometimes even creating a public clash between bishops’ statements and the voices of those politicians who express populist and xenophobic ideas. This contribution concerns the role of the Catholic Church in Italy’s debate about the political rights of foreigners; not only at the level of public statements and official teachings of the Catholic hierarchy but also at the level of Italian students’ opinions on these matters