How positive and negative intergroup contact jointly inform minority support for social change: The role of system-fairness beliefs.

Research suggests that positive contact with majorities may 'sedate' (undermine) minority support for social change, while negative contact may promote it. However, most studies to date have examined both forms of contact separately, which may not give an accurate picture of their effects. This study examines the joint effects and interplay of positive and negative contact on minority support for social change, and the role of system-fairness beliefs across seven ethnic minority samples in six countries (N = 790). Multigroup Structural Equation Modelling showed that negative contact predicted higher minority support for social change. Positive contact predicted both less support for social change indirectly via enhanced system-fairness beliefs, and more support for social change directly. Except for one national context, the total effects of positive contact were either non-significant or significantly positive. This shows that increased system-fairness beliefs can explain sedative effects of positive contact, and that positive contact may also promote support for social change. We conclude that sedative effects of positive contact may be overestimated by not considering negative contact.

How School and Home Contexts Impact the School Adjustment of Adolescents from Different Ethnic and SES Backgrounds During COVID-19 School Closures.

Many schools worldwide closed to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus. However, the consequences of school closures for the school adjustment of adolescents from different ethnic and SES backgrounds remain unclear. This study examined how school adjustment changed before, during, and after school closure across adolescents from different ethnic and SES backgrounds; and which factors in home and school contexts served as resources. Early adolescents (N = 124, Mage = 12.86, 58.8% boys) from different ethnic and SES backgrounds were repeatedly assessed 1 week before (March 2020), during (June 2020), and 1 year after (February 2021) the first school closure in Belgium. The results revealed that school closure augmented ethnicity- and SES-based inequalities in school adjustment. Moreover, factors in the school context-and not the home context-served as resources. Specifically, the quality of online instruction and teacher-pupil relationships buffered against reduced school adjustment during school closure, particularly among youth from ethnic minority and lower SES backgrounds. The findings corroborate unequal school adjustment consequences of school closures, but also highlight the role of teachers to buffer against them. The study design, hypotheses, and analyses were preregistered in the following link: https://osf.io/6ygcu/?view_only=c77cfb46028447bdb7844cd2c76237aa .

Enhancing or reducing interethnic hierarchies? Teacher diversity approaches and ethnic majority and minority students' ethnic attitudes and discrimination experiences.

Diversity approaches in school may affect students' interethnic relations but are often only assessed through students' perceptions. We related teacher-reported diversity approaches (i.e., assimilationism, multiculturalism, color-evasion, and intervening with discrimination) to ethnic majority and minority students' ethnic attitudes as well as to their experiences or perceptions of ethnic discrimination. We also explored students' perceptions of teacher approaches as hypothetical mediators of teacher effects on interethnic relations. We coupled survey data from 547 teachers (Mage = 39.02 years, 70% female) in 64 schools in Belgium with large-scale longitudinal survey data from their students, including 1287 Belgian majority students (Mage = 15.52, 51% female) and 696 Turkish- or Moroccan-origin minority students (Mage = 15.92, 58% female) enrolled in the same schools (Phalet et al., 2018). Longitudinal multilevel models revealed that over time, teacher-reported assimilationism predicted (even) more positive attitudes towards Belgian majority members, and multiculturalism predicted less highly positive attitudes towards Belgian majority members among Belgian majority students. Teacher-reported intervening with discrimination predicted more perceived discrimination of ethnic minority students over time among Belgian majority students. We did not find significant longitudinal effects of teachers' diversity approaches with Turkish- or Moroccan-origin minority students' ethnic attitudes, nor with their discrimination experiences or perceptions. We conclude that teachers' multiculturalism and anti-discrimination approaches reduced interethnic bias and raised awareness of discrimination among ethnic majority students. However, different perceptions by teachers and students suggest the need for schools to better communicate inclusive diversity approaches.

Show me your friends, I'll tell you your emotions: Emotional fit of immigrant-origin minority youth in cross-cultural friendship networks.

The typical emotional responses to certain types of situations differ across cultures. Being reprimanded by your teacher in front of the class may be cause for anger and indignation among pupils in one cultural context, but for anger, shame, and possibly respect for the teacher among pupils in another cultural context. The consequence for immigrant-origin minorities is that they may not fit the emotions of the majority culture. Previous research has found that minorities who have majority contact have higher emotional fit with the majority culture. In the current study, we suggest that friendships with majority peers are particularly important to minorities' emotional fit. Students (945 minority and 1256 majority) from a representative sample of Belgian middle schools completed a sociometric questionnaire on their classroom friendships and rated their emotional experiences in two situations. Multilevel models yielded higher levels of emotional fit for minority youth with many (vs. few) majority friends as well as for minorities whose majority friends are connected (vs. less connected) to each other, or who are well-connected in the majority peer network. Having majority friends predicted emotional fit over and above majority contact in general.

Multiple pathways of integration: Acculturative change and associations with school adjustment in immigrant-origin adolescents.

Tracing developmental pathways of immigrant-origin adolescents, this 3-year longitudinal study (2012-2015) examined within-person changes in cultural orientations and their consequences for school adjustment. Multivariate latent growth mixture modeling confirmed multiple pathways of integration, revealing variable acculturative changes along dual trajectories of heritage and mainstream orientations among European-origin (N = 592, Mage  = 14.45, 55.1% boys) and Turkish- and Moroccan-origin adolescents (N = 1269, Mage  = 14.70, 53.1% boys). Two trajectories for European-origin adolescents differed in heritage orientations (high decreasing and low increasing); for Turkish- and Moroccan-origin adolescents, three trajectories differed in mainstream orientations (high stable, low increasing, and high decreasing). Acculturative change affected aspects of later school adjustment: European-origin adolescents in high heritage orientation trajectories reported more belonging and emotional engagement; Turkish- and Moroccan-origin adolescents in high mainstream orientation trajectories reported more behavioral engagement.

Policies and prejudice: Integration policies moderate the link between immigrant presence and anti-immigrant prejudice.

More people than ever migrate across the world, thereby more people than ever live, study, and work in countries, regions, and institutions with high immigrant presence. Conflict and threat theories have argued that increasing immigration inevitably heightens native citizens' anti-immigrant prejudice. Drawing on alternate strands of social psychological literature such as contact theory, the present study challenges this argument. We highlight the role of the sociopolitical context of prejudice focusing on socioeconomic and legal integration policies. We reason that such integration policies shape intergroup relations by reducing structural (socioeconomic and legal) inequalities. Thus, inclusive policies will effectively reduce prejudice especially at high levels of immigrant presence through empowering immigrants and reducing immigrant disadvantage. Indeed our findings identify inclusive integration policies as a key condition for low anti-immigrant prejudice in high-immigration contexts. We analyze surveys of 143,752 participants across 66 different countries, 20 subnational regions, and 64 institutions as sociopolitical contexts using six different data sets in eight studies. Our multilevel analyses consistently demonstrate that anti-immigrant prejudice is lower among natives when higher levels of immigrant presence are coupled with inclusive, rather than exclusive, integration policies. Inclusive policies that render immigrants more equal to natives are the path to improved intergroup relations and social cohesion in diverse societies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

No man is an island: Psychological underpinnings of prosociality in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak.

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, sustainable forms of collective resilience help societies coping cohesively with unprecedented challenges. In our empirical contribution, we framed collective resilience and cohesion in terms of prosociality. A study carried out in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak in the UK (N = 399) articulated basic individual values, ideological orientations (i.e., authoritarianism and social dominance orientation), and core political values in a comprehensive framework to predict bonding and bridging forms of prosocial intentions, and prosocial behaviors directed towards vulnerable groups. According to our findings, people whose worldview incorporates collective and collaborative principles cared more about others' welfare. Jointly, self-transcendence, equality, and accepting immigrants predicted more prosociality, whereas social dominance orientation predicted less prosociality. Over and beyond all other predictors, self-transcendence uniquely predicted prosocial intentions and behaviors alike. To conclude, we suggest interventions to promote and sustain prosociality among people motivated by a larger array of life goals and worldviews.

Majority group belonging without minority group distancing? Minority experiences of intergroup contact and inequality.

As most immigrant-origin minority youth grow up in ethnically diverse social worlds, they develop a sense of belonging to both the national majority and the ethnic minority group. Our study adds to a growing body of research on minority experiences of intergroup contact by (1) including both minority and majority group belonging as outcomes and (2) examining the interplay of majority contact with unequal treatment. We surveyed 1,200 Turkish and Moroccan-Belgian minority youth in 315 classrooms across 65 schools, using multiple measures of intergroup contact, unequal treatment in school, and minority and majority group belonging. Multi-level models showed that minority youth who experienced more intergroup contact, and less unequal treatment, reported more belonging to the majority group. In addition, contact predicted less belonging to the minority group only in the presence of unequal treatment: For minority youth who perceived less unequal treatment, either individually or collectively, intergroup contact was unrelated to minority group belonging. We conclude that majority group contact and belonging need not come at the cost of minority group distancing in the absence of inequality.

How Diversity Approaches Affect Ethnic Minority and Majority Adolescents: Teacher-Student Relationship Trajectories and School Outcomes.

This study aimed to relate school diversity approaches to continuity and change in teacher-student relationships, comparing Belgian-majority (N = 1,875, Mage  = 14.56) and Turkish and Moroccan-minority adolescents (N = 1,445, Mage  = 15.07). Latent-Growth-Mixture-Models of student-reported teacher support and rejection over 3 years revealed three trajectories per group: normative-positive (high support, low rejection) and decreasing-negative (moderate support, high-decreasing rejection) for both groups, increasing-negative (moderate support, low-increasing rejection) for minority, moderate-positive (moderate support, low rejection) for majority youth. Trajectories differed between age groups. Student and teacher perceptions of equality and multiculturalism afforded, and assimilationism threatened, normative-positive trajectories for minority youth. Diversity approaches had less impact on majority trajectories. Normative-positive trajectories were related to improved school outcomes; they were less likely, but more beneficial for minority than majority youth.

To belong or not to belong: Protecting minority engagement in the face of discrimination.

School belonging is pivotal in enabling sustained task engagement, yet minorities' belonging is contingent on the intergroup context. From a social identity approach, discrimination experiences elicit identity threat, undermining school belonging. Conversely, a positive diversity climate may shield belonging through protecting minority identities. This study addresses minority school belonging and task engagement from the interplay of identity threat and protection in diverse classrooms. We hypothesise that a positive diversity climate can buffer minority disengagement in response to discrimination by protecting school belonging. Drawing on Turkish and Moroccan minority samples (N = 1050) in 274 diverse classrooms in 52 Belgian secondary schools, we test multilevel models with school belonging as mediating process connecting minorities' engagement to the interplay of discrimination experiences with perceived diversity climate. Minority youth who experienced discrimination from teachers reported less school belonging, which in turn predicted lower task engagement. Conversely, minority perceptions of a positive diversity climate predicted more belonging. Moreover, perceived diversity climate buffered minority engagement against personal experiences of discrimination through protecting school belonging. Whereas discrimination experiences undermined minority school belonging and task engagement, minority perceptions of a positive diversity climate protected belonging and engagement against discrimination.

To punish or to assist? Divergent reactions to ingroup and outgroup members disobeying social distancing.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, societies face the formidable challenge of developing sustainable forms of sociability-cumsocial-distancing - enduring social life while containing the virus and preventing new outbreaks. Accordant public policies often balance between retributive (punishment-based) and assistance (solidarity-based) measures to foster responsible behaviour. Yet, the uncontrolled spreading of the disease has divided public opinion about which measures are best suited, and it has made salient group disparities in behaviour, potentially straining intergroup relations, elevating heated emotions, and undercutting coordinated international responses. In a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment, British citizens (N = 377) read about national in-group or outgroup members (categorical differentiation), who were either conforming to or deviating from the corona regulations (normative differentiation). Participants then reported moral emotions towards the target national group and indicated support for public policies. In general, support for assistance policies outweighed support for retributive measures. Second, however, norm deviation was associated with less positive and more negative moral emotions, the latter category further relating to more punitiveness and less assistance support. Finally, respondents who read about norm-violating outgroup members especially reported support for retributive measures, indicating that people might use norm deviation to justify outgroup derogation. We discuss implications for policymakers and formulate future research avenues.

Can School Diversity Policies Reduce Belonging and Achievement Gaps Between Minority and Majority Youth? Multiculturalism, Colorblindness, and Assimilationism Assessed.

European societies and schools face the challenge of accommodating immigrant minorities from increasingly diverse cultural backgrounds. In view of significant belonging and achievement gaps between minority and majority groups in school, we examine which diversity approaches are communicated by actual school policies and which approaches predict smaller ethnic gaps in student outcomes over time. To derive diversity approaches, we content-analyzed diversity policies from (n = 66) randomly sampled Belgian middle schools. Cluster analysis yielded different approaches valuing, ignoring, or rejecting cultural diversity in line with multiculturalism, colorblindness, and assimilationism, respectively. We estimated multilevel path models that longitudinally related diversity approaches to (N = 1,747) minority and (N = 1,384) majority students' school belonging and achievement (self-reported grades) 1 year later. Multiculturalism predicted smaller belonging and achievement gaps over time; colorblindness and assimilationism were related to wider achievement and belonging gaps, respectively. Longitudinal effects of colorblindness on achievement were mediated by (less) prior school belonging.

Contingent National Belonging: The Perceived Fit and Acceptance of Culturally Different Peers Predicts Minority Adolescents' Own Belonging.

Prevailing definitions of national identities in Europe equate belonging to the nation with "fitting in" culturally and leave immigrant minorities who are culturally different from the majority group struggling to belong. The present study focuses on an under-researched minority perspective on the intersubjective cultural contents of the national identity. We propose that minorities' national belonging is contingent on their perception that minority peers who deviate from the majority culture are accepted as real nationals. Our study aims to establish (a) minority perceptions of the national fit and acceptance of culturally different peers, and to test (b) the consequences of perceived fit and acceptance for minority adolescents' own national belonging, and (c) its affordances by the local peer context. Drawing on a large random sample of 1,489 Moroccan and Turkish minority youth (aged 12-18) and their peers across 312 classes in 63 Belgian schools, we varied cultural difference from the majority in three vignettes describing imaginary acculturating peers. Minority participants rated to what extent they saw each peer as a real national (perceived fit) and whether other nationals would accept this peer (perceived acceptance). As a measure of their own national belonging, they indicated their national self-identification. Additionally, the multi-level design included classroom contextual measures of majority peer presence and peer acculturation norms (peer norm of heritage culture maintenance). As expected, minority youth who perceived better national fit of culturally different peers, self-identified more strongly as nationals than those who perceived worse fit. This association was not explained by their own acculturation attitudes. In line with the contextual affordance of national fit, only in classes with majority peers, minority youth perceived higher national fit and acceptance of culturally different peers when peer norms supported the maintenance of a distinct heritage culture. We conclude that the national belonging of minority youth is contingent on the peer context through the perceived fit and acceptance of culturally different peers.

Religion and National Identification in Europe: Comparing Muslim Youth in Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

How inclusive are European national identities of Muslim minorities and how can we explain cross-cultural variation in inclusiveness? To address these questions, we draw on large-scale school-based surveys of Muslim minority and non-Muslim majority and other minority youth in five European countries (Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey [CILS]; Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden). Our double comparison of national identification across groups and countries reveals that national identities are less strongly endorsed by all minorities compared with majority youth, but national identification is lowest among Muslims. This descriptive evidence resonates with public concerns about the insufficient inclusion of immigrant minorities in general, and Muslims in particular, in European national identities. In addition, significant country variation in group differences in identification suggest that some national identities are more inclusive of Muslims than others. Taking an intergroup relations approach to the inclusiveness of national identities for Muslims, we establish that beyond religious commitment, positive intergroup contact (majority friendship) plays a major role in explaining differences in national identification in multigroup multilevel mediation models, whereas experiences of discrimination in school do not contribute to this explanation. Our comparative findings thus establish contextual variation in the inclusiveness of intergroup relations and European national identities for Muslim minorities.

Ethnic diversity and value sharing: A longitudinal social network perspective on interactive group processes.

People often collaborate in groups that are increasingly diverse. As research predominantly investigated effects of diversity, the processes behind these effects remain understudied. We follow recent research that shows creating shared values is important for group functioning but seems hindered in high diversity groups - and use longitudinal social network analyses to study two interpersonal processes behind value sharing: creating relations between members or 'social bonding' (network tie formation and homophily) and sharing values - potentially through these relationships - or 'social norming' (network convergence and influence). We investigate these processes in small interactive groups with low and high ethnic diversity as they collaborate over time. In both low and high diversity groups, members showed social bonding and this creation of relations between members was not organized along ethnic lines. Low diversity groups also showed social norming: Members adjusted their relational values to others they liked and achievement values converged regardless of liking. In high diversity groups, however, there was no evidence for social norming. Thus, ethnic diversity seems to especially affect processes of social norming in groups, suggesting that targeted interventions should focus on facilitating social norming to stimulate value sharing in high diversity groups.

Women (Do Not) Belong Here: Gender-Work Identity Conflict among Female Police Officers.

The current paper examines antecedents and consequences of perceiving conflict between gender and work identities in male-dominated professions. In a study among 657 employees working in 85 teams in the police force, we investigated the effect of being different from team members in terms of gender on employees' perception that their team members see their gender identity as conflicting with their work identity. As expected in the police force as a male-dominated field, the results showed that gender-dissimilarity in the team was related to perceived gender-work identity conflict for women, and not for men. In turn, perceiving gender-work identity conflict was related to lower team identification for men and women. Although lowering team identification might enable employees to cope with conflicting social identities and hence protect the self, this may also have its costs, as lower team identification predicted higher turnover intentions, more burn-out symptoms, less extra role behavior, lower job satisfaction, lower work motivation, and lower perceived performance. Additionally, for women, experiencing support from their team members and team leader showed a trend to mitigate the relationship between gender-dissimilarity and perceived gender-work identity conflict, and a positive diversity climate was marginally related to less perceived gender-work identity conflict. The results show the importance of the team context in shaping a climate of (in)compatible identities for numerically underrepresented and historically undervalued social group members in order to hinder or protect their work outcomes.

Minority Adolescents in Ethnically Diverse Schools: Perceptions of Equal Treatment Buffer Threat Effects.

Can perceptions of equal treatment buffer the negative effects of threat on the school success of minority students? Focusing on minority adolescents from Turkish and Moroccan heritage in Belgium (Mage  = 14.5; N = 735 in 47 ethnically diverse schools), multilevel mediated moderation analyses showed: (a) perceived discrimination at school predicted lower test performance; (b) experimentally manipulated stereotype threat decreased performance (mediated by increased disengagement); (c) perceived equal treatment at school predicted higher performance (mediated by decreased disengagement); and (d) personal and peer perceptions of equal treatment buffered negative effects of discrimination and stereotype threat. Thus, (situational) stereotype threat and perceived discrimination at school both undermine minority student success, whereas perceived equal treatment can provide a buffer against such threats.

Minority acculturation and peer rejection: Costs of acculturation misfit with peer-group norms.

How do minority adolescents' personal acculturation preferences and peer norms of acculturation affect their social inclusion in school? Turkish and Moroccan minority adolescents (N = 681) reported their preferences for heritage culture maintenance, mainstream culture adoption, and their experiences of peer rejection as a key indicator of adjustment problems. Additionally, we aggregated peer acculturation norms of maintenance and adoption within ethnically diverse classrooms (N = 230 in 50 Belgian schools), distinguishing between co-ethnic (Turkish or Moroccan classmates only, N = 681) and cross-ethnic norms (also including N = 1,930 other classmates). Cross-ethnic peer-group norms (of adoption and maintenance) and co-ethnic norms (of maintenance, marginally) predicted minority experiences of peer rejection (controlling for ethnic composition). Moreover, misfit of minorities' own acculturation preferences with both cross-ethnic and co-ethnic peer-group norms was harmful. When cross-ethnic norms stressed adoption, 'integrationist' minority youth - who combined culture adoption with maintenance - experienced most peer rejection. Yet, when co-ethnic peers stressed maintenance, 'assimilationist' minority youth experienced most rejection. In conclusion, acculturation misfit with peer-group norms is a risk factor for minority inclusion in ethnically diverse environments.

Becoming a group: value convergence and emergent work group identities.

This study examines the process of group identity formation through social interaction in real-life work groups, with a focus on achievement values as content of work group identities. Extending research on social identity formation, we examined the process of value convergence as group members negotiate common group goals. Specifically, we predicted that work group members would influence each other's achievement values and that value convergence over time would underlie emergent work group identities and work group performance. Using a fully cross-lagged multilevel design with four repeated measures in 68 work groups, we find that group members' achievement values converge through mutual social influence. Moreover, multilevel polynomial regression analysis reveals that value convergence - rather than group members' initial value fit - longitudinally predicts work group identification and performance.

Relative group size and minority school success: the role of intergroup friendship and discrimination experiences.

From an intergroup relations perspective, relative group size is associated with the quantity and quality of intergroup contact: more positive contact (i.e., intergroup friendship) supports, and negative contact (i.e., experienced discrimination) hampers, minority identity, and school success. Accordingly, we examined intergroup contact as the process through which perceived relative proportions of minority and majority students in school affected minority success (i.e., school performance, satisfaction, and self-efficacy). Turkish minorities (N = 1,060) were compared in four Austrian and Belgian cities which differ in their typical school ethnic composition. Across cities, minority experiences of intergroup contact fully mediated the impact of perceived relative group size on school success. As expected, higher minority presence impaired school success through restricting intergroup friendship and increasing experienced discrimination. The association between minority presence and discrimination was curvilinear, however, so that schools where minority students predominated offered some protection from discrimination. To conclude, the comparative findings reveal positive and negative intergroup contact as key processes that jointly explain when and how higher proportions of minority students affect school success.