How Do Social-Contextual Factors Shape Youth’s Intergroup Attitudes towards Immigrants and Refugees across Four Countries?

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Young immigrants and refugees experience rampant bias-based victimization in schools—with wide-spread and long-lasting effects (psychological well-being, physical health, educational attainment; Brenick, Schachner, & Juggert, 2018). Such victimization is exacerbated by social-contextual factors of current political climate and policies regarding immigrants and refugees globally (Pocock & Chan, 2018). Thus, it is timely and critical to examine social-contextual factors that shape youth’s attitudes towards immigrants and refugees to then inform policies that promote more inclusive schools.

This symposium presents four cutting-edge studies examining the role of school, peers, and parents (microsystem), and media (macrosystem) in youth’s intergroup attitudes across different intergroup contexts. The first study shows how democratic school climate is related to less intolerant attitudes of youth towards immigrants at both individual and classroom level (Germany). The second study examines whether youth’s attitudes towards bias-based social exclusion depends on school climate, group membership of exclusion victims, and immigration background of participants (USA). The third study demonstrates how parents’ and peers’ attitudes predict youth’s attitudes towards immigrants via direct and indirect pathways and how diverse classroom contexts might offset the negative parental effects (Sweden). The fourth study examines the role of media, demonstrating that exposure negative media representation shapes youth’s discriminatory tendencies towards refugees through threat perception and prejudice (Turkey).

These studies significantly contribute to the field; they employed different methodologies, were collected in four countries, and add novel findings to the growing literature on promoting inclusive schools and societies in different intergroup contexts.

Sub Unit

• Diversity, Equity & Social Justice

Chairs

• Alaina Brenick, University of Connecticut

• Secil Gonultas, North Carolina State University

Individual Presentations

• School contextual effects on adolescents’ intolerant attitudes towards immigrants: A multilevel and longitudinal analysis - Presenting Author: Katharina Eckstein, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany; Non-Presenting Author: Marta Miklilowska, Umeå University; Non-Presenting Author: Peter Noack, University of Jena

• Evaluations of Bias-based Bullying of Im/migrant Youth in the U.S.: The Role of School Climate - Presenting Author: Alaina Brenick, University of Connecticut; Non-Presenting Author: Abby Stepka, University of Connecticut; Non-Presenting Author: Maisha Seraj, University of Connecticut; Non-Presenting Author: Rui Wu, University of Connecticut; Non-Presenting Author: Mingjung Choi, University of Connecticut; Non-Presenting Author: Arianna Trahiotis, University of Connecticut

• The Role of Parents, Peers, and Classroom Ethnic Diversity in Development of Anti-immigrant Attitudes in Adolescence - Presenting Author: Marta Miklilowska, Umeå University; Non-Presenting Author: Andrea Bohman, Umeå University; Non-Presenting Author: Peter Titzmann, Leibniz University Hannover

• Does Negative Media Representation Shape Adolescents’ Discrimination towards Syrian Refugees through Threat Perception and Prejudice? - Presenting Author: Secil Gonultas, North Carolina State University; Non-Presenting Author: Kelly Lynn S Mulvey, North Carolina State University