Neighbourhoods and Municipalities as Contextual Opportunities for Interethnic Contact

Abstract

This article investigates consequences of spatial contexts on interethnic contact. Despite the acknowledged integrative effects of pleasant interethnic relationships, several unresolved issues remain in this research field: investigations at two contextual levels simultaneously—i.e. neighbourhood and municipality levels; investigations of several contextual characteristics simultaneously, e.g. ethnic concentration, physical contact opportunities, population size; investigations on different kinds of interethnic contact, for example, contact with neighbours, with friends or in general. The present study contributes to these issues by analysing interethnic contact from a native’s perspective using a German nation-wide dataset. A considerably high proportion of Germans (72 per cent) have contact with foreigners in at least one out of four measured types. Ethnic concentration is the strongest contextual predictor for all kinds of interethnic contact. Physical contact opportunities in the immediate neighbourhood foster interethnic contact in the neighbourhood only, while municipality size mostly diminishes interethnic contact.

Meet Your Neighbours. Authoritarians Engage in Intergroup Contact When They have the Opportunity

“…This openness towards other groups might be comparable with general openness for experience, which is negatively correlated with RWA (Sibley & Duckitt, ). As Petermann () showed, multi‐ethnic neighbourhoods raise the probability of casual intergroup contact in daily life, which might be due to a decrease in threat. Recent research showing that the decrease in prejudice for high‐RWAs after positive contact experiences was mediated by a decrease in threat perceptions (Asbrock et al, ; Hodson et al, ) supports this assumption.…”

“…Even though the growing number of Asians as the main immigrant group in New Zealand can be seen as threat for authoritarians, the avoidance of intergroup contact is not adaptive for high‐RWAs in this context. This might be signalized by threat‐diminishing habituation through casual contact situations (Petermann, ).…”

Når majoritetsmedlemmer og etniske minoritetsmedlemmer mødes

“…Dernaest vil der i de fleste multietniske boligområder vaere flere muligheder for kontakt (Petermann 2013). Kontakt med de naermeste naboer er naturligvis mest almindelig, men der vil herudover i større boligkvarterer kunne vaere restauranter, biografer, idraetsforeninger, børnehaver, taetliggende skoler og rekreative områder, som muliggør, at majoritetsmedlemmer og etniske minoritetsmedlemmer kan mødes med jaevne mellemrum (jf.…”

Relative deprivation and ‘the diversity effect’ in explaining neighbourhood attachment: Alternative or complementary mechanisms?

“…'Taste for diversity' therefore does not seem to be the main explanation for why people settle in diverse areas (Peterman, 2013). The role of macro-structural factors in the formation of ethnically diverse neighbourhoods should also be accounted for (Talen, 2008).…”