On policies and prejudice: the impact of societal norms on attitude towards immigrants

Dr. Judit Kende (University of Lausanne)

Co-authors: Eva Green, Oriane Sarrasin, Anita Manatschal, and Karen Phalet

Abstract. Our current work examines how societal norms shape national majority views regarding immigration. In this talk, we discuss two studies and highlight the role of majority attitudes and migration policies as societal norms.

Firstly, thus far understudied, we examine the impact of polarization in majority attitudes. We focus on ethnically diverse real-life intergroup settings and draw on data from a large scale school based survey (CILS-Leuven). We sample 885 native majority students and 598 immigrant-origin minority students in 185 mixed classrooms in 58 schools in Flanders-Belgium. We show that school level polarization of attitudes towards immigrants influences individual levels of xenophobia among native youth and the identification of immigrant-origin youth.

Secondly, we ask whether integration policies would moderate the link between immigrant presence and xenophobia among natives. We conduct six multilevel studies (N≈ 100.000) across 44 countries, 26 Swiss cantons and 70 Flemish schools. We consistently find that higher levels of immigrant presence predict high xenophobia when integration policies are not inclusive (do not provide equal rights and access to services). But higher levels of immigrant presence are related to the least xenophobia when policies are inclusive (provide equal rights and access to services). We conclude that higher immigrant presence does not threaten the native majority when policies allow for equal participation of immigrants.