Study looks at the causes of racial hostility in a multicultural society
- Release Date: 16/06/2009
- Country of Issue: United Kingdom
- Category: Cambridge Journals
A study in the latest issue of the British Journal of Political Science, published by Cambridge University Press, analyses public opinion surveys to assess what determines English whites opinions towards ethnic minorities and immigrants.
Racial conflict in todays multi-cultural society still exists, as demonstrated by the election of members of the far-right British National Party in the recent European parliamentary elections.
In his article Benjamin T. Bowyer analyses recent public opinion surveys which demonstrate that whites racial hostility is affected by the amount of contact they have with the local ethnic population.
The direction of this effect depends on which ethnic minority groups reside in the area. Whites who live in neighbourhoods with relatively large black populations display lower levels of racial hostility than respondents with few black neighbours. This supports the racial contact theory which states that the more personal contact there is between different ethnic groups, the lower the levels of inter-group prejudice.
However, in line with racial threat theory, residential proximity to Pakistanis and Bangladeshis is associated with more negative attitudes towards ethnic minorities. The racial threat theory contends that as a racial minority group expands, competition between groups over resources such as housing and jobs leads to higher levels of prejudice.
The author Benjamin T. Bowyer added; "My research shows that hostility toward ethnic minority groups and immigrants in Britain persists and the recent European election results serve as a reminder that these sentiments provide a potential base of support for extreme-right parties. To understand why such attitudes persist in todays multicultural Britain, it is vitally important to understand the social conditions that can foster racism or promote tolerance."
For further information and to view the article in full, go to journals.cambridge.org/bowyer
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About the British Journal of Political Science
The British Journal of Political Science celebrates 40 years in 2010 and is a broadly based journal aiming to cover developments across a wide range of countries and specialisms. Contributions are drawn from all fields of political science (including political theory, political behaviour, public policy and international relations), and articles from scholars in related disciplines (sociology, social psychology, economics and philosophy) appear frequently.
ISSN: 0007-1234
eISSN: 1469-2112
Web: journals.cambridge.org/bjps
About the article The Contextual Determinants of Whites Racial Attitudes in England by Benjamin T. Boywer
The article tests the contact hypothesis and racial threat theory through multilevel analyses of whites racial attitudes, which are measured with national public opinion polls. Specifically, the survey data analysed in this article are from five years (1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001) of the British Social Attitudes survey, the 1997 British General Election Study and the 2001 British Election Study.
The attention of this study is limited to white people living in England. Respondents from Wales and Scotland, as well as those who indicated a non-white racial background, are not included in these analyses. The survey respondents are matched to contextual data at the ward and district levels. The surveys have been pooled in order to maximise the number of contextual units available for the contextual analyses.
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