Close Encounters: Minority and Majority Perceptions of Discrimination and Intergroup Relations in Antwerp, Belgium

Abstract

Increasing numbers of second-generation Muslims are highly qualified and locally embedded in today's European cities. This does not protect them, however, from experiencing discrimination in intergroup encounters in school, at work, or in the street. Taking an approach from local intergroup relations between ethnic minorities and the majority society, we draw on the TIES (The Integration of the European Second Generation) surveys to compare Turkish and Moroccan minorities and majority Belgians in Antwerp, Belgium. Our research aims (1) to establish minority and majority perspectives on (reverse) personal discrimination (2) in different life domains, and (3) to differentiate internally between gender, socioeconomic attainments, and local climates. Structural equation models show minority and majority group perspectives on discrimination as gendered and situated inter-group encounters in socioeconomic and civic domains of life.