Abstract
ABSTRACTResearch frequently demonstrates diverse communities exhibit lower intra-community cohesion. Recent studies suggest there is little evidence perceived ethnic threat plays a role in this relationship. This paper re-examines the roles of ethnic threat and prejudice in the diversity/cohesion relationship. First, we test threat/prejudice as conceptualised in the literature: as mediators of diversity’s effect. Second, we test a reformulation of the roles of threat/prejudice: as moderators of diversity’s effect. Applying multi-level models to cross-sectional and longitudinal data of White British individuals across England and Oldham (a unique English town case-study) we find neighbour-trust lower in diverse communities. However, perceived-threat/prejudice does not mediate this relationship. Instead, we find perceived-threat/prejudice moderate diversity’s impact on neighbour-trust. The result is diversity only reduces neighbour-trust among individuals who already viewed out-groups as threatening. Longitudinal analysis confirms the importance of out-group attitudes in the diversity/neighbour-trust relationship. In diverse communities, residents whose out-group attitudes improve, or worsen, become more, or less, trusting of their neighbours. However, in homogeneous communities, changes in out-group attitudes are not linked to changes in neighbour-trust. We therefore argue and demonstrate that perceived-threat emerges from other societal processes (such as socio-economic precariousness) and it is when individuals who already view out-groups as threatening experience diverse neighbourhoods that local cohesion declines.
Highlights
Whether ethnic diversity poses a risk to social cohesion in society has received significant attention in academic, policy, and public spheres (Putnam 2007; Goodhart 2013; Casey 2016)
The first stage is to explore the role of perceived-threat/prejudice as frequently conceptualised in the literature: as mediators of the diversity/cohesion relationship
Model 1 explores the association between community ethnic diversity and neighbour-trust
Summary
Whether ethnic diversity poses a risk to social cohesion in society has received significant attention in academic, policy, and public spheres (Putnam 2007; Goodhart 2013; Casey 2016). Growing evidence-base that increasing community ethnic diversity appears to erode intracommunity social cohesion (van der Meer and Tolsma 2014; Laurence and Bentley 2016; Dinesen and Sønderskov 2017). Drawing on the available literature, studies have suggested there is little evidence that cohesion is lower in diverse areas due to greater perceived-threat (Putnam 2007; van der Meer and Tolsma 2014; Dinesen and Sønderskov 2015). Current explanations tend to focus on tendencies among people to more readily bond with their own ethnic group This has resulted in a marginalisation of the role of threat and prejudice in explanations for why cohesion may decline with increasing diversity (Putnam 2007). This trend has worrying implications; not least because such findings can be drawn on to legitimate claims that diversity is antithetical to social cohesion given people are, in a sense, ‘hardwired’ to prefer their own group
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