Explaining Immigrants' Worries About Ethnic Harassment: Germany, 1986-2004.

Christoph Spörlein,Elmar Schlueter

doi:10.3389/fsoc.2020.538878

Christoph Spörlein, Elmar Schlueter

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2020.538878

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Abstract

What factors shape immigrants' worries about becoming targets of ethnic harassment? This is an important question to ask, but most previous studies restricted their focus to the microlevel only. By contrast, few if any studies examined the possible macrolevel antecedents driving harassment-related worries among immigrants. This study aims to help fill this gap. Focusing on a 19-years period from 1986 to 2004 in Germany, we apply multilevel regression modeling techniques to repeated cross-sectional survey data collected among immigrants of Greek, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, and (ex-) Yugoslavian origin, linked with contextual characteristics. Our central finding is that German citizens' anti-immigrant prejudice is the key driver of longitudinal differences in immigrants' harassment-related worries. This association holds net of rival variables, such as fluctuations in media attention to ethnic harassment, as well as across all immigrant groups under study. These results bring us one important step further toward a better understanding of interethnic relations between immigrants and host society members.

Highlights

Negative attitudes and behaviors of host society members toward immigrants continue to attract an immense amount of scholarly attention
Building on and extending this theoretical vantage point, the present study focuses on two factors that might shape immigrants’ harassment- related worries: (a) majority members’ anti-immigrant prejudice, and (b) mass media coverage of ethnic harassment
Anti-immigrant prejudice, harassment- related worries and mass media attention to ethnic harassment reach their maxima in 1993, after a period well-known for its exceptional rise in widespread anti-immigrant violent acts (Ohlemacher, 1994)

Summary

Introduction

Negative attitudes and behaviors of host society members toward immigrants continue to attract an immense amount of scholarly attention. Social science knowledge regarding the description and explanation of host-society members’ ethnic harassment has become substantial (Semyonov et al, 2006; Zick et al, 2008; Ceobanu and Escandell, 2010; Hainmueller and Hopkins, 2014). This body of work is not balanced by research on the consequences of anti-immigrant reactions for immigrants themselves. Harassment- related worries plausibly represent a considerable obstacle to immigrants’ successful social integration. Beyond such applied relevance, investigating harassment-related worries in immigrants is important to resolve provoking theoretical puzzles.

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