Abstract
Immigrant and minority youth are at risk of experiencing victimization due to their ethnic, cultural, or religious background. Despite an increasing number of studies that aims at understanding the consequences of being the target of such negative experiences, little attention has been paid to the factors that might counteract the occurrence of ethnic victimization. The present study aimed to address this gap in knowledge by investigating the possible role of school context. Specifically, the present study examined the extent to which perceived positive contact norms in class and teachers’ reactions to ethnic victimization are linked to engagement in ethnic victimization. It also examined whether such links differ across adolescents with different levels of tolerance toward immigrants. The sample included 963 adolescents residing in Sweden (Mage = 13.11, SD = 0.41; 46% girls). The results showed that perceived positive contact norms in class were associated with a lower likelihood of engagement in ethnic victimization across youth with different levels of tolerance toward immigrants. When adolescents perceived their teachers as not tolerating ethnic victimization, those with high levels of tolerance were less likely to engage in it. However, teacher reactions did not affect the behaviors of adolescents with low and moderate levels of tolerance toward immigrants. The findings indicate the importance of classroom context and teachers in counteracting negative interactions among students of diverse backgrounds.
Highlights
Immigrant and minority youth are at risk of experiencing unfair treatment and victimization due to their ethnic or cultural background, their religion, or the language they speak
The findings showed that when adolescents perceived that their teachers reacted to ethnic victimization, they were less likely to engage in ethnic victimization
Together, supporting the premises of the rich-get-richer hypothesis, these findings suggest that when teachers make it clear to students that no-one can make negative comments about others because of their background, students with positive attitudes and feelings toward immigrants are less likely to engage in ethnic victimization
Summary
Immigrant and minority youth are at risk of experiencing unfair treatment and victimization due to their ethnic or cultural background, their religion, or the language they speak. Promoting social contact and cooperation between people of different backgrounds is regarded as the base for the development of positive intergroup attitudes and relationships (Allport 1954) Supporting this conceptual argument, a large body of empirical research has shown that the more cross-ethnic friendships adolescents form, the more positive intergroup attitudes they will hold (e.g., Davies et al 2011; Pettigrew and Tropp 2006). Perceived positive contact norms in class have been found to be associated with lower perceived discrimination (Schachner et al in press) and a greater out-group orientation (Schwarzenthal et al 2018) among immigrant students Together, these findings suggest that adolescents are influenced by the norms or behaviors of others in their social context, entailing that prejudicial beliefs or inclusive attitudes may be a function of where youth are situated contextually
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
