Veilige hechting met ouders, leerkrachten en school, sociale cohesie op school en etnische vooroordelen bij Vlaamse jongeren

Abstract

As a result of global migration processes, schools in Flanders are now notably ethnically diverse. Taking into consideration the lack of research on determinants of Flemish students’ ethnic prejudice and Bowlby’s attachment theory, we want to examine the role of the individual feeling of attachment and the social cohesion in schools for Flemish students’ degree of ethnic prejudice in secondary education. Moreover, we control for ethnic school composition and pupil characteristics that have been shown to be related to ethnic prejudice. The data used are taken from the Racism and Discrimination in Secondary Schools Research (RaDiSS 2), collected by means of a written questionnaire by 2.058 students and 669 teachers in 40 Flemish secondary schools. The main finding of this study is that the individual feeling of being securely attached is associated with lower levels of ethnic prejudice: Flemish pupils who feel supported by their parents, teachers and school are less ethnic prejudiced. Moreover, social cohesion in a school is related with lower degrees of ethnic prejudice among Flemish students.