ABSTRACT Hungaro-Romanian diplomatic relations have long been shaped by rivalry and interethnic conflict, influencing political and cultural interactions between the two nations. These tensions extend into sport diplomacy, where recurring controversies, particularly in ice hockey, have reinforced divisions rather than fostering dialogue. Media coverage in both countries plays a central role in constructing narratives of victimhood, shaping the image of the ‘other’, and amplifying interethnic tensions. This paper examines the media representation of Hungaro-Romanian sport relations through the lens of ice hockey between 2021 and 2023. It identifies recurring themes, ethnic biases, and dominant narratives that shape public perception and international relations. The central research question explores how media representations function as discursive arenas for negotiating national identity, interethnic tensions and sport diplomacy. The study employs a mixed-method approach combining qualitative content analysis and critical discourse analysis. It analyzes leading Romanian and Hungarian news outlets alongside the official Facebook pages of the respective ice hockey federations, focusing on key matches involving the national teams. The findings show that media representations reinforce historical and ethnic narratives, shaping public opinion and contributing to divergent national perspectives.

ABSTRACT This study investigates the role of janghaksas (provincial and city educational supervisors) in navigating the challenges posed by increasing ethnic diversity in urban South Korean schools. As immigrant populations grow, schools in regions like Incheon, Seoul, and Gyeonggi Province experience demographic shifts that require nuanced and adaptable educational policies. Through in-depth interviews with janghaksas, who bridge the gap between policymakers and teachers, the findings highlight a crisis in schools with high immigrant concentrations, where teachers face overwhelming responsibilities amid resource shortages, rigid policies, and the impacts of ‘Korean flight’. Janghaksas emphasised the urgent need for systemic reforms, as economic instability among immigrant families, interethnic tensions, and inadequate support perpetuates academic struggles and teacher burnout.

This article examines the relationship between encounters with religious diversity and the perspectives people form about Muslims. Its empirical focus is individuals studying at UK universities. Previous research suggests Muslims are amongst those most subject to negative prejudice in the UK, this being structured around racial or ethnic prejudice and negative judgements about Islam as a religion. Universities, on the other hand, generally retain a reputation for upholding values of equality, diversity and inclusion. While this reputation is not uncontested, evidence suggests high proportions of students affirm positive views about minority groups, including Muslims. This article examines longitudinal data from a national survey of university students to clarify how they view Muslims and examine how these views might have been shaped by their experience of university. Focusing on students' encounters with religious diversity, the article examines different mechanisms within the university experience that appear most significant in shaping a more positive outlook on Muslims. In so doing, it assesses the capacity of universities to drive progressive attitudinal change and investigates the social mechanisms that bring this about, highlighting in particular the initiation of 'proactive encounters' with other students affirming different worldviews.

We present a new event dataset on xenophobic violence in Sweden, covering all police-reported, hate-crime-flagged incidents involving physical violence between 2009 and 2022 (n = 2,522). The dataset provides a nationally complete and georeferenced record of violent xenophobic offences, combining programmatic extraction of structured police records with manual coding of free-text narratives under transparent inclusion criteria. It includes detailed information on offence types, bias motivations, temporal and spatial context, and characteristics of victims and perpetrators. By maintaining a uniform sampling frame across the full period, the dataset enables consistent longitudinal analysis of xenophobic violence beyond media-based or survey-driven sources. We present descriptive patterns to illustrate its analytical value, highlighting the coexistence of routine, dispersed assaults and episodic surges linked to external events. The dataset offers a transparent empirical foundation for research on hate crime, political violence, and the dynamics of intergroup conflict.

ABSTRACT Despite extensive research on the symbolic and institutional dimensions of othering, its relational foundations – how relationship characteristics and their embeddedness in wider networks shape experiences of othering – remain underexplored. Adopting a network lens, this paper analyses interactions in which legal citizens are othered on ethnic grounds by individuals within their personal networks and examines how they respond. Because legal citizens formally belong to the national in-group, understanding their othering requires shifting attention from legal status to the relational contexts in which boundaries are enacted. The article draws on semi-structured interviews conducted in Barcelona in 2023 with an ethnically diverse sample of 48 participants. Findings show that several relational factors moderate ethnic prejudices, shaping when and how othering occurs. These include the citizen’s personal network, the ethnic composition of the interactional context, the perceived intentions of the other person, and the type and strength of the relationship between the interactants. These factors also structure power dynamics that constrain the strategies citizens can use in response, such as activating, deactivating, or crossing ethnic boundaries, or not contesting. Citizens’ responses may, in turn, affect the perceptions of those who assign otherness, modifying ethnic prejudices and potentially shifting their behaviour beyond the specific interaction.

This systematic article review critically examines the role and effectiveness of Peace Journalism (PJ) as an alternative framework for mitigating interethnic tension and enhancing national harmony in Malaysia’s diverse religious and cultural landscape. Conventional reporting often exacerbates tensions, making PJ, which emphasizes conflict resolution, context, and multi-perspective reporting, crucial. Employing a qualitative, systematic synthesis approach, fifteen peer-reviewed journal articles and academic sources published between 2013 and 2025 were analyzed. This review integrates Galtung’s Peace Journalism Theory and Framing Theory to assess the structural and socio-cultural constraints impacting PJ implementation. Findings confirm the prevalence of conflict/war-oriented frames in both international and domestic religious coverage. The limited adoption of PJ is attributed to complex structural constraints (e.g., regulatory frameworks, editorial policies, self-censorship) and a bias towards majority-group and authoritative perspectives, limiting exposure to alternative voices. The study establishes that PJ's theoretical potential is compromised by practical and systemic pressures. It recommends comprehensive institutional reforms, journalist empowerment, and strategic leveraging of citizen journalism to facilitate a proactive media role in social cohesion and peacebuilding.

ABSTRACT This study examines the feasibility and sustainability of newly established regional states within Ethiopia's federal system. Since 2018, Ethiopia has created four new regional states through a process that combines constitutional referenda with a top-down ‘clustering’ strategy, fundamentally reconfiguring the federation's territorial architecture. The study employed a qualitative research approach. The findings underscore several critical issues. Firstly, while the constitutional framework outlines procedures for state formation, it lacks mechanisms to assess the economic viability of proposed states. This gap raises concerns about whether the ‘clustering’ basis of state formation – amalgamating multiple ethnic groups into larger conglomerate states – can ensure autonomy, administrative efficiency, and service delivery, potentially exacerbating rather than mitigating ethnic tensions. Secondly, newly established states often encounter institutional fragility and internal conflicts, complicating the establishment of effective governance frameworks and stability. These fundamentally affect the feasibility and sustainability of newly established regional states.

Intergroup contact plays a central role in fostering positive intergroup attitudes; yet, factors promoting intergroup contact are less understood. Using three waves of data from a nationally representative UK household panel study (N = 18,807), we applied longitudinal multilevel models to examine how individual‐ and objective neighbourhood‐level indicators jointly predict cross‐ethnic friendships. At the individual level, higher openness and agreeableness, stronger neighbourhood belonging and a left‐leaning political orientation were associated with more cross‐ethnic friendships. At the contextual level, intergroup friendships were more common in neighbourhoods with more structural opportunity for contact (i.e., areas with a lower proportion of same‐ethnic residents), and in areas with lower anti‐immigration norms (as indicated by local Brexit ‘Leave’ vote share). Crucially, cross‐level interactions highlighted the interplay of person and place: neighbourhood diversity fostered more cross‐ethnic friendships, especially among those with strong neighbourhood belonging, suggesting that people who feel embedded in their community are more likely to translate diverse surroundings into meaningful intergroup ties. Differences between the ethnic majority and minority groups also emerged. For example, higher objective area‐level racial hate crime incidence predicted more intergroup friendships among majority members, suggesting a possible repair response, but showed no association for minority members. Findings underscore the multilevel and group‐specific pathways to sustained intergroup friendships.

ABSTRACT This study was conducted to examine the experiences of social exclusion, daily life practices, identity construction processes, the types of situations they encounter, their coping methods, and how these methods are reflected in their ways of life among Roma individuals living in the Çamyolu neighborhood of the Adapazarı district of Sakarya. The research is grounded in the five dimensions of ecological systems theory: physical, social, cognitive, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Using a qualitative research design, in-depth interviews were conducted with a total of 16 participants, most of whom were low-income women and a large proportion of whom had completed only primary school education. The findings reveal that Roma individuals face multidimensional structural challenges such as spatial stigma, ethnic prejudice, exclusion from employment, and poverty, and that some participants tend to conceal the area in which they reside. Despite these barriers, participants actively employ various coping mechanisms, such as ignoring the treatment they receive related to exclusion and prejudice, maintaining solidarity with other Roma individuals living in the neighborhood, establishing strong ties with family members and supporting them, and strengthening their spirituality through various forms of religious practices. Overall, the study emphasizes that Roma communities should not be viewed solely from the perspective of marginalization and social exclusion, but should also be recognized for their resilience, cultural strengths, social presence, and persistent efforts to demonstrate collective agency. The study is important in terms of shaping the future lives of Roma individuals and identifying their needs.

ABSTRACT Middle childhood represents a crucial developmental stage in which ethnic biases often emerge and solidify, potentially leading to peer exclusion or harassment. Recent research highlights the role of moral disengagement in ethnic‐related harassment and identifies intercultural competences as crucial for counteracting prejudicial peer behaviours. However, studies examining the interplay of these constructs in elementary school children remain scarce. A developmentally appropriate, AI‐supported instrument was designed to assess ethnic prejudice, moral disengagement, and intercultural sensitivity among children aged 9–12 years. One‐shot prompting technique was applied, using a previously validated scenario‐based task with experts' instructions guiding the LLM's behaviour explicitly, to achieve clarity and focus. The instrument was piloted with 232 students. Participants generally perceived the task as engaging and thought‐provoking, reporting self‐reflection about their interactions with culturally diverse peers. Beyond its research utility, the tool holds promise as a sociopedagogical resource to foster intercultural understanding and inclusive teaching practices in elementary education.

ABSTRACT Studies on the contextual setting of hate crime over the past few decades have documented a host of neighborhood-level factors conducive to intergroup conflict. However, there remains limited work that takes a more longitudinal approach to hate crime occurrence despite ecological frameworks that stress dynamic spatial processes in predicting bias crime. We combine facets of semi-parametric group-based trajectory modeling (GBTM) with exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) to clarify distinct trends of bias crime across 272 neighborhoods in Los Angeles County from 2003 through 2023 and their localized spatial occurrence. We likewise studied core community-level features that characterized the neighborhood trajectories of racially motivated crime in the county, finding important dimensions by neighborhood racial composition, mobility, and disadvantage. Our findings offer guidance for future studies on ‘spaces of hate’ as a continual spatial project.

Violent disputes and ethnic clashes have been a common phenomenon in plural societies over the years. Globally, these incidents of ethnic division have been manifested in power politics and control of resources, hence posing a major challenge to unity and social cohesion in these societies. In Kenya threats to ethnic diversity are predominantly ascribed to political instigation, land disputes, ethnic divisions, demonstrations, subsequent clashes, and riots, which are common occurrences during each political campaign season. Uasin Gishu County boasts of a diverse population comprising various ethnic groups has been an epicenter of ethnic conflicts in Kenya for many years. This study sought to put into perspective challenges of ethnic diversity in the county in the face horizontal inequalities which has been a major factor for ethnic tensions in Kenya. The study adopted Interpretivist philosophy. The study applied descriptive and historical research designs. The study found out that there were a myriad challenges towards ethnic diversity amid horizontal inequalities which included high levels of Politicization of ethnicity, Corruption and Impunity of Public Officers, misuse of various media and technology platforms, Institutionalized discrimination, historical injustices and marginalization. The study concluded that there was a combination of factors that made it challenging to manage horizontal inequalities and ethnic conflicts in Uasin Gishu County. These factors created ethno-political competition among major ethnic groups in the county, thereby leading to an environment in which ethnic animosity thrived over national identity and Unity hence incessant ethnic tension and violence in the county. The study recommended a multi-pronged stakeholder approach to address the challenge of horizontal inequalities.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are key risk factors for major depressive disorder (MDD), but their associations with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) remain unclear, particularly after accounting for unmeasured confounding, such as shared genetic and familial environmental factors. To examine the association between ACEs and TRD while accounting for unmeasured confounding within families. This cohort study used a co-twin control design and was based on 2 Swedish Twin Registry cohorts: the Study of Twin Adults: Genes and Environment (STAGE) and the Young Adult Twins in Sweden Study (YATSS). The sample included twins born from 1959 to 1992 who completed surveys in 2005 to 2006 (for the STAGE cohort) or in 2013 to 2014 (for the YATSS cohort). Both cohorts were linked to Sweden's National Patient Register and Prescribed Drug Register for follow-up until the end of 2016. Data analysis was conducted from September to November 2024. ACEs, which were assessed using 7 yes or no items adapted from the Life Stressor Checklist-Revised: emotional neglect or abuse, physical neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, rape, hate crime, and witnessing family violence before age 19 years. TRD, which was defined as MDD diagnosed clinically or meeting the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition) criteria based on self-reported symptoms and having had at least 2 antidepressant switches of adequate duration (≥6 weeks) with no more than 14 weeks between consecutive prescriptions. The full cohort included 21 192 twins, among whom 17 814 (10 205 females [57.3%]; mean [SD] age, 32.10 [7.82] years) were included in the main analysis. A total of 5558 individuals (31.2%) reported exposure to at least 1 ACE, and 996 (5.6%) reported 3 or more ACEs. The prevalence of TRD was 1.3% (n = 230) overall. Each additional ACE exposure was associated with increased odds of TRD (odds ratio [OR], 1.69; 95% CI, 1.56-1.84). In co-twin control analyses, the association remained within monozygotic and dizygotic twins (OR, 2.23; 95% CI, 1.30-3.83). Among ACE types, physical neglect (OR, 5.73; 95% CI, 3.75-8.75) and sexual abuse (OR, 5.01; 95% CI, 3.47-7.23) showed the greatest magnitude of associations with TRD. In this cohort study, ACE exposure was associated with an increased risk of TRD even after accounting for unmeasured familial confounding. The findings highlight the importance of preventing ACEs and incorporating ACE history into clinical assessment to identify individuals with MDD who may be at elevated risk for treatment resistance.

Nigeria’s persistent insecurity, marked by insurgency, farmer–herder conflicts, and banditry, has fostered the proliferation of vigilante groups. In January 2024, the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore launched the Fulani Nomad Volunteer Vigilante Group (NVVG) to address cattle rustling, kidnapping, and rural insecurity. This study interrogates the drivers, political context, and potential implications of its formation. Anchored on social contract theory and state fragility framework, it argues that state failure to provide security and equitable justice fuels ethnically aligned security initiatives. Data was obtained through qualitative documentary analysis of media reports, policy documents, academic literature, and expert commentaries. It revealed that while the NVVG may provide localized protection and employment, it risks legitimizing illegality, fueling arms proliferation, exacerbating ethnic tensions, and undermining state authority. The article concludes that without robust regulation and oversight, ethnically based vigilante formations could deepen Nigeria’s insecurity and fragment national cohesion.

Hate crimes are becoming a significant criminological issue and a priority in many political agendas. One of the biggest problems is the low reporting rate to police all over countries. This article presents results of an online victimization survey conducted by the Spanish National Office against Hate Crimes in 2020-21. The study aims to understand underreporting in the Spanish context, which may be also useful to guide strategies to combat hate crimes with similar characteristics. In this study, we firstly found that only 10% of the victims have reported their crime to the criminal justice system, being therefore around 90% the black figure or base Spanish underreporting rate in hate crimes. Besides, we analysed if there were significant differences between reporting and non-reporting victims in sociodemographic characteristics and specific questions of the survey. Significant differences in the likelihood of reporting have been discovered in the level of education, employment status, having been the victim of a hate crime in the last five years, the relationship between perpetrator and victim, and the seriousness of the crime. With the findings we may understand better hate crimes and lead to better policy strategies to combat intolerance in democratic countries.

In this study, we examine if and how exposure to hate crimes is associated with the method of vote utilized by African American voters in the 2016 general election. Specifically, we are interested in how exposure to heightened levels of hate crimes at the county-level influences African Americans’ decision to vote-by-mail (VBM) as opposed to in-person (either early or election day voting). We examine the question using the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey and FBI county-level hate crime data (2013–2016). The FBI Uniform Crime Report hate crime dataset provides information on the physical location of the hate crime events. We merge the hate crime data with the CMPS data to examine if and how heightened rates of hate crime affect choice of voting mode. Consistent with expectations, we find that African Americans living in areas with higher levels of hate crimes are more likely to vote-by- mail rather than in person, potentially as a way to avoid the risk of encountering hate crimes.

A recently developed nonpartisan authoritarian aggression scale (NAAS) has a robust nomological network that includes attitudes toward women and LGBTQ+ individuals. The current research was meant to further validate the scale by demonstrating its ability to predict unique variance in attitudes relating to sex crimes (i.e., rape myth acceptance) and anti-transgender hate crimes when controlling for potentially relevant cognitive (i.e., need for cognition, intolerance of uncertainty) and cultural (i.e., Christian nationalism) variables. A sample of 100 U.S. participants was recruited from Prolific and completed an online survey via Qualtrics. A series of correlation analyses showed that the NAAS was significantly related to all of the other predictor variables as well as both the sex and hate crime outcomes at the bivariate level, adding to the nomological network of the NAAS. Multiple regression analyses showed that the combination of predictors explained significant variance in both outcomes and that the NAAS was the only predictor to explain unique variance in both sex crime and anti-transgender hate crime attitudes. The results imply that authoritarian aggression poses a danger for women, transgender individuals, and victims of sex crimes and hate crimes more broadly. Future research should examine ways of attenuating authoritarian aggression in individuals and communities to protect those who are vulnerable due to their sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

Farmer-herder conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa have become a significant security threat. This nature of conflict is driven by climate change, resource scarcity, land tenure insecurity, and ethnic tensions. However, the nature of conflicts may be escalated or provoked by other historical factors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the nature of conflicts and the impacts of conflict between the Borana, Somali and Meru communities. This study was guided by social learning and conflict transformation theories. The study adopted a qualitative research design to assess farmer-pastoralist conflict between the Borana and Meru communities. The study collected qualitative data. The study targeted 44,490 persons living in Isiolo South. The participants in this study included residents, police officers, administrative leaders, and six nongovernment organisations (NGO) representatives. The participants were collected using a structured interview schedule. Data collected was analysed using thematic analysis. The study identified resource competition, land disputes, cultural practices, and livelihoods as key drivers of farmer-pastoralist conflicts in Isiolo South. These conflicts were fuelled by the commercialisation of cattle raids, political influence, and weak governance. The study further found that displacement, loss of livelihoods, and breakdown of social cohesion were social implications of farmer-pastoralist conflicts identified in Borana and Meru communities’ conflicts. The study found that intercommunal conflict between the Borana and Meru communities is driven by culturally rooted cattle raiding, which has evolved into a commercial and politically influenced activity.This study recommends strengthening local peace committees and intercommunity dialogue frameworks to build peace and prevail over disputes emerging from grazing and water resources, especially during the drought-induced migration.

Abstract We assess the degree of persistence for 36 U.S. states’ hate crime rates using fractional integration. For 9 states the hate crime rate exhibits mean reversion. The hate crime rate tends to an upward trend for 5 states (possibly reflecting increased hate crime reporting/compliance through time) and for 3 states there is evidence that the hate crime rate reverts to a downward trend. This is consistent with an evolving natural rate over the sample for these 8 states. For 17 states law enforcement expenditures aimed at deterrence will at best lower offending in the short run because the hate crime will return to its constant or evolving natural rate in the long run. Corrective policies designed to change the natural rate are recommended for these states. The results for the District of Columbia and Utah are ambiguous, and for the remaining 17 states there is no reversion to a natural hate crime rate.

This paper provides a cross-country analysis of anti-Muslim hate crimes in Europe, using ODHIR-OSCE data for 30 countries between 2016 and 2022. We systematically compare the effects of two major shocks highlighted in the literature: radical-right electoral gains and Islamist terrorist attacks. The paper explores two mechanisms through which these shocks may impact hate crimes against Muslim minorities: (1) legitimization, whereby terrorism or radical-right success can normalize hate crimes against Muslims, and (2) containment, whereby the surge of radical right parties in institutions may channel at least part of the hate resulting from societal tensions. Our findings reveal that terrorist attacks increase anti-Muslim hate crimes, and radical right electoral success has an exclusively legitimizing effect on anti-Muslim hate crimes, failing to contain violence. The effect of radical right electoral success is moderated in scenarios with harsher socio-economic conditions, where it seems to absorb other types of grievances and discontent.