Intergroup Boundaries Research Articles

Wuhan residents perceptions of prejudice and discrimination and the social categorization processes during and after the COVID-19 lockdown: A qualitative study

Although studies have focused on intergroup biases (e.g., discrimination) during the COVID-19 pandemic, little is known about the underlying mechanisms driving intergroup bias, specifically social categorization. In-depth interviews were conducted among 32 residents of Wuhan, P.R. China, during and after the initial COVID-19 lockdown (Jan-July, 2020). Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was applied to describe perceived prejudice and discrimination and the intergroup interaction processes. Results indicated that: (1) Wuhan residents’ interpretations of perceived prejudice and discrimination evolved over time, especially regarding views of the pandemic prevention measures; (2) intergroup contact, emotional factors and cognitive factors influenced individuals’ perceptions of prejudice and discrimination; (3) social categorization and integration processes underwent changes across different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, encompassing the lockdown and reopening; (4) the group identity of recovered COVID-19 patients was easily solidified; (5) in the group integration process, emphasizing common attributes between groups, individualized media coverage and positive aspects of intergroup interactions weakened intergroup boundaries and promoted group integration. These results enrich existing knowledge about perceived discrimination and social categorization processes of a suddenly marginalized group through qualitative research methods.

Procedure Matters: The Distinct Attitudinal Feedback Effects of Immigration Policy

AbstractNatives who dislike immigrants prefer restrictive immigration policies, but do those policies deepen or alleviate anti-immigrant attitudes? Existing theories have offered mixed predictions. Restrictions imposed on immigrants may harden intergroup boundaries and thus deepen hostilities. However, they may also soften attitudes by addressing the economic and identity concerns of natives. Using a conjoint experiment conducted in Hong Kong, I test the multidimensional effects of immigration policies on natives’ attitudes toward highly skilled immigrants. I find that restrictive measures consistently generate more positive attitudes. Strikingly, this effect cannot be fully accounted for by major theoretical explanations, including labor market competition, social identity, and welfare attitudes. Preexisting policy preferences do not condition the effect either. These findings point to the importance of attitudinal policy feedback beyond traditional accounts of immigration attitudes. In-depth qualitative interviews identify two novel causal mechanisms: moralizing and quality assurance effects.

Ritual Dynamics of Qur’an Burning

In this article I approach Qur’an burning from the perspective of ritual studies. By conducting a discourse analysis of a YouTube video of a Qur’an burning, I argue that it can be perceived as a ritualized performance that communicates a variety of meanings to a variety of audiences. On one hand, the burning demarcates between ‘us’ and a Muslim ‘them’, thus serving to construct an ingroup identity. On the other, Muslims are constructed as a barbaric threat against which a civilized man is justified to use violence. To consolidate intergroup boundaries most effectively, Qur’an burning must be conducted within a community or preferably broadcast to a wide audience. Even when broadcast online, however, the act needs to involve a physical book. Consequently, both online and offline aspects are important for the ritualization of Qur’an burning.

Violent Conflict and Hostility Towards Ethnoreligious Outgroups in Nigeria

ABSTRACT This study examined the effect of exposure to violent conflict on hostility towards ethnic and religious outgroups among Nigeria’s population and among its two major religious groups (i.e., Christians and Muslims). Violent conflict had a robust positive effect on outgroup hostility among the Nigerian population and among Christians. A plausible mechanism behind this finding is that the threat posed by violent conflict strengthens ingroup cohesion, erodes trust in outgroup members, and makes intergroup boundaries salient. This is especially so when the opposite party to the conflict constitutes a distinct cultural outgroup. The main conflict affecting Christians involves nomadic pastoralists of Fulani ethnicity, who are Muslims. Among Muslims, violent conflict rather had a weak positive effect on outgroup hostility that was not robust to alternative operationalizations of outgroup hostility. The null effect might be because the main conflict affecting Muslims—the Boko Haram insurgency—does not involve Christians. A significant number of Muslims are also affected by conflicts involving nomadic Fulani pastoralists.

Journal Aims, Focus, Scope, Abstracting & Contact Info

JICIR is a new trans-cultural and inter-disciplinary journal addressing comparative, cross-, and inter-cultural research that focuses on the dynamic interactions of, across, between, and within “cultures.” Articles address the orientations, challenges, and outcomes of how people identified or identifying with different cultural groups dynamically perceive, represent, encounter, and interact with each “Other” across culturally conceived/constructed inter-group boundaries.

Politics of Identity and Minority Quest for Self-Rule in Federal Ethiopia: The Case Study of Kabena People in South Central Ethiopia

The ethnic federal system was formally institutionalised in Ethiopia in 1991. This federal system has introduced instrumentalist conceptions of ethnic identity and renegotiation of identity, control of ‘ethnic territory’, and ethnic autonomy. Using the concept of ‘formal ethnicism’ as an analytical frame, the study has analysed identity politics and the minority quest for separate self-rule by taking Kabena People as a case study from the Gurage zone in the period from 1991 to 2022. Methodologically, the study used a qualitative approach and a case study research design. For data collation, both primary and secondary sources were used. This analytical model has been used to analyse how politicised ethnicity in the context of Kabena has led to the renegotiation of identity and a violent quest for separate ethnic autonomy. The study shows that after the formalisation of ethnicity as a leading political order, ethnic identities have been articulated to the extent of inter-group polarization between Gurage and Kabena due to new trends of subsuming a minority group under locally dominant groups without putting relevant institutional mechanism to prevent possible local level marginalization and domination. The findings further reveal that the subsumed status of Kabena has created a fragile and polarized inter-ethnic relation with the dominant Gurage which has been easily changed into inter-ethnic conflict. The key dynamics behind such conflict include competing interests, prolonged contestation, and protracted conflict for separate self-rule at the special woreda level and demand for the ownership of Wolkite town administration, which is the capital city of Gurage zone and located at the historic land of Kabena. The article concludes that the Kabena quest for self-rule took on an ethnic dimension within the context of ethnic politics and formalized ethnicity that hardened inter-group boundaries. Synchronizing the historic trajectory and inter-ethnic relationships with Gurage along with the contemporary scenario; the article tries to shed some light on the dynamics of identity politics, the quest for separate self-rule and control of Wolkite town in the context of Kabena vis-à-vis Gurage, focusing particularly on the post-1991 political order in Ethiopia and its local implications.

Lay representations of populism: Discursive negotiation of naturalized social representation

AbstractDespite the importance of naturalized representations for explaining, creating and recreating social reality, little empirical research has examined the resistance to and change in naturalized representations in talk. By approaching populism as a naturalized representation, this article examines the dialogical construction of populism in 55 Finnish lay interviews. Our analysis consists of two parts. First, we conduct a reflexive thematic analysis to identify the meanings of the naturalized representation of populism. Additionally, by relying on work in critical discursive psychology, we perform a more fine‐grained analysis to illustrate how the naturalized representation of populism is used in talk to construct social reality and intergroup boundaries. Second, by relying on critical discursive psychology, we illustrate the discursive strategies that allowed some of our interviewees to contest the naturalized representation of populism in talk. This study offers novel contributions to the existing literature on populism and social representations by analysing the meanings and functions of the term ‘populism’ in lay discourse, responding to the call to combine social representations theory and the discursive approach, and offering insights into the changes in naturalized representations. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

Distinction through distancing: Norm formation and enforcement during the COVID-19 pandemic

The unequal spread of COVID-19 was accompanied by disparities in adherence to social distancing. Research is needed on social processes that facilitated widespread adherence to distancing, how they connected with existing resource access and belief systems, and how they potentially strengthened intergroup boundaries. We integrated insights from research on social norms and cultural capital to analyze early pandemic (April–August 2020) qualitative interviews with parents and their teenage children in two higher-resource communities in the United States. Our findings uncovered four interrelated processes that facilitated the rapid establishment of norms around distancing, concurrently strengthening group boundaries. Community members: 1) drew on existing cultural capital to smooth the establishment of new social norms, 2) associated social distancing with individual moral worth and community identity, 3) applied double standards that granted certain exceptions to ingroup members to maintain social cohesion, and 4) drew strong distinctions between their own and outsiders’ social distancing behaviors and moral worth. Our findings articulate social processes that allowed for rapid cohesion around distancing and show how these mechanisms strengthened existing community social boundaries.

Continuities and Discontinuities in a Transnational Social Field: The Case of the Margovany Roma

This article is based on long-term field research in an Eastern Slovak Romani settlement and an English town to which Roma migrated from the settlement. The paper attempts to disrupt the bipolar approach toward the migration of Roma to England and, at the same time, to point out the transnational interconnectedness of the Romani community and the replication of inter-group boundary patterns. This dynamic approach to migration allows the authors to also consider a different phenomenon, namely, the religious conversion of Roma to Pentecostal churches. This leads to an observation of parallels in the narratives of conversion and migration, which are both based on a dichotomy of “new” and “old”, and inclusion of the phenomenon of religious conversion in the analysis of migration alongside the highlighting of transnational social networks, the acquiring of secondary social bonds, and the strengthening of local inter-group boundaries.

Beyond home language: Heritage language maintenance practices of Yorùbá–English bilingual immigrants

Purpose:This research investigates the heritage language (HL) as a core value of first-generation Yorùbá English bilingual immigrants in the United States and explicates HL maintenance practices among them.Methodology:It uses observation and semi-structured interviews with first-generation Yorùbá–English bilingual immigrants residing in New York, Texas and Maryland.Data and analysis:Transcripts from the interviews and field notes from the observation were analysed and coded using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA) and some features of the Interlinear Morpheme Glossing (IMG) rules which are conventions useful for transliterations and translations.Findings:The heritage language is the distinctive identity of first-generation Yorùbá–English bilingual immigrants in the United States. Hence, they adopt maintenance strategies similar to those of other immigrants identified in previous studies (home language, language of familiarity, language as code and language for admonition) and devise ingenious strategies to ensure maintenance including language for setting intergroup boundaries, language for maintaining connectedness and language for naming realities.Originality:Previous studies have examined HL maintenance among Asian, Hispanic and European immigrants who have HLs with high numeric strength, but this study examines immigrants of African descent and an HL with low numeric strength. It also presents unobserved HL maintenance strategies which are peculiar to first-generation Yorùbá–English bilingual immigrants in the United States.Implications:Despite English monism, immigrants/ethnic minorities can go beyond common HL maintenance strategies and create unique ones that will ensure the continued use of their languages. The ability to do this advances a positive ethnic identity, guarantees an improved lifespan for HLs in host communities and reduces instances of identity crisis among immigrants.

Constructions of Japanese national identity: Host views using a social markers of acceptance framework

Social markers of acceptance (SMA) are socially constructed criteria (e.g., language skills, shared genealogy, or adherence to social norms) that receiving society nationals use in deciding whether to view an immigrant as a member of the national ingroup. This study had two objectives: 1. to identify the markers considered important by Japanese to accept immigrants in Japanese society, and 2. to examine the type of intergroup conditions that may shape immigrant inclusion by influencing the degree of emphasis placed on SMA: specifically, perceived immigrant threat, contribution, and social status, as well as intergroup boundary permeability and strength of national identification. Native-born Japanese (n = 2000) completed an online survey, where two latent factors emerged representing ethnic and civic markers—suggesting that national identity may have changed in the past 25 years, with Japanese developing a distinct civic conceptualization in addition to a previously existing ethnic one. Multiple hierarchical regressions found significant main effects of perceived immigrant threat, contribution, status, and boundary permeability for both civic and ethnic dimensions, as well as interactions between threat x status and threat x permeability. As hypothesized, threat had positive effects on SMA emphasis, and contribution exerted negative effects—indicating more exclusive and inclusive attitudes among Japanese, respectively. Results for national identity were inconsistent, complementing social identity theory for ethnic markers but contradicting it for civic marker importance. Consistent with social identity theory, immigrants perceived as “low status” triggered endorsement of more restrictive civic and ethnic benchmarks; however, contrary to expectations, increased threat under less porous intergroup boundaries predicted more restrictive civic and ethnic marker utilization.

Singing foreign songs promotes shared common humanity in elementary school children

AbstractSeveral studies support the notion that singing the songs of a foreign culture can reduce prejudice and improve intergroup relations in elementary school children. The current article presents theoretical and empirical support for one potential mechanism underpinning this effect, namely, that singing songs may highlight commonalities and generate a collective identity across intergroup boundaries. Twenty‐nine elementary school children (mean age = 10.73 years) in two predetermined groups participated in a 6‐week, crossover study in which they received two singing interventions: (1) singing songs from their own (ingroup) culture and (2) singing songs from foreign (outgroup) cultures. Quantitative and qualitative data analyses demonstrate that singing foreign songs led to higher levels of perceived commonality toward outgroup others and promoted the adoption of a collective identity. Furthermore, interviews elucidated that singing foreign songs encouraged children to appreciate the unique identity of each culture while acknowledging their shared common humanity, suggesting the cultivation of a dual identity. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Dialogue with difference: Meta-representations in political dialogue and their role in constructing the ‘other’

When faced with the aftermath of a divisive political event, how do citizens make sense of the political opinions of those who voted differently to them? Drawing on the Social Representations Approach (SRA) and its emphasis on communication as a medium through which meaning making occurs, we utilize dialogical analysis of focus group data (N = 36) collected after the UK’s referendum on leaving the EU. We focus on how voters engage with the perspective of the other in an intragroup dialogue setting. In doing so, this paper aims to explore the role of meta-representations, or ‘what we think other people think’, in contexts of contested political issues. We show the value of considering how meta-representations function to delegitimize different political views and vote choices, and by implication serve an important role in socially representing the ‘other’, constructing and reproducing intergroup boundaries. This process is achieved through drawing on semantic barriers, communicative tools that play a crucial role in safeguarding one’s own beliefs from the threat of alterity.

Building and Wedging Strategic Alliances: Racial Framing Contests in the Immigrant Rights and Nativist Counter-Movements

As immigrant rights movements and anti-immigrant mobilizations engage in contentious battles for public support, it is increasingly essential to understand how these opposing political forces develop strategic alliances, garnering power, and shaping larger debates around immigration. Using newspaper data, this study compares case studies of immigrant rights and nativist battles in two mobilizations—the 2012 “No Papers, No Fear Ride for Justice” during the Obama Era and the 2018 “Family Separation Protests” during the Trump Era—to analyze how movements and counter-movements strategically deploy frames to generate or disrupt strategic alliances. Findings identify strategic racial frame deployment as a mechanism that can either amplify or obfuscate racial meanings, enabling, and constraining counter-frames by rival movements. I highlight patterns in how these racial frames are used in framing contests to bring groups together in alliances or wedge groups apart, illuminating the underlying system of racialization as it shapes intergroup boundaries, its limits, and its radical possibilities for transformation.

Religion and Intergroup Boundaries: Positive and Negative Ties Among Youth in Ethnically and Religiously Diverse School Classes in Western Europe

BackgroundIn the past decades, Western European countries have become increasingly religiously diverse; furthermore, a growing share of their population is now youth with a migration background. Little is known about the role religion plays in social ties among children of native and immigrant origins.PurposeThis study examines religious group boundaries among youth in secondary schools in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. To this end, it describes to what extent youth’s positive and negative ties in the classroom are segregated along religious lines. Furthermore, it analyzes the role of structural opportunities and religious in-group preferences in the formation of religious boundaries in the social networks of youth.MethodsThe data come from the first wave of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU), which contains more than 18,000 adolescents (aged 14–15) in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. First, we describe overall religious segregation in the social ties of youth by using the full survey data. Second, we test our hypotheses by analyzing the complete social networks of 5236 students in 247 classes.ResultsThe analysis reveals that friendships are more likely between classmates with similar religious affiliations than classmates with different religious affiliations. In particular, in terms of friendships, there is clear segregation between non-religious and Christian youth on the one hand and Muslim youth on the other. This segregation is partly driven by structural forces that constrain intergroup meeting opportunities. However, group segregation goes beyond the patterns expected from opportunities alone. The results show strong preferences for intrareligious friendships and a tendency to avoid ties between Muslim and non-Muslim youth.Conclusion and ImplicationsThere are religious boundaries in the social relationships of youth in ethnically and religiously diverse school classes in Western Europe. In particular, social boundaries between Muslim and non-Muslim youth are the strongest. Creating opportunities for positive intergroup contact, such as the promotion of religiously diverse schools, apparently is not sufficient to avoid religious boundaries among youth. To reduce segregation along religious lines, interventions would also need to address the factors that shape youth’s preferences for intrareligious friendships.

Journal Aims, Focus, Scope, Abstracting & Contact Info

JICIR is a new trans-cultural and inter-disciplinary journal addressing comparative, cross-, and inter-cultural research that focuses on the dynamic interactions of, across, between, and within “cultures.” Articles address the orientations, challenges, and outcomes of how people identified or identifying with different cultural groups dynamically perceive, represent, encounter, and interact with each “Other” across culturally conceived/constructed inter-group boundaries.

Towards equitable learning environments for medical education: Bias and the intersection of social identities.

Medical educators are increasingly paying attention to how bias creates inequities that affect learners across the medical education continuum. Such bias arises from learners' social identities. However, studies examining bias and social identities in medical education tend to focus on one identity at a time, even though multiple identities often interact to shape individuals' experiences. This article examines prior studies on bias and social identity in medical education, focusing on three social identities that commonly elicit bias: race, gender and profession. By applying the lens of intersectionality, we aimed to generate new insights into intergroup relations and identify strategies that may be employed to mitigate bias and inequities across all social identities. Although different social identities can be more or less salient at different stages of medical training, they intersect and impact learners' experiences. Bias towards racial and gender identities affect learners' ability to reach different stages of medical education and influence the specialties they train in. Bias also makes it difficult for learners to develop their professional identities as they are not perceived as legitimate members of their professional groups, which influences interprofessional relations. To mitigate bias across all identities, three main sets of strategies can be adopted. These strategies include equipping individuals with skills to reflect upon their own and others' social identities; fostering in-group cohesion in ways that recognise intersecting social identities and challenges stereotypes through mentorship; and addressing intergroup boundaries through promotion of allyship, team reflexivity and conflict management. Examining how different social identities intersect and lead to bias and inequities in medical education provides insights into ways to address these problems. This article proposes a vision for how existing strategies to mitigate bias towards different social identities may be combined to embrace intersectionality and develop equitable learning environments for all.

Culture Clash in Organizations

This symposium is designed to advance research on cultural clash, the dissonant interactions of members from separate cultures, within and beyond organizations. The literature has long established that culture clash degrades organizational performance. The papers in this symposium prod this assumption, examining its mechanisms and scope conditions, establishing when and how culture clash occurs. The first presentation examines how status disagreement emerges from diversity in collectivist orientation, undermining group productivity. The second presentation studies group assimilation and power asymmetries in a post-merger organization using computational linguistic analysis of email communication. The third presentation looks at culture clash among founding teams in start-ups, finding that founding teams with high interpersonal cultural diversity adopt industry-typical cultural scripts while founding teams with high intrapersonal cultural diversity cultivate distinctive cultures. Finally, the fourth presentation theorizes how extreme groups build strong cultural beliefs and attract new members by studying the proliferation of Covid-19 conspiracy theories on Twitter. Taken together, the papers in this symposium revisit old assumptions and theories of culture clash, updating them with innovative experiments, modern computational linguistic techniques, and novel data sets. Perceiving Status through Different Cultural Lenses Presenter: Sujin Jang; INSEAD Presenter: Catarina Fernandes; Emory U., Goizueta Business School A Language-Based Method for Measuring Inter-Group Boundaries and Assimilation Presenter: Anjali M. Bhatt; Harvard Business School Presenter: Amir Goldberg; Stanford U. Agreeing to Be Different: Founding Team Cultural Diversity and Startup Cultural Atypicality Presenter: Yeonsin Ahn; INSEAD The Other Pandemic: #Coronahoax Conspiracy Theories Presenter: Henrich Greve; INSEAD Presenter: Hayagreeva Rao; Stanford U. Presenter: Paul Vicinanza; Stanford Graduate School of Business Presenter: Yan Echo Zhou; -

From Global Village to Identity Tribes: Context Collapse and the Darkest Timeline

In this article we trace the development of two narratives describing social media that informed much of internet scholarship. One draws from McLuhan’s axiom positing that communication networks would bring forth a ‘global village,’ a deliberate contradiction in terms to foreground the seamless integration of villages into a global community. Social media would shrink the world and reshape it into a village by moving information instantaneously from any location at any time. By leveraging network technology, it would further increase the density of connections within and across social communities, thereby integrating geographic and cultural areas into a village stretching across the globe. The second narrative comprises a set of metaphors equally inspired by geography but emphasizing instead identity and tribalism as opposed to integration and cooperation. Both narratives are spatially inspired and foreground real-world consequences, either by supporting cooperation or by ripping apart the fabric of society. They nonetheless offer opposing accounts of communication networks: the first is centered on communication and collaboration, and the second highlights polarization and division. The article traces the theoretical and technological developments driving these competing narratives and argues that a digitally enabled global society may in fact reinforce intergroup boundaries and outgroup stereotyping typical of geographically situated communities.

‘I don't feel insulted’: Constructions of prejudice and identity performance among Roma in Bulgaria

AbstractDrawing on studies showing that arguments about the nature of intergroup prejudice allow members of privileged groups to ‘perform’ a positive social identity, the present study explores how arguments about the nature of prejudice are produced by targets of prejudice in order to consolidate or challenge their own social identity. We conducted interviews with Bulgarian Roma and, based on a discursive psychology approach, analysed the way participants contested being assigned to a Roma‐exclusive identity category, which they treated as produced by prejudiced beliefs of the non‐Roma high‐status majority population. Positive intergroup contact was used to demonstrate the absence of prejudice and counter Roma identity threat. Auto‐stereotyping and disidentification, in turn, revealed how one's own situation is distinguished from the group. We discuss how identity performances founded on prejudice constructions work to maintain or challenge intergroup boundaries. We conclude that studies revealing prejudice constructions of minority groups can explain the sedative effect of positive intergroup contact on ethnic activism and help to reflect on integration strategies that would be compatible with social change in favour of disadvantaged minority groups.