Interethnic Friendships Research Articles

Threatened identities and interethnic interactions

This chapter adopts a social identity threat perspective to examine dynamics of interethnic interactions. We first review relevant literature regarding the conditions under which both White and ethnic minority individuals are likely to experience social identity threat within the specific context of interethnic interactions. We focus on the threat of being perceived as stereotypical of one's ethnic group, considering situation- and person-level factors that trigger the experience of such threat during interethnic interactions. Next, we offer a framework for understanding how individuals cope with social identity threat during interethnic interactions, proposing three main classes of responses: avoidance, outgroup devaluation/derogation, and behaviour modulation/regulation. We review factors that are likely to influence the adoption of one of these responses, and then consider potential implications that each type of response may have for individuals' experiences during interactions, the development of interethnic friendships, and the attenuation of prejudice.

Do Race and Ethnicity Matter Among Friends? Activities among Interracial, Interethnic, and Intraethnic Adolescent Friends

Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (or Add Health), a nationally representative sample of adolescents in 1994–1995, we examine if and how friendship activities differ among interracial, interethnic, and interethnic friendships of white, black, Hispanic, and Asian youths. We find that best friends are more likely than higher-order friends to be from the same ethnic group and that best friends report more shared activities during the past week than do their higher-order friendship counterparts. Hence, we argue that shared activities is a useful indicator of friendship intimacy. In general, interracial friends report fewer shared activities than do intraracial friends, although this difference is strongest for white respondents. Moreover, we find that white, Asian, and Hispanic youths all report fewer activities with their black friends. We find little difference in friendship activities between interethnic and intraethnic friendships. Our findings suggest that, even when youths manage to break racial boundaries in friendship selection, these friendships face greater challenges than do those between individuals of the same race.

Social Attitudes Predict Biases in Geographic Knowledge*

Three principal components were found to underlie Texas university students' experiences with and attitudes toward Canada, the United States, and Mexico: diversity orientation, Mexican experiences, and Canadian experiences. Diversity orientation included positive attitudes toward Hispanics, Canadians, minorities, interethnic friendships, and dating and was negatively correlated with natio-centrism (e.g., believing U.S. citizens receive the world's best education). Diversity orientation and natio-centrism were not related to experiences with Mexico or Canada. Students estimated the locations of Canadian cities too far north and Mexican cities too far south. Biased estimates for Mexican cities were negatively correlated with diversity orientation, not experience with Mexico.

Teaching Tolerance in Public and Private Schools

authors describe their research findings, which suggest that private schools currently do a slightly better job than public schools of encouraging interethnic friendships and developing support for democratic norms, and they discuss some implications. JOSHUA, an eighth-grader in New York, explains why he thinks the government should outlaw the American Nazis: am a Jew. Millions of Jewish people were killed in World War II, including most of my family. I think all people who believe in the Nazis should burn in hell. Melissa, a 14-year-old in Texas, argues that the Ku Klux Klan should not be allowed to hold rallies, because they held rallies, they could brainwash the citizens into believing racist thoughts. David, a professor at a large midwestern university, writes that, in order to obtain a minimal level of tolerance for world views and cultural practices different from one's own, people who have a comprehensive and single-minded world view, such as some fundamentalist Christians, should not be allowed to govern schools or to school their own children at home.1 Each of these individuals is willing to deny to certain groups the political and civil rights that they claim for themselves. Despite the apparent reasonableness of their claims, they violate the two greatest insights of liberalism: first, there are many reasonable conceptions of what constitutes an ethically good life; second, government should remain neutral in the struggle among these competing conceptions as long as the competition remains peaceful. (We are using the words liberal and liberalism in their classic sense of standing for limited government, political equality, and tolerance of opposing views. Both political liberals and political conservatives in North America today would generally be considered liberals in this sense because they accept these ideals.) Whether we look to thinkers of the past, such as Kant and Dewey, or to contemporary democratic philosophers, such as Amy Gutmann and John Rawls, we see the proposition that the willingness of citizens to tolerate conceptions of The Good that differ from their own is critical to a democratic society. Political tolerance requires that democratic citizens and their leaders grant full political rights of peaceful expression and participation to groups that many will find objectionable.2 This remains true even if we perceive that the ideas of these groups are threatening to our own culture, religion, or political ideology. Kathy, a middle school student in New York, captured this idea in her explanation of why she would allow Nazis to hold a political demonstration: Our First Amendment rights say we can peacefully gather to hold demonstrations and rallies. We can never compromise that right. Once we compromise it for Nazis, then a precedent is set, and there is no turning back. Learning Democratic Norms and Political Tolerance Beginning in 1955 with Samuel Stouffer's ground-breaking Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties, researchers have conceived of tolerance as a willingness to grant political and civil rights to objectionable groups.3 Studies have shown that two variables are critical to whether a person is tolerant. First, more tolerant individuals perceive the threat from objectionable groups as low; second, more tolerant individuals express a high level of support for such abstract democratic norms as the four freedoms: speech, press, religion, and assembly. Unfortunately, intolerance may be more natural for people than tolerance. seemingly effortless way in which people acquire negative stereotypes and attribute danger to those who are stereotyped suggests that, in the absence of strong efforts to prevent it, intolerance is a natural and universal pattern in the human developmental process.4 How can liberal democracies discourage this process? Research indicates that education is the best antidote for intolerance. …

The inter-ethnic friendships of adolescent students: a Canadian study

Inter-ethnic friendship was investigated among 79 grade 7 and 8 students (ages 12–14) in two Metropolitan Toronto schools. Sociometric questionnaires and a self-report scale were used to determine the prevalence and quality of these friendships. The majority of students’ friends tended to be ethnic out-group members, though there was a non-significant tendency for students to be more ethnocentric in their choice of best than in their choice of other friends. Cross-sex/cross-ethnic friendships were not as rare as expected and gender proved to be more of a barrier to friendship than ethnicity. The East Asian participants rated their friendships with in-group members as being of higher quality than those with out-group members. This was not true for the Anglo-European, West Indian or East Indian groups. Female students’ friendships with in-group and out-group members were of higher quality than those of male students. Finally, both male and female participants rated friendships with females more positively than friendships with males. The relative lack of ethnocentricity in students’ friendships in this study, as compared to previous ones, may be due to the fact that the current study took place in one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world.

Determinants of Friendship Choices in Multiethnic Society

This paper examines the determinants of interethnic friendship patterns with the majority group and coethnic friendship ties. The analysis is based on a specially constructed data set from three separate sources. Our analysis indicates that (1) participation in ethnic business tends to substantially lower chances of developing friendship with the majority group; (2) individual socioeconomic characteristics strongly affects coethnic friendship; (3) previous experiences of friendship with the majority group are related to the level of friendship ties with the majority group; and (4) neighborhood qualities do not related to friendship choices of minority groups. Implications of the results are discussed.

Book Review: Interethnic Marriage and Friendship

Book Review: Interethnic Marriage and Friendship

Interethnic Marriage and Friendship.

Interethnic Marriage and Friendship.

Patterns of Interethnic Marriage Among American Catholics

In assessing the dynamics of ethnicity, it is important to examine the extent to which interethnic contact is selective, frequent between members of some groups, and rare between members of others. In this paper, we carry out such an examination through the use of quasi-independence models. Developing these models for interethnic marriage among American Catholic nationality groups, there appears to be little selective intermarriage, although what little does exist is consistent with Bogardus' research on social distance. Overall and taken together with Alba's (a) finding of sharply increasing intermarriage among Catholic nationality groups, our findings suggest an erosion of ethnic boundaries based on nationality among Catholics. Primary relationships are a crucial focus for the study of ethnicity among Americans of European ancestry. Debate over the persistence of ethnicity among American whites hinges to an important degree on the extent of social pluralism, or alternatively the frequency with which socially intimate relationships bridge ethnic boundaries (Alba, a; Gordon). Recently, evidence has again begun to accumulate that rates of interethnic marriage and friendship are already high for some groups and increasing for others (Alba, a; Cohen), echoing the half-forgotten findings of several decades ago (Kennedy, a, b). In assessing the persistence of ethnicity among whites, it is important to examine not only the frequency with which primary relationships cross ethnic boundaries but also the patterns of interethnic contact, the extent to which such contact is frequent between the members of some groups and rare between the members of others. The existence of a major