Challenging Diversity? The Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of Ethnic Diversity and Social Cohesion

挑战多样性？

• 批准号: ES/L011255/1
• 负责人: James Laurence
• 金额: $ 29.69万
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2014 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FL011255%2F1
• 关键词: Challenging; Diversity; Spatial; Temporal; Dynamics

This FRL project is concerned with how rising immigration and increasing ethnic diversity affect social cohesion. The UK is currently undergoing a significant demographic shift in the ethnic composition of its populace, with the proportion of non-White British rising from 13% to 20% between 2001 and 2011. Across academic, governmental and public spheres, concerns are being articulated that this growing diversity poses a threat to: residential community cohesion (undermining trust and connectivity between neighbours); wider, societal cohesion (leading to civic disengagement, declining trust in strangers and lower support for welfare policies); and inter-group cohesion (cultivating inter-ethnic tensions, and driving support for far-right organisations). When even conservative estimates predict this trend will only increase, understanding if, how and why ethnic diversity affects social cohesion, and what can be done to ameliorate any pejorative effects, is of paramount importance to the maintenance of a cohesive, harmonious society.Yet, significant gaps remain in our understanding of how of ethnic diversity affects social cohesion. Firstly, much of the current research focuses on how being exposed to diversity within one's residential community affects social cohesion. However, the community is just one site at which individuals come into contact with other ethnic groups. In places like schools, universities, workplaces, volunteering groups, individuals are being exposed to diverse environments everyday. However, how levels of diversity in these places affect social cohesion is largely unknown. This is an important omission given that individuals are actually more likely to encounter diversity in these places than in their neighbourhoods. Secondly, most research assumes that as diversity within an adult's neighbourhood increases, their social cohesion will shift accordingly. However, how adults respond to ethnically diverse environments is likely influenced by all kinds of experiences throughout their lives, such as the attitudes of their parents, the diversity of their schools, and how diverse the neighbourhoods were they grew up in. To understand how diversity affects social cohesion we therefore also need to know what individuals' experiences of ethnic diversity have been over their entire lives. The primary aim of this research is therefore to try and create a much fuller picture of how ethnic diversity affects social cohesion by: firstly, looking at how coming into contact with other groups in schools, workplaces, or civic groups, along with neighbourhoods, affects cohesion; and secondly, how experiences of diversity over one's whole life affects cohesion. Only with this more complete picture of the complex social worlds of individuals can we hope to understand the effect of diversity on social cohesion. However, if we do find that increasing diversity, in certain places, at certain points over an individual's life, can harm social cohesion, then we need to know 'what works' to ameliorate such frictions. This research will therefore investigate how interventions, such as intercultural education, workplace diversity training, national multiculturalism policies, and ethnic mixing programs for adolescents can help alleviate any pressures of increasing diversity. Key to this endeavour will be an analysis of one of the current government's key integration policies: the National Citizen Service.

该 FRL 项目关注不断增加的移民和日益增加的种族多样性如何影响社会凝聚力。目前，英国人口的种族构成正在发生重大变化，2001 年至 2011 年间，非白人英国人的比例从 13% 上升到 20%。学术界、政府和公共领域都在表达担忧，这种日益增长的多样性对以下方面构成威胁：居住社区凝聚力（破坏邻居之间的信任和联系）；更广泛的社会凝聚力（导致公民脱离、对陌生人的信任度下降以及对福利政策的支持度降低）；以及群体间的凝聚力（培养种族间的紧张关系，并推动对极右组织的支持）。即使保守估计预测这种趋势只会增加，但了解种族多样性是否、如何以及为何影响社会凝聚力，以及如何改善任何贬义影响，对于维持一个有凝聚力、和谐的社会至关重要。然而，我们对种族多样性如何影响社会凝聚力的理解仍然存在重大差距。首先，当前的大部分研究都集中在居住社区内的多样性如何影响社会凝聚力。然而，社区只是个人与其他民族接触的场所之一。在学校、大学、工作场所、志愿团体等地方，个人每天都暴露在不同的环境中。然而，这些地方的多样性水平如何影响社会凝聚力尚不清楚。这是一个重要的遗漏，因为个人实际上在这些地方比在他们的社区更有可能遇到多样性。其次，大多数研究假设，随着成年人社区内多样性的增加，他们的社会凝聚力也会相应变化。然而，成年人对种族多元化环境的反应可能会受到他们一生中各种经历的影响，例如父母的态度、学校的多样性以及他们成长的社区的多样性。因此，为了了解多样性如何影响社会凝聚力，我们还需要了解个人一生中对种族多样性的经历。因此，本研究的主要目的是尝试通过以下方式更全面地了解种族多样性如何影响社会凝聚力：首先，研究与学校、工作场所或公民团体以及社区中的其他群体的接触如何影响凝聚力；其次，一个人一生中的多样性经历如何影响凝聚力。只有更全面地了解个人复杂的社会世界，我们才有希望了解多样性对社会凝聚力的影响。然而，如果我们确实发现在某些地方、在个人生活的某些时刻增加多样性可能会损害社会凝聚力，那么我们需要知道“什么有效”来缓解这种摩擦。因此，本研究将调查跨文化教育、工作场所多样性培训、国家多元文化政策和青少年种族混合计划等干预措施如何帮助缓解日益增加的多样性带来的压力。这一努力的关键是对当前政府的一项关键一体化政策的分析：国家公民服务。

项目成果

Cohesion through participation? Youth engagement, interethnic attitudes, and pathways of positive and negative intergroup contact among adolescents: a quasi-experimental field study

• DOI: 10.1080/1369183x.2019.1700787
• 发表时间: 2020-01
• 期刊: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
• 影响因子: 3.3
• 作者: James Laurence

Wider-community Segregation and the Effect of Neighbourhood Ethnic Diversity on Social Capital: An Investigation into Intra-Neighbourhood Trust in Great Britain and London.

• DOI: 10.1177/0038038516641867
• 发表时间: 2017-10
• 期刊: Sociology
• 影响因子: 2.9
• 作者: Laurence J

Community disadvantage, inequalities in adolescent subjective well-being, and local social relations: The role of positive and negative social interactions.

社区劣势、青少年主观幸福感的不平等和当地社会关系：积极和消极社会互动的作用。

• DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112442
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: Social science & medicine (1982)
• 作者: Laurence J

Community Disadvantage and Race-Specific Rates of Violent Crime: An Investigation into the "Racial Invariance" Hypothesis in the United Kingdom

社区劣势和特定种族暴力犯罪率：对英国“种族不变”假说的调查

• DOI: 10.1080/01639625.2014.982749
• 发表时间: 2015
• 期刊: Deviant Behavior
• 影响因子: 1.6
• 作者: Laurence J

Countervailing contact: Community ethnic diversity, anti-immigrant attitudes and mediating pathways of positive and negative inter-ethnic contact in European societies.

反补贴接触：欧洲社会中社区种族多样性、反移民态度以及积极和消极种族间接触的调解途径。

• DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2017.09.007
• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: Social science research
• 影响因子: 2.5
• 作者: Laurence J