Relational diversity and neighbourhood cohesion. Unpacking variety,balance and in-group size

Ethnic diversity is typically measured by the well-known Hirschman-Herfindahl Index. This paper discusses the merits of an alternative approach, which is in our view better suited to tease out why and how ethnic diversity matters. The approach consists of two elements. First, all existing diversity indices are non-relational. From the viewpoint of theoretical accounts that attribute negative diversity effects to in-group favoritism and out-group threat, it should however matter whether, given a certain level of overall diversity, an individual belongs to a minority group or to the dominant majority. We therefore decompose diversity by distinguishing the in-group share from the diversity of ethnic out-groups. Second, we show how generalized entropy measures can be used to test which of diversity’s two basic dimensions matters most: the variety of groups, or the unequal distribution (balance) of the population over groups. These measures allow us to test different theoretical explanations against each other, because they imply different expectations regarding the effects of in-group size, out-group variety, and out-group balance. We apply these ideas in an analysis of various social cohesion measures across 55 German localities and show that both in-group size and out-group diversity matter. For the native majority as well as for persons of immigration background, the variety component of diversity seems to be more decisive than has formerly been acknowledged. These findings provide little support for group threat and in-group favoritism as the decisive mechanisms behind negative diversity effects, and are most in line with the predictions of theories that emphasize coordination problems, asymmetric preferences, and network closure.     

School ethnic diversity and White students’ civic attitudes in England

The current paper focuses on White British students in lower secondary education and investigates the effect of school ethnic diversity on their levels of trust and inclusive attitudes towards immigrants. Use is made of panel data of the Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study (CELS) to explore these relationships. Ethnic diversity is measured with the proportion of students in a grade identifying with a minority. In agreement with contact theory, the paper initially finds a positive relation between diversity and inclusive attitudes on immigrants. However, this link disappears once controls for social background, gender and prior levels of the outcome are included in the model. This indicates that students with particular pre-enrolment characteristics have self-selected in diverse schools and that inclusive attitudes have stabilized before secondary education. Diversity further appears to have a negative impact on trust, irrespective of the number of controls added to the model.     

Positive and negative contact and attitudes towards the religious out-group: Testing the contact hypothesis in conflict and non-conflict regions of Indonesia and the Philippines

This study examines the relationship between interreligious contact and negative attitudes towards the religious out-group. It uses unique survey data collected by the authors among Christian and Muslim students in Maluku and Yogyakarta (Indonesia) and Mindanao and Metro Manila (the Philippines). Even after taking self-selection effects into account, interreligious friendships reduce negative attitudes towards the religious out-group. However, casual interreligious contact increases negative out-group attitudes. Also individuals who experienced interreligious violence have more negative out-group attitudes than those without such experience. The experience of interreligious violence has no influence on the effect of interreligious friendships but it further deteriorates the relationship between casual interreligious contact and out-group attitudes. Perceived group threat is an important mechanism explaining the effects of both positive and negative interreligious contact. [125].     

Moral opinion polarization and the erosion of trust

Since Puntam's seminal work on declining levels of social capital, the question of how social trust is formed has reached unprecedented heights of critical enquiry. While most of the current research concentrates on ethnic diversity and income inequality as the main influences driving down generalized trust, we focus on opinion polarization as another potential impact factor on trust. In more detail, we investigate the extent to which polarization over morally charged issues such as homsexuality, abortion and euthanasia affects individuals' likelihood to trust others. We hypothesize that moral issues have a natural tendency to divide societies' opinions into opposing poles and, thus, to challenge social cohesion in modern civil societies. Based on hierarchical analyses of the fifth wave of the World Values Survey (WVS) — comprising a sample of 39 countries — our results reveal that individuals living in countries characterized by more opinion polarization tend to have less trust in other people.     

At which geographic scale does ethnic diversity affect intra-neighborhood social capital?

The claim that ethnic diversity within the living environment would hamper bonding and bridging social capital has been studied extensively, producing highly inconsistent findings. We studied whether ethnic diversity effects depend on the geographic scale at which ethnic diversity is measured. We examined ethnic diversity effects on intra- and inter-ethnic contacts in the neighborhood, respectively on opposition to ethnic in- and out-group neighbors. Hypotheses were derived from Blau’s meeting opportunities thesis and contact theory, ethnic competition theory, and constrict theory. Using information about 2545 Dutch respondents with their locality defined as egohoods and administrative units, we found that ethnic diversity effects vary with the geographic scale. Ethnic diversity of smaller localities is positively associated with bridging social capital. At larger scales, the findings are mixed: ethnic diversity is positively related to inter-ethnic contacts and opposition to out-group neighbors. Ethnic diversity of smaller localities is negatively related to bonding social capital. In contrast to often-made claims that diversity within the local context would matter most, estimates of diversity effects are not always stronger when diversity measures are aggregated to smaller geographic areas.     

Trust and contact in diverse neighbourhoods: An interplay of four ethnicity effects

Ethnically diverse neighbourhoods are generally less cohesive. A negative relationship between neighbourhood diversity and social cohesion is, however, neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to conclude that neighbourhood diversity erodes intra-neighbourhood cohesion. This contribution shows – by using data collected during the second wave of the NEtherlands Longitudinal Lifecourse Study (NELLS) – that: (1) members of ethnic minority groups are more likely to report having contact with and trust their immediate neighbours than natives (ego ethnicity effect); (2) minority group residents are less likely to be contacted and trusted by their neighbours (alter ethnicity effect) and (3) all ethnic groups prefer to mix with coethnics (dyad ethnicity effect). Once we control for these three ethnic composition effects at the ego, alter and dyad-level, neighbourhood ethnic diversity is no longer related to less contact between neighbours. Previously identified negative relationships between neighbourhood diversity and cohesion should therefore be re-evaluated, as they may be the consequence of ethnic composition effects instead of a true neighbourhood diversity effect.     

Public school accountability,workplace culture,and teacher morale

Educational scholars claim that teacher morale has suffered from accountability pressures and constrained professionalism, but exactly what is most diminished by these pressures remains unclear. Drawing on recent theoretical work on public school organizational culture, we hypothesize that accountability pressures hurt teacher morale and increase the risk of turnover by undermining the professional culture of the school and by diminishing teacher cooperation and trust. We find support for this hypothesis in a national sample of teachers in 2011–12, and a follow-up survey from 2012–13. The analyses test whether a collective pedagogical teacher culture, comprised of professional culture and teacher collaboration, buffers the impact of these pressures that diminish teacher morale. Counter to past research, we find that a strong collective pedagogical teacher culture does not buffer teachers from the ill effects of negative workplace conditions in the form of accountability pressures. We also find that accountability pressures in the form of district dismissals are associated with a higher likelihood of teachers leaving their school, and this relationship is not mitigated by strong professional culture. We conclude that accountability pressures partly undermine goals of improving performance and equity in public schools by sowing seeds of teacher dissatisfaction and contributing to teacher turnover, thus thwarting student achievement in struggling schools.     

Coalitional affiliation as a missing link between ethnic polarization and well-being: An empirical test from the European Social Survey

Many studies converge in suggesting (a) that ethnic and racial minorities fare worse than host populations in reported well-being and objective measures of health and (b) that ethnic/racial diversity has a negative impact on various measures of social trust and well-being, including in the host or majority population. However, there is much uncertainty about the processes that connect diversity variables with personal outcomes. In this paper, we are particularly interested in different levels of coalitional affiliation, which refers to people’s social allegiances that guide their expectations of social support, in-group strength and cohesion. We operationalize coalitional affiliation as the extent to which people rely on a homogeneous social network, and we measure it with indicators of friendships across ethnic boundaries and frequency of contact with friends. Using multi-level models and data from the European Social Survey (Round 1, 2002–2003) for 19 countries, we demonstrate that coalitional affiliation provides an empirically reliable, as well as theoretically coherent, explanation for various effects of ethnic/racial diversity.     

“Value in diversity”: School racial and ethnic composition,teacher diversity,and school punishment

American schools have become increasingly punitive and characterized by racial and ethnic disparities in punishment outcomes. Scholarship on the causes and consequences of this shift has highlighted the potential salience of school context. The current study extends this work by exploring the potential effect of an underexplored factor, teacher diversity, on suspension disparities. To date, explorations of the role of teacher diversity have been limited to its impact on academic outcomes, teacher perceptions, and behavioral outcomes. The current study fills a void in the existing literature by examining (1) whether greater teacher diversity is associated with reductions in racial and ethnic suspension disparities and (2) whether greater teacher diversity interacts with the size of the racial and ethnic student population to influence suspension disparities. This study contributes to the existing literature by extending the “value in diversity” perspective to the school setting. Additionally, the findings suggest that racial and ethnic diversity in positions of authority in the school setting fosters a more equitable approach to the administration of student punishment.     

海南民族地区基础英语教育中的词汇学习对策研究

阐述了海南民族地区中小学生在英语词汇的学习过程中存在着师资、学生自身以及母语环境等多方面的问题。通过教学实践和调查研究,从教师的词汇教学和学生的词汇记忆两方面提出了一些应对策略和解决方法。     

Explaining relationships between ethnic diversity and informal social capital across European countries and regions: Tests of constrict, conflict and contact theory

In this study we focus on the relationship between ethnic diversity and informal social capital. As this refers to rather strong social ties in the intimate domain, it is a strict test of Putnam’s claim that ethnic diversity would decrease social capital. In order to explain these relationships, we derived mediating mechanisms from conflict and contact theory. Using data from the European Social Survey (2002/2003), we applied multilevel analyses considering three levels: individuals, regions and countries. Our results revealed a direct positive effect of ethnic diversity at the country level on informal helping, yet no indirect effect via the mediating variables. At the regional level, we only found an indirect effect of ethnic diversity. Here, ethnic diversity increases the likelihood of intergroup contact that in turn is positively related to both informal social meeting and helping. Perceived ethnic threat turned out to have a negative effect on informal social meeting.     

Partisan strength,political trust and generalized trust in the United States: An analysis of the General Social Survey, 1972–2014

The literature on political parties suggests that strong partisan identities are associated with citizens’ effective interaction with the political system, and with higher levels of political trust. Traditionally, party identity therefore is seen as a mechanism that allows for political integration. Simultaneously, however, political parties have gained recent attention for their role in promoting societal polarization by reinforcing competing and even antagonistic group identities. This article uses General Social Survey data from 1972 – 2014 to investigate the relationship between partisan strength and both political and generalized trust. The findings show that increases in partisan strength are positively related to political trust, but negatively related to generalized trust. This suggests that while partisan strength is indeed an important linkage mechanism for the political system, it is also associated with a tendency toward social polarization, and this corrosive effect thus far has not gained sufficient attention in literature on party identity.     

大学生篮球运动员团队凝聚力影响因素分析

该研究是以参加第十四届全国学生运动会的大学生篮球运动员为研究对象,验证大学生篮球运动员感知到的团队公正性对团队满意度、团队信任度、团队投入度之间的影响关系。该研究以组织行为学观点为基础建立研究模型,运用数据分析工具SPSS 22.0和Amos 22.0,通过结构方程模型(Structural Equation Model,SEM)对研究模型适配度进行分析。该研究得出结论:团队公正性对团队满意度有正向(r=0.452, P<0.001)影响作用;团队满意度对团队信任度有正向(r=1.02, P=0.039<0.05)影响关系;团队满意度对团队投入度(r=0.517,P<0.001)有正向影响作用。团队公正性通过运动员与团队的关系直接影响运动员的态度。管理者应加强队员与教练员之间的沟通与了解,有效发挥团队合作力量,让团队的每一名成员都积极投入到团队中。     

当前我国民族教育研究前沿与热点问题综述

当前我国民族教育研究围绕国家民族教育政策及民族教育的科学理论基础形成的研究热点问题,主要包括：民族教育政策研究、民族传统文化传承与学校教育关系研究、民族地区基础教育课程改革研究、民族地区双语教学研究、民族团结教育研究等。透析这些民族教育学科前沿的研究领域,对于进一步推动民族教育研究、深化民族教育改革有着十分重要的意义。     

学术虚拟社区持续知识共享意愿研究——基于社会交换视角

学术虚拟社区已成为学术信息和知识交流的重要场所,其发展受到知识共享意愿不高的困扰,亟待研究.文章尝试基于社会交换理论中的效益与约束双重模型,探讨两种导向的快速关系对学术虚拟社区用户持续知识共享的影响.研究结果表明,效益导向快速关系和约束导向快速关系对持续知识共享意愿都有显著的正向影响,社区信任与社区规范能够促进效益导向与约束导向快速关系的建立.最后,根据研究结果,分析讨论、提出运营建议及研究展望,以期为学术虚拟社区的运营和相关研究提供参考.     

The diversity Wave:A meta-analysis of the native-born white response to ethnic diversity

Does ethnic diversity increase or reduce white threat perceptions? Meta-analyses help orient a field and communicate findings to policymakers. We report the results of a meta-analysis of studies measuring the relationship between ethnic context and both opposition to immigration and support for anti-immigration parties. Our analysis attempts to be exhaustive, and is based on 171 post-1995 studies averaging 25,000 observations each, a knowledge base of over 4 million data points. We find a linear association between ethnic change and elevated threat. However, for diversity levels, the relationship between ethnic context and threat is nonlinear. This takes the form of a 'wave', with higher diversity predicting threat responses at the smallest and largest scales, whereas in units of 5000–10,000 people (such as tracts or neighbourhoods), diversity is associated with reduced threat.     

20世纪20年代的乡土文学状况

20世纪20年代的乡土文学作为乡土文学流派的源头，对乡土文学的发展、流变具有重要的启悟意义。对此一时期的乡土文学研究，概念研究、思想主题研究以及艺术美学研究是研究的中心和重点，对后起的乡土文学创作和评论产生了决定性的影响。     

Social capital and self-rated health: Clarifying the role of trust

While research on social capital and health typically focuses on generalized trust (trust in abstract others), questions about the conceptualization and measurement of generalized trust remain, including whether trust should even be considered a part of social capital. We present a new approach to studying trust in the context of health and argue that consideration of the mechanisms through which social capital influences health highlights the central theoretical role of particularized trust (trust in known others). Furthermore, we argue that the effects of trust and social networks on health are dependent on one another. Analyzing data from Waves 5 and 6 of the World Values Survey (WVS), we find that, net of control variables, particularized trust is more strongly associated with self-rated health than is generalized trust. In addition, we find that the predicted effects of particularized and generalized trust on self-rated health are conditioned by membership in voluntary associations and vice versa.     

企业家的信任观及其影响因素:基于浙粤两省问卷调查数据的实证分析

本文利用浙、粤两省的企业家和公众的问卷调查数据,运用线性概率模型(LPM),分别选取被信任程度(Trustworthy)、信任他人程度(Trusting)和信任的区域歧视(Region Discrimination)3个指标来刻画信任观,并建立了包括地区、身份、年龄、性别、受教育水平、宗教信仰在内的6因素模型来测度信任观的影响因素。实证检验的结果表明,企业家虽然比普通公众较少考虑交易对象的籍贯,但企业家的被信任程度和信任他人程度在统计上与普通公众未呈现出显著差异;浙江地区信任他人程度显著高于广东地区,但在被信任、信任的区域歧视这两个方面,浙江、广东未表现出显著差异;信任受到性别、年龄、教育和宗教信仰等因素的影响。     

Behind the ethnic–civic distinction: Public attitudes towards immigrants’ political rights in the Netherlands

Public opinion research has sought to distinguish between ethnic and civic conceptions of citizenship and examined the differential associations of these conceptions with policy preferences in the realm of immigration. What has not been examined empirically is why exactly these conceptions are related to people’s preferences. In two survey studies conducted among national samples of native Dutch we tested the proposition that the endorsement of ethnic citizenship is related to lower acceptance of Muslim immigrant rights (Study 1) and their political participation (Study 2) because of a weaker normative sense of common national belonging and higher adherence to autochthony (primo-occupancy) beliefs. In contrast, the endorsement of civic citizenship was expected to be associated with higher acceptance of Muslim immigrant rights and their political participation because of a stronger sense of common belonging and lower belief in autochthony. The findings of the two studies are similar and in support of these expectations.