Self-esteem among ethnic minority youth in Western countries

Low global self-esteem among minority youth living in Western countries has been considered a truism for a long time. Empirical research, however, tells another story. A review of recent studies using well-established scales is presented, showing no systematic indications of lower global self-esteem. Four possible methodological/technical explanations for this finding are discussed: superficial measuring, defensiveness, measure equivalence, and respons patterns. It is concluded that there are no systematic and decisive methodological/technical explanations for the empirical find. In the present study attention is focusses on socio-psychological explanations. Three different assumptions underlying the argument for presumed lower self-esteem among minority youth were empirically studied among Turkish youth living in the Netherlands. The results show that these assumptions are not invariably true which explains why, in general, minority youth do not have lower global self-esteem. It is argued that these assumptions can also be used to predict under what conditions minority status will be associated with lower self-esteem.     

Supporting the democratic political organisation of Muslim immigrants: the perspective of Muslims in the Netherlands and Germany

Using data from three survey studies, this paper examines the support for the democratic political organisation of Muslims among Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands (Studies 1, 2, and 3) and Germany (Study 3). Using a social psychological perspective, support is examined in relation to religious group identification, Muslim linked fate, perceived discrimination, fundamentalist religious belief, and host national identification. The findings in all three studies show support for the political organisation of Muslims. Furthermore, higher religious group identification and higher linked fate were associated with stronger support. More discrimination and more fundamentalist beliefs were also associated with stronger support, and part of these associations was mediated by linked fate. National identification was not associated with support for the political organisation of Muslims.     

Host National Identification of Immigrants in the Netherlands

This study examines immigrants' identification with the host country. We use survey data of more than 1,700 Turkish and Moroccan immigrants and more than 2,200 natives in the Netherlands. We answer four main questions in this study. First, do immigrants have lower national identification than natives? Second, does the level of national identification differ between immigrant groups? Third, do economic and social integration similarly affect national identification among immigrants and natives? And fourth, what are important additional determinants of national identification among immigrants? The results show that, compared to Dutch natives, Turkish but not Moroccan immigrants have lower national identification. Being employed and socially integrated is associated with higher national identification among immigrants as well as natives, but only among immigrants is higher occupational status associated with higher national identification. For immigrants, Dutch language proficiency, perceived discrimination, and contact with natives proved to be important conditions for national identification.     

Subjective Well-Being,Discrimination and Cultural Conflict: Iranians Living in The Netherlands

This study focuses on subjective well-being of Iranian refugees in the Netherlands. Relations with perceived discrimination and cultural conflict with life satisfaction, and positive and negative affect were examined. Additionally, the mediating role of self-esteem, mastery and ethnic identity was studied as well as demographic variables. A path model showed two pathways leading to well-being. In a first path perceived discrimination led to higher ethnic identification which had a negative effect on mastery, which in turn led to lower well-being. In a second path, cultural conflict had an indirect effect on negative affect via self-esteem, and a direct effect on positive affect and life satisfaction. Legal status, level of education, lenght of residence and number of family members in the country had an independent effect on different aspects of the path model.     

The Different Faces of Social Tolerance: Conceptualizing and Measuring Respect and Coexistence Tolerance

Social Indicators Research - In the theoretical literature on tolerance a distinction is proposed between coexistence and respect tolerance. In three studies with four national samples of Dutch...     

First Arrival and Collective Land Ownership: How Children Reason About Who Owns the Land

Four survey experiments provide evidence that children (9–12 years) infer collective land ownership from first arrival. In Experiments 1 and 2, children indicated that a group owns an island relatively more than another group when having been or living on the island first. In the third experiment, it was found that first comers were considered to own the land more independently of whether the second group joined or succeeded them in living on the island. In Experiment 4, the first arrival principle to infer collective ownership was independent of the duration of stay of the first comers before being joined by the second group. Taken together, the findings provide clear evidence of the importance of first arrival for inferring collective place ownership.     

Ethnic Helping and Group Identity: A Study among Majority Group Children

Two vignette studies were conducted on children's evaluations of ethnic helping. In the first study, 272 native Dutch children (mean age = 10.7) evaluated a child who refused to help in an intra‐group context (Dutch–Dutch or Turkish–Turkish) or inter‐group context (Dutch–Turkish or Turkish–Dutch). Children evaluated not helping in intra‐group situations more negatively than not helping in inter‐group situations. This suggests that they applied a general moral norm of group loyalty that states that children should help peers of their own group. In the second study, 830 children (mean age = 10.7) read the same vignettes after their ethnic group membership was made salient. In the inter‐group contexts, children who strongly identified with their ethnic group evaluated an out‐group member not helping an in‐group member more negatively than vice versa. Thus, when ethnic identity was salient, children tended to focus more on group identity rather than on the principle of group loyalty.     

Economic participation and national self-identification of refugees in the Netherlands

This study examines whether refugees self-identify as a member of the host society. We use survey data of more than 2,500 Somali, Iraqi, Afghani, Iranian, and ex-Yugoslavian refugees in the Netherlands. The results show that economic participation in the host country is positively related to refugees’ national self-identification. In addition, we find that refugees’ social ties with Dutch natives are associated with national self-identification and that the relationship between economic participation and national self-identification is partially explained by these social ties. Perceived discrimination is not related to refugees’ national self-identification. Implications of these findings for debates on immigration and integration are discussed.     

National,Ethnic and Religious Identities: Hybridity and the case of the Polish Tatars

Questions of hybridity and multiple identities are over-theorised but the number of empirical studies is limited. The present study examines some of the discursive devices used in two Polish Tatar magazines for managing narratives about their national, ethnic and religious identities. The Polish Tatars are a numerically small group that have lived for more than 600 years in Catholic Poland. For them, being a Tatar, Muslim and Pole at the same time, is central to their self-understanding, and they do not want to limit the importance of any of these. Two main strategies of narrative identity management were identified, related to identity definitions and identity connections. The former gives layered understandings about Polish Tatar identity: a factual one in which a local and historical connection is made and a spiritual one in which belonging to an imagined symbolic community is stressed. The latter provides reconciliation between identities by stressing their similarities and relations, by emphasizing the contributions made by Tatars to Polish society, and by presenting the Tatars as potentially being in a unique mediating position between Islam and Christianity. In the near future, Tatars’ strategies for creating a hybrid identity might be challenged by global and more local developments.     

Ethnic Attitudes Among Minority and Majority Children: The Role of Ethnic Identification, Peer Group Victimization and Parents

This study examines the relative importance of key variables proposed by intergroup and social learning theories for understanding ethnic attitudes. The focus is on how ethnic identification, perceived parental attitudes and victimization by peers are related to ethnic attitudes. The sample includes Dutch (N = 295) and Turkish (N = 158) children (10–12 years of age) in the Netherlands. For both ethnic groups, stronger ethnic identification is related to more positive in‐group evaluation, and a higher degree of victimization relates to more negative out‐group evaluation. Furthermore, parental attitudes are related to out‐group evaluation. Higher perceived in‐group favoritism among parents was related to a less positive evaluation of the out‐group. In addition, Turkish parental attitudes turn out to be related to ethnic identification and in‐group evaluation. Further analyses suggest that the effect of perceived parental attitudes on children's group evaluations is not only due to projection. It is concluded that the study of ethnic attitudes among children should focus on group identification as well as on the social influences of parents and peers. Furthermore, it is important to distinguish between in‐group and out‐group aspects of ethnic attitudes and to include both majority and minority children.