When contact counts: Intergroup contact on business and intermarriage resistance in the Caucasus region

Intergroup contact theory has been empirically supported in a variety of social contexts, but few samples have been drawn from rapidly developing nations undergoing severe political and sociocultural conflict. Using 2012 Caucasus Barometer data from the three nations of the South Caucasus — Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia — we test the effect of interreligious contact on various forms of out-group resistance in a region of the world that is both historically and presently marked with severe religious and ethnic conflict. Additionally, we take into account self-selection effects using propensity score matching. Results overwhelmingly support intergroup contact theory in all three countries, but objections toward intermarriage still remain high for treated groups. In addition, there exist significant differences based on the out-group studied, with the contact effects being the strongest for groups posing little religio-cultural or organized threat. Weaker contact effects, though, appear less related to threat and more contextual/out-group specific.     

Religiosity and reactions to terrorism

Although many of the world’s most serious outbreaks of conflict and violence center on religion, social science research has had relatively little to say about religion’s unique role in shaping individuals’ attitudes about these events. In this paper we investigate whether Americans’ religious beliefs play a central role in shaping attitudes toward the continuing threat of terrorism and their willingness to assist officials in countering these perceived threats. Our analysis of an original data collection of almost 1600 Americans shows that more religious respondents are more likely to express concerns about terrorism. However, this relationship is mediated by their level of conservatism. We also find that more religious respondents are more likely to claim that they will assist government officials in countering terrorism. This relationship remained even after accounting for conservatism, and people’s general willingness to help police solve crimes like breaking and entering.     

Spaces of encounter and attitudes towards difference: A comparative study of two European cities

Scholars have been increasingly interested in how everyday interactions in various places with people from different ethnic/religious background impact inter-group relations. Drawing on representative surveys in Leeds and Warsaw (2012), we examine whether encounters with ethnic and religious minorities in different type of space are associated with more tolerance towards them. We find that in Leeds, more favourable affective attitudes are associated with contact in institutional spaces (workplace and study places) and socialisation spaces (social clubs, voluntary groups, religious meeting places); however, in case of behavioural intentions – operationalised as willingness to be friendly to minority neighbours – only encounters in socialisation spaces play a significant role in prejudice reduction. In Warsaw, people who have contacts with ethnic and religious minorities in public (streets, park, public services and transport) and consumption spaces (cafés, pubs, restaurants) express more positive affective attitudes towards them, but only encounters in consumption space translate into willingness to be friendly to minority neighbours.     

Population size, perceived threat, and exclusion: a multiple-indicators analysis of attitudes toward foreigners in Germany

The major objective of the present research is to examine the long-standing theoretical proposition that hostility and discriminatory attitudes toward out-groups are likely to rise with relative size of the out-group population. Using data from The German General Social Survey (ALLBUS, 1996) we provide, for the first time, an examination of the impact of both actual and perceived size of the foreign population on discriminatory attitudes toward foreigners. Specifically, by using a multiple-indicators analytical model, we examine the theoretical proposition that perceived threat posed by an out-group population mediates the relations between size of the out-group and exclusionary attitudes toward the out-group. The analysis does not support the theoretical expectation that actual size of the foreign population in the locale is likely to increase either perception of threat or exclusionary attitudes. Perceived size, however, is found to be associated, as expected, with perceived threat, and perceived threat is found to mediate the relations between perceived size and support for exclusionary practices against foreigners—the higher the perceived size, the more pronounced are both the threat and anti-foreigner attitudes. The findings and their significance are discussed in the light of sociological theories on the relations between minority size and discrimination.     

论晚清传教士报刊的西学传播——以《万国公报》为例

近代以来,有感于中国人因极度缺乏对西方文化的了解而拒绝基督教,以《万国公报》为代表的传教士报刊开始致力于传播西方文化,首重西学。他们希望通过介绍西方政治、经济、科技和宗教方面的知识,改变中国人对西方的轻视态度,在中国读者心目中建立起西方民主、富强、文明的正面形象。传教士报刊的努力使得西方文化渐渐为国人所了解,直接影响了上层社会中的开明分子,在一定程度上促进了中国其后发生的变革。     

Me and Jasmina down by the schoolyard: An analysis of the impact of ethnic diversity in school on the trust of schoolchildren

Earlier research has indicated a negative relationship between ethnic diversity and trust. Whereas previous analyses have been carried out at the country, city or neighbourhood level, this paper adds to the literature by analyzing the impact of ethnic diversity on generalized trust in others and out-group trust in the primary school context. The question of the impact of ethnic diversity in school on the trust of schoolchildren is addressed by drawing on a unique survey of children with immigrant and native Danish backgrounds, respectively, in the last three grades of primary school in Denmark. The survey design holds several qualities strengthening the potential for drawing inference about the impact of ethnic diversity in school on trust. The results of the analysis do not confirm the negative relationship between ethnic diversity and trust found in earlier research. In the primary school setting, ethnic diversity does not affect generalized trust and even has a positive impact on out-group trust of native Danish pupils (i.e., their trust in immigrants).     

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.     

从先秦佚文看先秦诸子对文学外部规律的探讨

在先秦佚文中,对文艺的基本态度有肯定和否定两种。否定性的言论从上层统治者如何保持清正、廉明、爱民的政治层面出发,将诗书礼乐、“声色”、“雕文刻镂”、“锦绣纂组”等视为政治动乱、国家混乱、人民饥寒的根源,缺乏对文艺特征、文艺作用的深刻了解。持肯定态度的佚文则颇具开创意义,其对文化知识与社会实践辩证关系的揭示、对语言与闻见知识关系的阐说、关于文学对作者个人作用的概括等,都具有重要的文学理论价值。李斯对文艺的意见,颇具先秦文艺思想的集大成性质,具有重要的理论价值和创新意义。     

Altering the life course: Military service and contact with the criminal justice system

Using data taken from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we examine the relationship between military service and contact with the criminal justice system. Drawing on the life course concept of a turning point, we show that military service does little to affect the risk of being arrested or being convicted of crimes involving violence or destructive behavior, while at the same time significantly reducing the risk of being arrested or being convicted of non-violent crimes. We find no evidence that service in a combat zone alters these relationships. Our results demonstrate how participation in a large-scale institution can serve as a turning point, altering the life course trajectories of young persons.     

Place matters: Contextualizing the roles of religion and race for understanding Americans' attitudes about homosexuality

As laws and policies related to homosexuality have evolved, Americans' attitudes have also changed. Race and religion have been established as important indicators of feelings about homosexuality. However, researchers have given almost no attention to how county characteristics shape Americans' attitudes. Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling techniques, we examine how personal characteristics and the religious and racial context of a county shape feelings about homosexuality drawing on data from the American National Election Survey and information about where respondents reside. We find that African Americans initially appear less tolerant than other racial groups, until we account for the geographical distribution of attitudes across the nation. Additionally, once we consider religious involvement, strength of belief, and religious affiliation African Americans appear to have warmer feelings about homosexuality than whites. Drawing on the moral communities' hypothesis, we also find that the strength of religiosity amongst county residents heightens the influence of personal religious beliefs on disapproving attitudes. There is also a direct effect of the proportion conservative Protestant, whereby people of all faiths have cooler attitudes towards homosexual individuals when they reside in a county with a higher proportion of conservative Protestants. Finally, we do not find any evidence for an African American cultural influence on attitudes.     

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.     

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.     

康拉德作品中的婚外情所透视的伦理观

在康拉德的多部作品中都涉及婚外情,婚外情的男女双方关系都是建立在不平等关系基础上,男性处于主动地位,女性被动服从,但最终难逃被始乱终弃的命运。不过,作品却往往以男主人公的死亡告终,如《海域逐客》中的威廉斯,《诺斯托罗莫》中的诺斯托罗莫以及《黑暗的心》中的库尔茨等,这种普遍性现象反映了当时社会对两性关系的看法和康拉德本人的观点。     

Explaining ethnic polarization over attitudes towards minority rights in Eastern Europe: A multilevel analysis

This paper examines divisions between majority and minority ethnic groups over attitudes towards minority rights in 13 East European societies. Using national sample surveys and multilevel models, we test the effectiveness of competing explanations of ethnic polarization in attitudes towards minority rights, as well as regional and cross-national differences in levels of polarization. We find that, at the individual level, indicators of ‘social distance’ (inter-marriage and social interaction) account most effectively for the extent of ethnic polarization. However, regional and cross-national variations in polarization between majority and minority groups are explained most effectively by cultural (linguistic and religious) differences. These findings accord with research in the West, indicating the importance of cultural differences as a source of ethnic polarization, while offering little support for theories focusing on economic and structural factors or the size of minority groups. They also suggest the likely sources of difficulties for democratic consolidation in ethnically divided post-communist societies.     

Leaving my religion: Understanding the relationship between religious disaffiliation,health, and well-being

Religious disaffiliation—leaving the religious tradition in which one was raised for no religious affiliation in adulthood—has become more common in recent years, though few studies have examined its consequences for the health and well-being of individuals. We use an innovative approach, comparing the health and subjective well-being of religious disaffiliates to those who remain affiliated using pooled General Social Survey samples from 1973 through 2012. We find that religious disaffiliates experience poorer health and lower well-being than those consistently affiliated and those who are consistently unaffiliated. We also demonstrate that the disadvantage for those who leave religious traditions is completely mediated by the frequency of church attendance, as disaffiliates attend church less often. Our results point to the importance of the social processes surrounding religious disaffiliation and emphasize the role of dynamics in the relationship between religious affiliation and health.     

Intergenerational social mobility and religious ecology: Disaggregating the conservative Protestant bloc

We extend research on the effects of religious ecologies by examining the role of religious ecologies in intergenerational socioeconomic mobility. We do so first by providing a theoretical framework addressing the diverse cultural influences of religious traditions and their impact on intergenerational mobility. We argue that certain otherworldly orientations among conservative Protestants suppress mechanisms of upward mobility, and that there are meaningful distinctions between sub-groups of conservative Protestants (evangelicals, fundamentalists, and Pentecostals). An analysis of county-level data from the recently released Equality of Opportunity Project and the Churches and Church Membership Survey is used to empirically examine the relationship between religious ecologies and intergenerational mobility. Findings suggest distinct effects of different religious groups on intergenerational mobility. These results demonstrate the importance of accounting for the ecological impact of religion on social mobility in the United States and challenge the conceptualization of conservative Protestants as a monolithic group.     

Family environments and the relationship context of first adolescent sex: Correlates of first sex in a casual versus steady relationship

Limited research has examined how family environments are associated with the relationship context of first sex, an important indicator of reproductive health risk. We use data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to assess the association between the family environment - parent-parent relationships, parent-adolescent relationships, and family structure - and relationship context of first heterosexual sexual intercourse, distinguishing between the transition to first sex in serious and casual relationships. Twenty-five percent of females and 43% of males who had sex by age 18 did so in a casual relationship. All dimensions of the family environment were linked to the relationship context of first sex. Notably, higher parental monitoring was associated with a reduced risk of transitioning to first sex in a casual relationship versus no sex, and greater family routines were associated with a reduced risk of transitioning to sex in a steady relationship versus having no sex, for males and females. A strong maternal-adolescent relationship was associated with a reduced risk of first sex in a casual relationship but only for males. Additionally, in two-parent families, a strong father-adolescent relationship was associated with reduced risk of transitioning to casual sex, but only for females. Pregnancy and STI prevention programs should work with parents to foster positive parent-adolescent relationships, to become aware of their adolescents’ activities and to recognize that parents are important models for adolescent relationship behaviors.     

Understanding Americans' abortion attitudes: The role of the local religious context

Although abortion became legal over 40 years ago, Americans remain staunchly divided over its acceptability. Personal religious beliefs and behaviors have emerged as some of the most important factors shaping disapproval. Despite religion's importance, very little attention has been given to how the local religious context may shape views and abortion access. Using data from the General Social Survey (N = 6922) that has geographical identifiers, we examine the role of the local religious context for shaping attitudes and the presence of a county abortion clinic. We find that as the level of county religious engagement rises, religious and secular residents alike develop more conservative attitudes. Conversely, as the county Catholic rate increases, moderate and liberal Protestants become more prochoice. While the county conservative Protestant rate has no influence on residents' attitudes, it is the only religious contextual measure that shapes the likelihood that a county has an abortion clinic.     

西方启蒙思想的发展与嬗变

本文以人文主义与基督教的关系为中心,对西方启蒙思想发展与嬗变的内在理路作了梳理,并探讨了启蒙的偏差与纠偏问题.论文第一部分概述古希腊罗马启蒙思想的发展、成就与偏差;第二部分分析中国学术界对基督教与古希腊罗马思想关系问题上的偏差,指出基督教对希腊启蒙思想的纠偏作用;第三部分指出西方世俗人文主义者继承了人文主义的传统.但与传统宗教思想也有千丝万缕的联系;第四部分探讨基督教与人文主义融通的可能性.     

Do You Like Me as Much as I Like You? Friendship Reciprocity and Its Effects on School Outcomes among Adolescents

Social scientists have long suspected that friendship dyads are not always reciprocated and those that are reciprocated are likely to be more intimate. Close friendships may provide youth with an environment conducive to healthy development and educational outcomes. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a nationally representative data set of youth, we examine how attributes of respondents and their friends affect the odds of reciprocity between adolescents. Asian Americans and females are the most likely to have reciprocated friendships. Interracial friendships are less likely to be reciprocated than intraracial friendships. Further, adolescents with reciprocated friendships report higher levels of school belonging. Finally, reciprocity and school belonging both exert independent effects on academic performance. Friendship reciprocity is an important indicator of social support above and beyond the numbers of friends reported by youth.