The present study investigates the concurrent predictors of adolescent reading comprehension (literal, inferential) for fiction and non-fiction texts. Predictors were examined from the cognitive (word identification, reading fluency), psychological (gender) and ecological (print exposure) domains. Print exposure to traditional and digital texts was surveyed using a diary method of reading habits. A cross-sectional sample of 312 students in early (11-13 years) or middle adolescence (14-15 years) participated from a range of SES backgrounds. Word identification emerged as a strong predictor of reading comprehension across adolescence and text genres. Gender effects favouring female students were evident for reading frequency but not reading skill itself. Reading habits also differed and comprehension advantages were observed among females for fiction and males for non-fiction. Age effects emerged for reading frequency, which was lower in middle adolescence. Although more time was spent on digital than traditional texts, traditional extended text reading was the only reading habit to predict inference-making in comprehension and to distinguish skilled from less-skilled comprehenders. The theoretical and educational implications of these results are discussed.

This article adds to the social psychological literature on how minority group members seek to manage their interactions with majority group members. Specifically, it focuses on minority group members’ use of humour in interactions where they anticipate or actually experience prejudice. The data on which our analysis is based originate from interviews conducted with Roma in Hungary (N = 30). Asked about their interactions with majority group members, interviewees reported using humour as a means to (a) manage embarrassment; (b) gather information about the other's intergroup attitudes; and (c) subvert taken‐for‐granted understandings of social relations. The humour involved was diverse. Sometimes it entailed the telling of (Roma‐related) jokes. Sometimes it involved the exaggerated performance of roles and identities that ironised majority–minority social relations. The significance of humour as a tool for minority group members to exert some control over their interactions with majority group members is discussed.

Ethnic minority group members' responses to their prejudicial treatment can take several forms. One involves identity concealment (e.g., 'passing'). In order to understand such a response, we must explore participants' understandings of the interactional context before them, their meta-perceptions of the identity others ascribe to them, and the varied meanings that identity concealment/non-disclosure may have in that context.Our analysis of interview data (N = 30) obtained with Roma in Hungary reveals diverse forms of, and motivations for, the concealment of their Roma identity. Some participants reported examples of proactive identity concealment, others reported more reactive forms (in which they went along with others' mistaken assumptions concerning their identity). The motivations for identity concealment (whether proactive or reactive) included the desire to: secure material benefits; avoid conflict; take pleasure from seeing others' assumptions blinding them to the reality before them; test (and expose) majority group members' attitudes; allow themselves opportunities to experience the world in new ways. Our analysis highlights the importance of social identity researchers recognizing the diverse motivations for ethnic identity concealment: From the actors' perspective concealment is not always assimilatory, and in some contexts can be experienced as empowering.

Minorities do not always welcome apparently positive stereotypes of their group. At first sight, this may appear churlish. However, we show that minority group members’ theorizing on the production and operation of apparently positive stereotypes helps explain such a negative reaction. Reporting interview data (N = 30) gathered with Hungarian Roma, we differentiated several bases for a negative response to the popular stereotype of Roma as possessing a distinctive musical talent. Although participants recognized the stereotype had instrumental value in easing everyday intergroup encounters, they also reported that the stereotype reflected the majority group’s power to define Roma identity; constrained recognition of qualities that they themselves valued; limited their abilities to act on terms that were their own; and could facilitate the reproduction of more negative Roma stereotypes. Taken together, these findings imply our participants saw this apparently positive stereotype as speaking volumes about the majority’s power to define Roma identity without reference to how they themselves defined their identity. We conclude with a discussion of the analytic value of the concept of ‘misrecognition’ in explaining negative responses to a positive stereotype. We also discuss the potential for such an apparently positive stereotype to facilitate improvements in intergroup relations.

Focusing on Muslims in Europe and in the United States, this chapter examines collective influences on individual theorizing about collective victimization more generally, and Islamophobia specifically. The authors argue that the theorization of collective victimhood is a topic of debate within communities, involving arguments about the breadth and inclusivity of the community and the meaning of culturally shared and identity-relevant narratives. For example, the authors explore how arguments as to how Muslims should make sense of their experience of victimization draw on different interpretations of Qur’anic text. Throughout, the authors discuss the two-way relationship between constructions of victimhood and individual experience, and how different ways of theorizing intergroup relations result in different understandings of the nature of group members’ victimization and how they should respond. The authors’ approach highlights the importance of a contextualized, culturally embedded analysis of how collective victimhood is understood and theorized.