The contact hypothesis proposes that interaction between members of different groups reduces intergroup prejudice if--and only if--certain optimal conditions are present. For over 50 years, research using this framework has explored the boundary conditions for ideal contact and has guided interventions to promote desegregation. Although supporting the contact hypothesis in principle, the authors critique some research practices that have come to dominate the field: (a) the prioritizing of the study of interactions occurring under rarefied conditions, (b) the reformulation of lay understandings of contact in terms of a generic typology of ideal dimensions, and (c) the use of shifts in personal prejudice as the primary measure of outcome. The authors argue that these practices have limited the contact hypothesis both as an explanation of the intergroup dynamics of desegregation and as a framework for promoting social psychological change. In so arguing, the authors look toward a complementary program of research on contact and desegregation.

Farmers in mixed crop-livestock systems produce about half of the world's food. In small holdings around the world, livestock are reared mostly on grass, browse, and nonfood biomass from maize, millet, rice, and sorghum crops and in their turn supply manure and traction for future crops. Animals act as insurance against hard times and supply farmers with a source of regular income from sales of milk, eggs, and other products. Thus, faced with population growth and climate change, small-holder farmers should be the first target for policies to intensify production by carefully managed inputs of fertilizer, water, and feed to minimize waste and environmental impact, supported by improved access to markets, new varieties, and technologies.

For most of the history of prejudice research, negativity has been treated as its emotional and cognitive signature, a conception that continues to dominate work on the topic. By this definition, prejudice occurs when we dislike or derogate members of other groups. Recent research, however, has highlighted the need for a more nuanced and 'inclusive' (Eagly 2004) perspective on the role of intergroup emotions and beliefs in sustaining discrimination. On the one hand, several independent lines of research have shown that unequal intergroup relations are often marked by attitudinal complexity, with positive responses such as affection and admiration mingling with negative responses such as contempt and resentment. Simple antipathy is the exception rather than the rule. On the other hand, there is mounting evidence that nurturing bonds of affection between the advantaged and the disadvantaged sometimes entrenches rather than disrupts wider patterns of discrimination. Notably, prejudice reduction interventions may have ironic effects on the political attitudes of the historically disadvantaged, decreasing their perceptions of injustice and willingness to engage in collective action to transform social inequalities. These developments raise a number of important questions. Has the time come to challenge the assumption that negative evaluations are inevitably the cognitive and affective hallmarks of discrimination? Is the orthodox concept of prejudice in danger of side-tracking, if not obstructing, progress towards social justice in a fuller sense? What are the prospects for reconciling a prejudice reduction model of change, designed to get people to like one another more, with a collective action model of change, designed to ignite struggles to achieve intergroup equality?Keywords: Prejudice; intergroup relations; social change 2 Over the course of the past century, the concept of prejudice has become increasingly central to scientific thinking about relations between groups, marking a profound moral and political as well as conceptual shift.During late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, many scholars favoured conceptual frameworks based around notions of group differences, hierarchy and biological inheritance (e.g. see Haller 1971;Goldberg 1993). By rooting the causes of ethnic and racial hostility in the supposed characteristics of its targets, they upheld the traditional doctrine of the 'well-deserved reputation' (Zadwadzki 1948). Between the 1920s and 1940s, however, an 'abrupt reversal' (Samelson, 1978 occurred in scientific thinking. Rather than the inherited deficiencies of minorities, social disharmony was attributed increasingly to the bigotry of majority group members 1 . In the years following the end the Second World War, the concept of prejudice became central to the explanation of a range of social problems, including problems of discrimination, inequality, ideological extremism, and genocide. By the 1950s, prejudice research had "… spread like a flood both in social psychology and in adjacent ...

Questions of 'who we are' are often intimately related to questions of 'where we are', an idea captured in the environmental psychological concept of place-identity. The value of this concept is that it attends to the located nature of subjectivity, challenging the disembodied notions of identity preferred by social psychologists. The topic of place identity would thus seem to be a productive point around which the sub-disciplines of social and environmental psychology might meet, answering calls for greater disciplinary cross-fertilization. This study contributes to this project by presenting a sympathetic but critical evaluation of research on place-identity. It argues that such research is valuable in that it has established the importance of place for creating and sustaining a sense of self. However, drawing on recent developments in discursive approaches to social psychology, the authors identify several limitations with existing work on place-identity. This critique is then developed through analysis of an ongoing research programme located in the changing landscapes of the new South Africa.

Research on racial attitudes indicates that acceptance of the principle of racial equality is frequently offset by opposition to policies designed to eliminate injustice. At the same time, research on the contact hypothesis indicates that positive interaction between groups erodes various kinds of prejudiced attitudes. Integrating these two traditions of research, this study examined whether or not interracial contact reduces the principle-implementation gap in racial attitudes. The study comprised a random-digit-dialing survey of the attitudes and contact experiences of White and Black South Africans (N = 1,917). The results suggest that among Whites, there remains a stubborn core of resistance to policies designed to rectify the injustices of apartheid. The results also indicate that interracial contact has differential, and somewhat paradoxical, effects on the attitudes of Whites and Blacks toward practices aimed at achieving racial justice.