This paper investigates the role of inter‐ethnic contact (neighbourhood, as friends, and at work), alongside other ‘background’ variables (education, value orientation and national pride), in reducing prejudice. This was achieved by secondary analysis of survey data (Eurobarometer 30, 1988) from respondents in four West European countries, asked about various ethnic out‐groups (West Germany/Turks; France/Asians; France/North Africans; Dutch/Turks; Dutch/Surinamese; British/Asians; British/West Indians). We developed and tested a path model in one sample, and then tested it across six others, first for blatant and then for subtle prejudice. Contact‐as‐friends had a significant negative effect on blatant prejudice in six samples; there were also strong negative effects for education and value orientation, and education was a significant predictor of contact‐as‐friends. Tests of the goodness‐of‐fit of models with and without contact showed that prediction was significantly improved by the inclusion of contact‐as‐friends in four samples. Results were generally parallel for subtle prejudice, but prediction was much weaker. These results are discussed in terms of future interventions to decrease prejudice and some critical questions concerning the ‘contact hypothesis’.

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