‘By law, custom or local atmosphere’: Exploring institutional support in school‐based contact programmes

Abstract

Allport's intergroup contact theory outlines four conditions for effective contact: equal status between participants within the contact situation, cooperation, common goals and institutional support. While the literature indicates that institutional support may be a particularly important condition for effective contact, its role and impact remain under-researched, particularly in studies of contact within real-world contexts. This article seeks to address this gap through a study of institutional support within a school-based contact initiative operating in two countries, Northern Ireland and North Macedonia. Known as 'shared education', this promotes inter-school collaboration as a means of fostering contact between pupils from different ethnic or religious backgrounds. Adopting a qualitative approach and using data collected through interviews with staff involved in four shared education projects, this study explores three aspects: the extent to which shared education demonstrates support for contact; the factors that encourage or impede supportive contact norms; and the relationship between the norms of the school and those of other authorities, particularly parents and the community.

‘Tea for two generations’ An Intergenerational psychosocial intervention for people with dementia living in care homes

“…This tenet was considered: 'an especially important condition for facilitating positive contact effects by Pettigrew & Tropp 2006, p.766). The current intervention was supported by area and care home management teams and staff, and by the university, which satisfies the conceptualisation of 'institutional support' generally discussed in the contact literature, which is the support of the organisations directly involved in the intervention, however Allport's reference to 'law, custom, or local atmosphere' may also be conceptualised to encompass peers, family, and the wider community (Loader, Hughes and Furey, 2020). Support for such IG interventions may not currently be universal.…”