Group Size versus Change? Assessing Americans’ Perception of Local Immigration

Newman, Benjamin J.; Velez, Yamil

doi:10.1177/1065912913517303

Cited by 77 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Instead, where immigration proceeds rapidly and where immigrants may threaten the status quo with a perceived challenge to the economic and cultural well-being of natives, perceptions of immigration threat are likely to surface (Newman and Velez 2014). As a result, negative views of immigrants and immigration are likely to emerge.…”

Section: Immigrant Stock and Influxesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining Attitudes toward Immigration: The Role of Regional Context and Individual Predispositions

Karreth¹,

Singh²,

Stojek³

2015

West European Politics

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Existing research makes competing predictions and yields contradictory findings about the relationships between natives' exposure to immigrants and their attitudes toward immigration. Engaging this disjuncture, this article argues that individual predispositions moderate the impact of exposure to immigrants on negative attitudes toward immigrants. Negative attitudes toward immigration are more likely among individuals who are most sensitive to such threats. Because country-level studies are generally unable to appropriately measure the immigration context in which individuals form their attitudes, this article uses a newly collected dataset on regional immigration patterns in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland to test the argument. The data show that increasing and visible diversity is associated with negative attitudes toward immigrants, but only among natives on the political right. This finding improves the understanding of attitudes toward immigrants and immigration and has implications for the study of attitudes toward other policies and for immigration policy itself.The relationship between the presence of immigrants and citizens' attitudes toward immigrants and migration policies is uncertain and frequently debated. One perspective represented in many studies suggests that 'an increase in the percentage of ethnic minority members … reduces the majority's prejudice' (Wagner et al. 2006: 380). Another group of studies contradicts this finding, as exemplified by Quillian (1995: 602): 'prejudice is more likely when there is a large foreign presence'. These divergent findings align with the competing predictions from theories of natives' attitudes towards immigrants. Ethnic competition theory and realistic group conflict theory see exposure to outgroups, especially those from ethnically and culturally distinct origins, as leading to anti-immigrant attitudes among natives (Quillian 1995). Conversely, intergroup contact theory (e.g. Allport 1954) argues that larger outgroup populations can engender positive attitudes, although the eponymous 'contact' mechanism takes time to develop and its benefits are conditional on relative socioeconomic equality. On a different

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Section: Immigrant Stock and Influxesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining Attitudes toward Immigration: The Role of Regional Context and Individual Predispositions

Karreth¹,

Singh²,

Stojek³

2015

West European Politics

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“…Other research has focused attention on the rapid change to the ethnic composition of the receiving society when it comes to explaining the occurrence of prejudice. The “salience of change hypothesis” (Newman & Velez, ), based on Hopkins' “defended neighbourhood hypothesis” (, ), views drastic changes in the ethno‐racial composition as being responsible for receiving society's attitudes of rejection. The sudden changes in the ethnic composition stimulate the perception of sociocultural competition in a community, especially when the receiving society's economic level is lower (Semyonov et al, ).…”

Section: A Contextual Approach To Anti‐immigrant Prejudicementioning

confidence: 99%

Contextual factors and prejudice at the beginning of the migrant influx: The Moroccan case in Seville, Spain

Iglesias‐Pascual

Paloma

Ramı́rez

2018

Population Space and Place

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Studies addressing contextual factors associated with anti‐immigrant prejudice have focused on out‐group size and rapid demographic changes in receiving locations. However, the territorial concentration and distribution of ethnic minorities at a local and intraurban level has received little attention. We analyse the relationship between emerging territorial concentration points—alongside other contextual variables—by Moroccans and receiving society's growing prejudice towards them in a city experiencing the start of a migrant influx. We combine survey and census data from five Seville districts (southern Spain). Our results show how rapid changes in the general population's ethnic composition, coupled with Moroccan and economic migrants' territorial concentration, correlate strongly with negative attitudes towards Moroccans at this early stage. However, a weaker relationship between the immigrant percentage and degree of prejudice by the receiving group is observed. We also discuss guidelines for ensuring good, local diversity management to prevent socioterritorial fragmentation in multicultural cities.

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“…Citizens may not actually know the size or numbers of immigrants, or may incorrectly estimate their numbers, which calls into question the underlying mechanism of competition. Hopkins, Tran, and Williamson (), for example, show that natives cannot correctly estimate the number of immigrants in a geographical area, whereas other research finds that substantial or drastic changes in the size of immigrant groups over time does indeed correctly capture local attention (Newman & Velez, ). Importantly, even when local communities cannot correctly estimate actual demographic shifts, mistakes seem to be biased in such a way as to emphasize rather than de‐emphasize group threats from immigration.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Documenting the unauthorized: Political responses to unauthorized immigration

Baerg

Hotchkiss

Quispe-Agnoli

2017

Economics & Politics

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Cultural prejudice rather than self interest is the conventional wisdom for why voters respond negatively to immigration. Using a new measure of unauthorized immigrants based on self‐reported invalid social security numbers, we show that voters’ responses are more nuanced than mere prejudice against minorities. Using county level data from the U.S. state of Georgia, we find that voters in counties with above median levels of unauthorized workers are more likely to support the Republican Party. We also find that wealthier counties and wealthier voters are most likely to respond negatively to the unauthorized. Our evidence warns against arguments that depict opposition to immigration as motivated solely by xenophobia and cultural fears among lower income Whites.

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Group Size versus Change? Assessing Americans’ Perception of Local Immigration

Cited by 77 publications

References 38 publications

Explaining Attitudes toward Immigration: The Role of Regional Context and Individual Predispositions

Explaining Attitudes toward Immigration: The Role of Regional Context and Individual Predispositions

Contextual factors and prejudice at the beginning of the migrant influx: The Moroccan case in Seville, Spain

Documenting the unauthorized: Political responses to unauthorized immigration

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