Inter-Ethnic Neighbourhood Acquaintanceships of Migrants and Natives in Germany: On the Brokering Roles of Inter-Ethnic Partners and Children

Abstract

Since Allport, social scientists emphasise the importance of personal interethnic contact for overcoming prejudices and enhancing social cohesion in mixed societies. But why do some people have more contact to their neighbours of other ethnicity? Using new data from a large-scale German survey, I analyse the brokering roles of children and inter-ethnic partners in explaining inter-ethnic neighbourhood acquaintanceships. Even on a contextual level, my results suggest that people living in regions with larger shares of children have more inter-ethnic neighbourhood acquaintances, which expands earlier findings on the general integrating function of children. However, I also argue that we should recognise brokering to be contextspecific and exemplify this by showing how the brokering role of inter-ethnic partners shows particularly in interaction with inter-ethnic encounters at local bars and restaurants, while that of children shows particularly given frequent inter-ethnic encounters at public parks and playgrounds. More importantly, the brokering role of children only shows in interaction with the frequency of inter-ethnic encounters at local parks and playgrounds. On a theoretical level, my results demonstrate the importance of studying the interaction of mechanisms in explaining personal (inter-ethnic) contact.