School Matters: The Effects of School Experiences on Youth’s Attitudes toward Immigrants

Abstract

Although schools have been described as an important socialization context for the development of intergroup attitudes, longitudinal multilevel studies are still rare within this field. This 3-wave study (with annual assessments) of German adolescents (N = 1292; Mage = 13.86; 51.8% female) examined the role of school experiences (perceived multicultural education, supportive peer relations in class, democratic classroom climate) in the development of youth’s negative attitudes toward immigrants. Longitudinal multilevel analyses revealed that a democratic classroom climate predicted youth’s attitudes at the individual level. At the classroom level class-average perceptions of a democratic classroom climate, supportive peer relations in class, and multicultural education (the latter solely among male, higher track students) were associated with less negative attitudes toward immigrants. In addition, age moderated the effect of school experiences on attitudes, showing that perceptions of a democratic climate at the classroom level mattered in particular among older adolescents. The findings suggest that school experiences are related to youth’s negative attitudes toward immigrants and can therefore help to reduce the risk of prejudice development.

Addressing Adolescents’ Prejudice toward Immigrants: The Role of the Classroom Context

“…Since in an open to discussion climate, students are also stimulated to elaborate on complex information about political and civic issues (Lin, 2014), they display less negative attitudes toward outgroupers. This has been confirmed in a recent study highlighting thatat the classroom levelclassaverage perceptions of a democratic classroom climate, supportive peer relations in class, and multicultural education were associated with less negative attitudes toward immigrants (Eckstein et al, 2021).…”

“…Few contributions focused on adolescents' prejudice and the factors that can shape it (e.g., Eckstein et al, 2021;. Among these, a recent longitudinal study examining the development of prejudice showed that adolescents' high levels of in-depth exploration of personal educational choices (Albarello & Rubini, 2022a;Crocetti et al, 2008) enhanced individuals' likelihood of being moderately prejudiced or less prejudiced compared to the risk of being highly prejudiced at a later time (Bobba et al, 2022).…”

“…Few studies focused on the classroom level of analysis (e.g., Gniewosz & Noack, 2008): some highlighted the importance of considering individuals' personal experiences as peculiar and separated from the collective one (e.g., ; other contributions underlined that individual perceptions might also vary systematically between students from different classrooms. For instance, class-level average perceptions of a democratic environment, supportive peer relations, and multicultural education are associated with less negative attitudes toward immigrants (Eckstein et al, 2021), meaning that class contexts can display effects on levels of prejudice which cannot be explained based on the individual characteristics of the adolescents.…”

“…Given that youth is considered a crucial period in life development, comprising becoming more aware of intergroup attitudes and relations (Cavicchiolo et al, 2022) with various social groups (Crocetti et al, 2022), schools represent a core context wherein adolescents can meet others and develop or change attitudes toward various aspects of life (e.g., democratic attitudes; civic participation; Hooghe & Dassonneville, 2013), with important implications for intergroup relations and prejudice (Verkuyten, 2018). Classesas cultural environments in which adolescents are socialized to the opinions of others and influenced by them (Mitchell, 2019) play a fundamental role in adolescents' views about immigrants (Eckstein et al, 2021;Miklikowska et al, 2021), but classlevel analyses of the factors affecting adolescents' prejudice toward immigrant are limited (e.g., Wilson-Daily et al, 2018). The available studies mainly endorsed unidimensional analyses focusing on evaluative dimensions of prejudice toward immigrants depicted as a threat to the ingroup (e.g., "immigrants are troublesome"; "immigrants are annoying"; Alivernini et al, 2019a; "immigrants increase criminality"; van Zalk & Kerr, 2014).…”

Civic Education, Teaching Quality and Students’ Willingness to Participate in Political and Civic Life: Political Interest and Knowledge as Mediators

“…For instance, an open classroom climate alone does not ensure a nurturing social context in diverse classrooms (Munniksma et al, 2021 ). In contradiction of previous findings (e.g., Campbell 2008 ; Eckstein & Noack, 2015 ), an open classroom climate might not be effective in reducing social inequalities in political engagement (Deimel et al, 2020 ; Hoskins et al, 2017 ). Moreover, a video study of nine 8th and 9th grade civic education classes in Germany, showed that open classroom discussions work differently depending on students’ personality traits (Gronostay, 2019 ).…”