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Is ethnic prejudice declining in B ritain? C hange in social distance attitudes among ethnic majority and minority B ritons[Note 9. This work was supported by the Centre on Dynamics ...]
Author(s) -
Storm Ingrid,
Sobolewska Maria,
Ford Robert
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
the british journal of sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.826
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1468-4446
pISSN - 0007-1315
DOI - 10.1111/1468-4446.12250
Subject(s) - ethnic group , hostility , prejudice (legal term) , social distance , white (mutation) , social psychology , perception , psychology , demography , sociology , medicine , biochemistry , chemistry , disease , covid-19 , pathology , anthropology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , gene , neuroscience
Most literature on racial prejudice deals with the racial attitudes of the ethnic majority and ethnic minorities separately. This paper breaks this tradition. We examine the social distance attitudes of white and non‐white British residents to test if these attitudes follow the same trends over time, whether they are driven by the same social processes and whether they are inter‐related. We have three main findings. Firstly, social distance from other ethnic groups has declined over time for both white and ethnic minority Britons. For the white majority there are both period and cohort elements to this decline. Secondly, we see some evidence that social distance between the majority and minority groups is reciprocal. Specifically, minorities who experience rejection by the white British feel a greater sense of distance from them. Thirdly, we find that all groups share the perception of the same ethnic hierarchy. We see evidence of particularly widespread hostility towards Muslim Britons from all ethnic groups suggesting that Muslims are singled out for negative attention from many British residents of all other backgrounds, including a large number who do not express hostility to other groups.