Guest Editorial. Focus: Prejudices and Intergroup Differentiation – Within and Between Cultures

Zick A, Schmid K. Guest Editorial. Focus: Prejudices and Intergroup Differentiation – Within and Between Cultures . International Journal of Conflict and Violence. 2010;4(2):172-176.This issue of IJCV takes two different perspectives on prejudice and the processes of intergroup differentiation. The first looks at causes, expressions, and outcomes of prejudice and prejudice-based differentiations between groups, including discrimination, violence, and exclusion. In doing so, the authors focus on one of the most crucial characteristics of intergroup conflicts, since there is no conflict without prejudice. Prejudice against outgroups is often the most relevant legitimizing myth that inflames, maintains, and prolongs conflicts. Violent clashes based on intergroup comparisons use prejudice to discriminate, oppress, and continuously exclude groups within societies. This also means that prejudices are highly relevant indicators of the civic state of societies. Such a focus is not new, but research on prejudice suffers from going in and out of fashion. It becomes relevant in public and scientific discourses when racist violence or hate crimes are committed, but it rapidly recedes when these events leave the headlines. This wavering attention leads societies and scholars to overlook that prejudice and discrimination, nested within the normality of cultures and nations, more and more are critical devices for measuring the civic state of societies. Open borders and transparent international communications have made prejudice an overt as well as a covert indicator of control, normality, and democracy in states. So this collection of papers not only offers new insights into the causes, expressions, and outcomes of prejudice in intergroup conflicts, but also hints at the civic state of societies. Their authors address a wide range of measures, results, and indicators of stereotypic devaluations and prejudice