Majority group belonging without minority group distancing? Minority perspectives in intergroup contact and equality

Introduction In real-life encounters with majority members, minorities experience both positive contact (such as friendship) and unequal treatment (such as discrimination). Equal treatment and positive contact with majority members signal to minorities that they can belong to both the majority and minority group, whereas unequal treatment signals that claims to dual group membership are threatened. Taking a minority perspective on ethnically diverse schools, we (a) play out intergroup friendship against equal treatment as predictors of belonging to the majority and minority groups (b) examine the interplay of friendship with equality on minorities’ belonging to the majority and minority groups. We hypothesized that having more majority friends without equal treatment might come at the price of distancing from the minority group. Methods Drawing on a random sample of over 1200 (mainly Turkish and Moroccan origin) minority students in 65 secondary schools in Flanders, we ran multi-level models to test the impact of (individual-level and self-reported) intergroup friendship, unequal treatment in schools and their interaction. We tested associations with minorities’ attitudes towards and identification with majority as measurements of belonging to the majority and their ethnic pride and identification as indicators of minority group distancing. Results and Discussion We found that both intergroup friendship and perceived equal treatment enhanced belonging to the majority. However, contact in schools perceived as less equal enhanced majority belonging at a cost: students who spent more time with majority friends had lower ethnic pride and identification. This was not the case in schools perceived as equal.status: publishe