Ethnic diversity and extremist attitudes in soccer teams: A multi-level investigation

It has been argued that sports contexts may be suitable venues for reducing intercultural hostility, including its more extreme forms, yet empirical evidence remains scarce. The present study investigated the main and interactive influence of two sets of factors on support for violent extremism: (a) ethnic diversity of teams, that is, the heterogeneity of the team members’ ethnic origins, and (b) team members’ intercultural perceptions, including perceived social capital, contact experiences and diversity ideologies within the team. Individual-level data from 257 players nested within 36 German soccer teams were combined with assessments of the ethnic diversity of each team based on a genealogical database. Multi-level analyses were conducted. Some evidence suggested that higher ethnic diversity within a team and frequent inter-ethnic contact between its players were associated with more extremism. However, cross-level moderation analyses showed that ethnic diversity was associated with less support for violent extremist groups when inter-ethnic contact quality was high. Perceptions of colorblind team ideologies that focus on minimizing/ignoring differences between groups were associated with lower threat perceptions and extremism. While social capital generally played little of a role, one social capital indicator, norms of behavior, was unexpectedly associated with higher threat perceptions. Overall, the present findings suggest that increasing ethnic diversity in sports teams may in itself not reduce extremist attitudes and sometimes may even backfire. Rather, how intercultural relations are managed within these contexts seems decisive. Prioritizing venues for positive contact experiences between soccer players of different backgrounds seems essential.     

The relation between ethnic diversity and fear of crime: An analysis of police records and survey data in Belgian communities

In the framework of intergroup threat theory, it is routinely assumed that the presence of immigrant groups in a local community could contribute to fear of crime among the majority population. This could be explained by a direct relation between ethnic diversity and some forms of crime, but it can also be expected that stereotypes toward specific groups of the population contribute to a perception of group threat. In this article it is assessed how the real and perceived presence of immigrant groups and the occurrence of criminal acts are related to fear of crime. The analysis is based on a combination of newly available official police records and survey data for local municipalities in Belgium. The results show there is no significant relation between reported crime and fear of crime. The community level of ethnic diversity is, however, significantly related to fear of crime. The findings suggest that applications of group threat theory should not only focus on economic and cultural threat, but also on the perceived impact of diversity on crime and safety.