ESRA 2025 Preliminary Program

Monday 14 July    Tuesday 15 July    Wednesday 16 July    Thursday 17 July    Friday 18 July   

All time references are in CEST

Studying attitudes toward immigrants
Session Organisers	Professor Eldad Davidov (University of Cologne) Dr Marcus Eisentraut (University of Cologne) Professor Anastasia Gorodzeisky (Tel Aviv University) Professor Dina Maskileyson (Université du Luxembourg) Ms Leona Przechomski (University of Cologne) Professor Peter Schmidt (University of Giessen) Professor Moshe Semyonov (Tel Aviv University) Dr Alice Ramos (University of Lisbon)
Time	Thursday 17 July, 13:30 - 15:00
Room	Ruppert Blauw - 0.53

Studying attitudes toward immigrants
Session organizers in alphabetical order:
Eldad Davidov, Marcus Eisentraut, Anastasia Gorodzeisky, Dina Maskileyson, Leona Przechomski, Peter Schmidt and Moshe Semyonov

Europe has been experiencing large flows of immigration either from outside or within the EU. People come to Europe for work and study, but also escape wars, political instabilities, repression, or poverty. The Syrian refugee crisis of 2015/6, poverty and political instability in Africa, and the Russian war against Ukraine have pushed people to flee from their countries and try to seek safety and better life in Europe. These flows have brought attitudes towards migration to the forefront of public debates and resulted in political polarization in Europe. Europeans are divided not only in their attitudes toward immigrants and refugees but also in how they believe their country should deal with these immigration flows. This division is evident in the rise of support for and popularity of extreme right-wing parties in different European countries. The session is going to cover ongoing studies that utilize different methods of survey data collection and analysis to explain variation across individuals and societies in attitudes toward newcomers into Europe. Scholars are encouraged to submit studies which use survey data including comparative and longitudinal data and employ variable-oriented or typological approaches to explain attitudes toward immigrants and refugees in Europe.

Keywords: Attitudes toward immigrants and refugees, cross-country comparisons, longitudinal analysis

Papers

Economic Climate and Social Disaffection: Understanding Attitudes towards Immigration

Dr Alice Ramos (Instituto de Ciências Sociais - Universidade de Lisboa) - Presenting Author
Professor Jorge Vala (Instituto de Ciências Sociais - Universidade de Lisboa)

The last two decades marked important and deep changes in the social and economic panorama in Europe. Using data from the 11 rounds of the European Social Survey, we discuss how attitudes towards immigration have been changing and what correlates may help us to understand the different trends that can be observed in different countries.
Previous literature relating the social context and attitudes towards immigrants deliver a complex variety of findings: a strong correlation between perceptions of threat associated to immigrants and opposition towards their presence in the country (e.g. Vala, Pereira & Ramos 2006); the impact of country economic climate on economic threat perceptions (e.g. Isaksen 2019); no impact of GDP or immigrant fluxes on opposition to immigration (e.g. Sides & Citrin 2007). Based on these results, we want to go a step further and test two hypotheses. The first one states that social disaffection at the individual level and economic climate at the contextual level are associated with openness/opposition to immigration. The second hypothesis states that these associations are mediated by threat perceptions, that serve as justifications for peoples’ negative attitudes (e.g. Pereira, Vala & Lopes 2010). Economic climate is measured by the GDP fluctuation between 2002 and 2024, and social disaffection represents an articulated set of perceptions and feelings (e.g. dissatisfaction with life, perception of lack of control, distrust in nuclear institutions of the social system) that are transversal to different sectors of society and encompass the functioning of society (Katz et al., 1977).

Wellbeing, School Belonging, and Intergroup Attitudes in Minority Adolescents

Dr Radka Hanzlová (Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences) - Presenting Author
Dr Aleš Kudrnáč (Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences)

This study examines the effects of school belonging and well-being on minority adolescents’ attitudes toward the majority population (Czechs) in the Czech Republic. Research suggests a link between well-being and attitudes toward outgroups, while a strong sense of belonging is tied to psychological well-being and social adaptation. These factors are particularly important for ethnic minorities, who often face prejudice and challenges in schools and broader society. This study explores whether school belonging and well-being are positively associated with attitudes toward the majority and whether sense of school belonging can compensate for poor wellbeing in predicting these attitudes. Using data from the minority subsample of the Czech Education Panel Survey (CZEPS), this study analyzes responses from over 2,000 high school freshmen (mean age 16; 51% female) from 232 schools who identified with one or more ethnic minority groups. The participants filled online questionnaires during regular school hours in autumn 2023. Multilevel regression models assessed the relationships between school belonging, well-being, and attitudes toward the majority. Both higher well-being and a stronger sense of school belonging are associated with more positive attitudes toward the majority. Moreover, school belonging moderates the relationship between well-being and these attitudes, suggesting that school belonging plays an important role in shaping minority adolescents’ perceptions of the majority group. These findings reveal the importance of supportive school environments in fostering positive intergroup attitudes among minority students. A strong sense of school belonging may mitigate the negative effects of poor well-being on attitudes toward the majority.

Impact of Frequency of Contact on Attitudes towards Migrants: Assessing the Turkish Social Values Survey Results

Dr Souad Osseiran (Boğaziçi University)
Dr Ceylan Engin (Boğaziçi University)
Ms Selin Ongan (Boğaziçi University)
Mr Rabia Önder (Boğaziçi University)
Ms Rümeysa Türkbey (Boğaziçi University)
Mr Giray Demirici (Boğaziçi University) - Presenting Author

While Turkey has been receiving refugees and migrants for several decades, the Syrian refugee presence since 2011 shot the issue of migration to the forefront of public debates. Since 2019, Turkey has been witnessing rising xenophobia and hate speech culminating in the publicization of anti-immigrant sentiments in different political party candidates’ presidential campaigns in 2023. This paper uses nationally representative data from the Turkish Social Values Survey (TSVS) undertaken in the last quarter of 2024 to analyse perceptions and attitudes towards migrant (and refugee) groups among other topics. The cross-sectional TSVS (n=1500) data was collected face-to-face, using the Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) method, in 260 geographical clusters (primary sampling units) selected from 26 NUTS-2 geographical subregions in Turkey. Regarding migration, TSVS evaluates the frequency of respondents’ contact with migrants, their attitudes towards different migrant groups and their perceptions of Turkey’s migration policies. In contrast to prior research undertaken in Turkey, TSVS examines respondents’ contact with different migrant groups thereby providing a more comprehensive perspective of attitudes. Following prior research on contact, this study hypothesizes that a higher frequency of contact with migrants will be associated with more positive attitudes. To test this hypothesis, this paper will apply ordinal regression to the TSVS contact related data while taking education level, social class, and level of religiosity as control variables. The results of this study may contribute to discussions on intergroup contact in an understudied context and help guide migration policy reforms.

Naturalization Tests as a Gateway to Societal Values?

Ms Leona Przechomski (University of Cologne)
Ms Marlene Hilgenstock (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the social science) - Presenting Author
Professor Anastasia Gorodzeisky (Tel Aviv University)
Professor Eldad Davidov (University of Cologne)

In immigration countries, multiculturalism is broadly defined as the adaptation of national institutions to meet the needs of diverse immigrant groups, along with an expectation that immigrants will conform to certain key values of the receiving society. For many years, oftentimes European receiving societies had no formal means of clearly presenting these key societal values to immigrants. However, in recent decades, many European countries have introduced naturalization or citizenship tests. Such tests can be considered as an explicit way to communicate these key societal values, making them and the receiving society’s expectations to conform to them, transparent to immigrants.
This study aims to examine the impact of exposure to a receiving country’s core values and norms through naturalization tests on immigrants' attitudes towards gender equality and LGBTIQ+ rights—values commonly associated with contemporary European receiving societies. Employing event study and difference-in-differences designs on representative data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS), this research explores whether and how this formal introduction to key societal values through naturalization testing influences immigrants’ views on issues central to European identity. We expect that, among immigrants from countries with relatively low levels of gender equality and LGBTIQ+ rights, those who have been subjected to naturalization tests will display a greater adjustment in their attitudes toward gender equality and LGBTIQ+ rights compared to those who have not undergone such tests. By examining the impact of policy measures on social attitudes, this study provides valuable insights into the role of naturalization tests in fostering social cohesion within immigration countries.

Somebody else's problems – cross-country differences in main issues facing the nation and the European Union in Eurobarometer surveys 2013 – 2023 

Dr Piotr Cichocki (Adam Mickiewicz University) - Presenting Author
Professor Piotr Jabkowski (Adam Mickiewicz University)
Dr Marta Kolczynska (Polish Academy of Sciences)

Tracking surveys often include questions probing respondents' perceptions of the country's most pressing challenges to capture changes in the focus of public attention. The Eurobarometer has consistently fielded a 'most important problem' question separately for the national and the European level in the biannual Standard survey since 2013. Over time, the tracking questions allow for monitoring the major crises faced by the European Union and the member-states over the preceding decade. In the early 2010s, economic concerns predominated, followed by the 2015 migration crisis, propelling immigration and associated security concerns to the top of European concerns. Briefly, in 2018-2019, concerns over the environment and climate change slowly moved to the forefront of concerns; this brief rise was harshly curtailed by the shock of COVID-19 in 2020-21, elevating health to the principal concern; finally, the post-covid bout of inflation amplified by the repercussions of the full-scale war in Ukraine, brought back economic issues to the forefront of citizen concerns both at the national and European levels. Our analysis focuses not on the general trends but on the tension between the national and European issues of concern, i.e., instances when predominant respondent choices at the two levels do not overlap in the country-level surveys. Based on a multi-level longitudinal analysis of 20 waves of Standard Eurobarometer, our study will explore the factors underlying the tendency to frame issues concerning the EU rather than the country level.