Prejudice, Ethnic Identity, Contact and Ethnic Group Preferences Among Dutch Young Adolescents

Social identity theory, the contact hypothesis, and prejudice research are three important perspectives for studying ingroup information and preferences in the context of ethnic groups. This paper studies the utility of the three perspectives in a particular interethnic group context among 160 Dutch subjects between 12 and 15 years of age. The results show that the evaluation of ethnic identity and rate of cross-ethnic contact are strongly correlated with ingroup formation and preference. Prejudicial attitudes seem to be dependent on contact and especially on the evaluation of ethnic identity. Prejudice seems to be a function of positive identification with the Dutch as a group. Applied implications for ethnic-group relations are discussed.