Title of the talk: Harnessing the power of stories to promote peace. Evidence from a randomized controlled trial of a narrative intervention to counter violent extremism in West Africa.   Abstract: Stories are a fundamental way through which we understand the world. They provide scripts that help people make sense of ongoing realities and imagine…

  Hate speech or the speech of contempt? The emotional and normative mechanisms in online derogatory language. Link to online seminar, see below.   Abstract: The effects of hate speech on racism, intergroup violence or political radicalization have been a primary focus of social psychological theorizing for decades (Allport, 1954). The recent development of electronic…

Immigrant Student Academic Resilience: Implications for Policy and Practice Stemming from PISA Results   Abstract: International achievement measures such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have consistently reported an achievement gap between non-immigrant and immigrant student groups – a result that is often referred to as the immigrant student performance disadvantage. This presentation…

Nederlands bericht zie beneden   Worried about coronavirus? Tell each other about it! – Social networks can promote compliance with coronavirus measures Birthdays, garden parties, drinks: most corona infections currently take place in the private sphere. Yet our social networks can also help to prevent further spread of the virus. This summer, Ercomer researchers conducted…

‘Does national identity boost trust? Exploring the links from national attachment, pride, and chauvinism to general, political, and inter-group trust’.   Abstract: The national identity argument holds that a common national identity promotes trust and solidarity between citizens, and that it may therefore provide a common in-group identity that furthers cooperation between groups that are…

Tainted by Office? Populist Parties as Mobilizers of Discontent   Populist parties are often conceived of as ‘mobilizers of discontent’. They either attract voters who are dissatisfied with the political status-quo, or they fuel distrust among those who already support them. In this paper, we argue and demonstrate that populist parties cease to be mobilizers…

Cities of Refuge In the wake of 2015, local authorities have increasingly claimed and been granted a key role in the management of migration. There are ‘fearless cities’ and ‘solidarity cities’ take a proactive stance on the inclusion of migrants, but also ‘cities that refuse’ to welcome and integrate refugees. In this seminar, Barbara Oomen…

Adolescents’ Negative Attitudes Toward Immigrants: Risk and Protective Factors.   Adolescents grow up in an ethnically diverse world fueled by increases in immigration. At the same time, immigrant children are sometimes the targets of negative attitudes that fuel prejudice-based harassment at school. Thus, schools seek to foster more positive attitudes among youth.   Adolescents’ attitudes…

When people come into continuous first hand contact with another culture, their patterns of emotions change – a process we coined emotional acculturation. In this colloquium, I will describe three studies, with Korean Americans, Turkish Belgians and a representative sample of minority adolescents in Belgium (longitudinal study) that provide first evidence for this phenomenon. Concretely,…

We are proud to announce that our research master programme Migration, Ethnic Relations and Multiculturalism was ranked 1st place in the Keuzegids Masters 2019 and received the mark ‘Top Opleiding’ ( top rated programme).  Read more about our programme here!