Understanding Prejudice: an Interdisciplinary Perspective on Intergroup Relations (paid version for the professional)

Course goals

After successfully completing the course, students are able to:

• explain the most important research questions, theories, and findings with regard to intergroup prejudice and intergroup relations;
• apply various theories about intergroup behavior to explain societal problems with regard to the integration of immigrants and diversity policies;
• critically analyze and compare theoretical concepts from different fields in the social sciences;
• derive concrete, testable hypotheses from different social science theories with regard to intergroup prejudice and develop appropriate research designs to test these hypotheses.

Examination
Students have to answer questions about the topic of the week in individual assignments. These assignments have to be submitted and will be graded as pass/fail. No numeric grade will be given. Students can monitor their progress in realizing the learning goals by comparing their own answers to answer keys that will be provided. The questions of the assignments are designed to train students in explaining the central theories, applying the concepts to current societal problems, critically analyzing and comparing the theories, and deriving hypotheses. Completing the assignments serves as preparation for the final exam. The final exam will test students' knowledge and understanding of different theoretical perspectives, research questions, and findings with regard to prejudice and intergroup relations. Moreover, students' ability to analyze and compare different theories will be examined as well as their ability to derive hypotheses from such theories.


 

Content

We have witnessed an increase in anti-immigrant prejudice and support for radical parties in almost all Western societies in the last couple of years. Many pundits link this to the large number of refugees entering Europe, to Islamic terrorism, and to the poor state of the economy. But how do these facts foster prejudice? Why do some react with discrimination and others do not? Why are particular groups singled out? These and many more questions will be addressed in “Understanding Prejudice.”

The course focuses on prejudice, discrimination, and intergroup relations. In particular, we will discuss how the majority group reacts to minority groups in society. We will study how prejudices develop, for instance, how negative attitudes follow from threats to people's identities or their belongings. Moreover, we will examine the consequences of prejudices for intergroup interactions and, in particular, which political decisions are made and which policies are implemented. A special focus will be on approaches to reduce prejudice and foster the cohesion of majority and minority groups in society.

Given the current political climate in most western societies, we will primarily study the reactions of majority groups to immigrants and their integration process. But we will also pay attention to existing prejudice toward other social groups such as religious or sexual minorities.

We will study why people develop prejudices and negative attitudes toward other groups from the perspective of different fields in the social sciences. The main focus will be on sociological and social-psychological explanations. We will study which research questions can be answered with these theories and which societal problems may be solved. We will critically examine the hypotheses derived from theories and evaluate the validity of the empirical tests of these hypotheses. In doing so, this course draws mainly from quantitative research.

Academic abilities
In this course, students will be trained and tested in the following academic abilities:

• Critically examining theories, applying these theories to societal problems, and comparing theories with each other from an interdisciplinary perspective.
• Formulating research questions with regard to intergroup prejudice, developing hypotheses and an appropriate research design to test these hypotheses.
• Being able to identify the theoretical background of societal issues discussed in the public with regard to intergroup relations, and being able to discuss theories and mechanisms with regard to current events.

 Students will further their abilities to analyze and compare theoretical perspectives, formulate research questions, and develop research designs by working on individual assignments. Students will also train in deriving (competing) hypotheses from different theories and analyzing ongoing debates about relations in the general public.