Conference Agenda

Since its release, scholars from various disciplines all around the world use the ESS as source for research on persons with immigrant background. An important reason for its popularity among immigrant researchers is its bi-annual repetition and the regular participation of many Western European countries that both allow to combine data of several rounds and/or countries, resulting in a decent number of respondents with immigrant background. This circumvents the problem of small numbers that researchers usually face when using population survey data for studying immigrants. Moreover, its broad range of questions on (political) attitudes and behaviour is extra-ordinary for a multi-themed population survey, making the ESS often the only data source for studying these topics on immigrants or groups that mainly are of immigrant background, such as Muslims. At the same time, there are reasons for reservations regarding its authoritative use on immigrants. Although ESS displays a strong awareness for the need of research on immigrants by including items that enable their identification among respondents, it is not an immigrant survey. There is no specific sampling strategy for immigrant groups, and the questionnaire is only presented in a limited set of languages– a major obstacle for the participation of new immigrants or of immigrants with little knowledge of these languages. For this reason, non-response among immigrants is probably higher than among other population groups and not at random, which is considered a severe challenge to obtain unbiased results. Although these and other sources for potential biases are well known among scholars, they have been neither systematically investigated nor frequently addressed in publications using the ESS. Among the open questions are: how biased is immigrant data really, and to what extent are substantial results affected by this? How can we take this into account in our analyses and when interpreting the results?

The module on attitudes to immigration has been fielded in the 1st and the 7th rounds of the ESS, and it is going to be fielded again in Round 12. This module has been widely used by academics and policy makers, and the topic remains highly salient for theory, research and political debates. The key questions from the previous modules which have been the most widely used include the measurement of attitudes toward different immigrant groups, realistic and symbolic threat, contact quantity and quality with immigrants, social distance, subjective group size, conditions to accept immigrants, fraternal deprivation, or racism, just to name a few. A small number of core items on immigration have been asked in every round of the European Social Survey. In this session we invite researchers to present their ongoing research on attitudes toward immigration and related topics using ESS data, particularly (but not necessarily) from a comparative perspective.

The module on attitudes to immigration has been fielded in the 1st and the 7th rounds of the ESS, and it is going to be fielded again in Round 12. This module has been widely used by academics and policy makers, and the topic remains highly salient for theory, research and political debates. The key questions from the previous modules which have been the most widely used include the measurement of attitudes toward different immigrant groups, realistic and symbolic threat, contact quantity and quality with immigrants, social distance, subjective group size, conditions to accept immigrants, fraternal deprivation, or racism, just to name a few. A small number of core items on immigration have been asked in every round of the European Social Survey. In this session we invite researchers to present their ongoing research on attitudes toward immigration and related topics using ESS data, particularly (but not necessarily) from a comparative perspective.

The module on attitudes to immigration has been fielded in the 1st and the 7th rounds of the ESS, and it is going to be fielded again in Round 12. This module has been widely used by academics and policy makers, and the topic remains highly salient for theory, research and political debates. The key questions from the previous modules which have been the most widely used include the measurement of attitudes toward different immigrant groups, realistic and symbolic threat, contact quantity and quality with immigrants, social distance, subjective group size, conditions to accept immigrants, fraternal deprivation, or racism, just to name a few. A small number of core items on immigration have been asked in every round of the European Social Survey. In this session we invite researchers to present their ongoing research on attitudes toward immigration and related topics using ESS data, particularly (but not necessarily) from a comparative perspective.

The module on attitudes to immigration has been fielded in the 1st and the 7th rounds of the ESS, and it is going to be fielded again in Round 12. This module has been widely used by academics and policy makers, and the topic remains highly salient for theory, research and political debates. The key questions from the previous modules which have been the most widely used include the measurement of attitudes toward different immigrant groups, realistic and symbolic threat, contact quantity and quality with immigrants, social distance, subjective group size, conditions to accept immigrants, fraternal deprivation, or racism, just to name a few. A small number of core items on immigration have been asked in every round of the European Social Survey. In this session we invite researchers to present their ongoing research on attitudes toward immigration and related topics using ESS data, particularly (but not necessarily) from a comparative perspective.

The European Social Survey provides a unique opportunity to study prejudice and perceived discrimination against social minorities across time and varying societal contexts. Its extensive coverage of a range of topics and populations enables the exploration of innovative research questions, contrasting socio-cultural realities and individual perceptions of minority groups. How are the attitudes of the majority reflected in the minorities' experiences and perceptions of discrimination? How does the temporal and regional context interfere in this association? These types of multi-level and cross-level relations offer crucial insights into psychosocial processes and intergroup relations. Furthermore, with its large and representative samples, the ESS facilitates the adoption of intersectionality perspectives, illuminating the unique experiences and various outcomes among a large variety of granular minority groups. It helps addressing the issue of multiple jeopardies. Simultaneously, there has been a significant change over the past two decades concerning perceived discrimination. Activist movements such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter have heightened individual sensitivities to issues of discrimination. Additionally, there has been a transformation in societal norms related to reporting experiences of discrimination in the social media. The question remains as to how these shifts are reflected in the population and to what extent is varies across minority groups and societal contexts. Therefore, this session invites papers focusing on the perceived discrimination of minority groups and potential outcomes, considering contextual factors and/or employing an intersectionality approach. We also welcome submissions that contribute methodologically by critically examining how perceived discrimination and prejudice are operationalized in the ESS. This includes considering the multilevel interplay between time period, societal context, and individual factors, or by addressing intersectionality.

This session seeks answers to the question how the acceptance of gay couples has changed in different countries in Europe over the last two decades. The European Social Survey (ESS) may provide good answers to this question because it included a core item measuring homophobia from the very beginning: “Gay men and lesbians should be free to live their own life as they wish”. This was complemented in 2016 by two additional items (“If a close family member was a gay man or a lesbian, I would feel ashamed”; “Gay male and lesbian couples should have the same rights to adopt children as straight couples”), which allow us to measure the acceptance of lesbians, gays, and their families in several dimensions. The nature of the ESS database makes it suitable for both temporal and cross-country comparisons. Cross-country comparisons are very important in this field, since acceptance of same-sex couples, family members and of adoption by same-sex couples vary widely across Europe. As several studies have pointed out, there is almost a demarcation line across Europe between different attitudes towards gay people. In addition, in some Eastern and Eastern Central European countries, “patriotic pronatalism” is on the rise. This specific form of pronatalism encourages childbearing only within a certain framework: a favoured subset of heterosexual relationships. This phenomenon could further reinforce divisions in terms of acceptance and rejection of same-sex families in Europe. In this session, in addition to comparative research, we also welcome research that analyses attitudes towards same-sex couples from a new perspective: for example, how negative attitudes towards voluntary childlessness might be associated with adoption by same-sex couples, or what factors might link homophobia to anti-immigration attitudes. Moreover, presentations of methodological applications regarding how to measure homophobia by comparing it via different international databases are also welcome.