ABSTRACT
In this chapter I focus on young people’s attitudes towards religious diversity in five selected European countries. In this context I also discuss the impact of direct and indirect contact with members of different religions and attitudes towards them. I mainly focus on views of Muslims, as views of Islam and Muslims are particularly negative in comparison with other religions and their members. The reason for this interest is that one of the most important and interesting results of the Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity project is the relevance of direct and indirect contact with people of different religions and religious views. The project revealed that contact with members of other religious groups, and knowledge about other religions, can shape attitudes towards religious diversity in a positive way. The interviews with young people in particular show that contact with members of other religions, as well as knowledge about the range of religions, break down stereotypes and stereotyping. Religious diversity is viewed as a fact of life which young people accept. The interviews also show that multicultural and interreligious contact plays an even more important role as the media concentrate on the ‘bad news’. The young people interviewed in England and Wales were often aware that the media produce negative images of religions, thus encouraging stereotypes and generalizations. Young people were also media savvy, without prejudice and tolerant. One of the key findings is that knowledge of religions and religious people mitigates the (mis)representation of religion(s) in the media. The results of the interviews are in line with the so-called contact hypothesis, which I will briefly describe, as it is important for the following analysis. The contact hypothesis assumes that individual personal contact with members of an outgroup reduces stereotyping (Allport 1954). However, not every type of contact automatically reduces stereotyping. According to Susanne Rippl (1995, 277–278), the degree of stereotyping depends on both the type of relationship (e.g. contact with colleagues, acquaintances, friends or relatives) and the quality of the contact. Certain conditions such as equal status, cooperative activity, continuity and meeting in person may improve interpersonal attitudes between in- and outgroups (Pettigrew and Tropp 2000). Also, the transmission of knowledge about the respective outgroup can reduce stereotyping (Smith and Mackie 2000). In this context, the type of mediation of knowledge plays an important role. What matters is whether the transfer of knowledge is considered credible or not (Cialdini 1997). A problem of the validation of the contact hypothesis is whether contact actually reduces stereotyping or whether individual openness to strangers makes frequent contact with them more likely. In this context, the meta-analysis of Thomas Pettigrew and Linda Tropp is revealing (2006, 757–758). It shows that the average strength of the negative effect of contact with strangers on stereotyping is greater in studies in which respondents had no contact options, compared to studies in which respondents had to choose whether they would like contact with strangers or not. Thus, according to these research results, contact does have a stereotype-reducing effect. The classical contact hypothesis is broadened by the para-social contact hypothesis (Horton and Wohl 1956); it postulates that mass media such as radio, TV and films can produce the illusion of direct contact and influence the attitudes towards a social group which is perceived as foreign or strange. Especially regarding Islam there is a strong ‘bad news’ bias as the media concentrate on reports of terrorist attacks by Islamists (Schiffer 2005; Hafez 2010). It can be assumed that indirect contact with Islam is mainly negative and can produce stereotyping, especially if direct contact with Muslims is infrequent. On the contrary, direct contact with Muslims could mitigate the negatively biased information on Islam and Muslims, as revealed in some of the interviews in the Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity project. It is possible that younger people are more likely to be tolerant compared to elderly people, as they have more direct contact due to increasing numbers of young people with migration background through their schools, universities, neighbourhoods, workplaces and so forth. Increased contact is probably more frequent than among the older generations. The considerations regarding the contact hypothesis lead to the following research questions: What attitudes do young people have towards religious plurality in general? How do young people perceive religions and their members? Which attitudes do young people have regarding religious practices, especially Islamic religious practices? What explains the attitudes towards members of religious groups, and which role does contact play in the context of a complex explanatory model?
