ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates to what extent ethnic identity and national identity mediate the relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and social cohesion in England. Scholars argue that a shared superordinate national identity is necessary to foster trust, cooperation, and solidarity among diverse sub-groups in a society. According to social identity theory, identity provides people with distinct social categories to classify their social worlds in terms of in-groups-'us'-and out-groups-'them'. Increases in ethnic out-group density may increase the salience of ethnic identity to a greater extent among the white British majority, who may perceive higher levels of economic and symbolic threat as the currently dominant sub-population in England than ethnic minority groups that are accustomed to the presence of larger ethnic out-groups and are thus less affected by this aspect of geographic context. Most theoretical assertions concerning the relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and social cohesion have a dynamic character, arguing how changes in the degree of ethnic heterogeneity lead to changes in social cohesion.
