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Social integration of refugee adolescents is encouraged by diversity

Refugee adolescents in German schools have fewer friends and are more often rejected than their classmates. However, refugees are less rejected in more diverse classrooms because, first, other ethnic minority peers are more accepting of refugees and, second, majority-group peers build more positive relationships with refugees in more diverse settings.

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Fig. 1: Typical friendship and rejection networks of refugee adolescents in German classrooms.

References

  1. Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF). Aktuelle Zahlen. Ausgabe: Juni 2022, https://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Statistik/AsylinZahlen/aktuelle-zahlen-juni-2022.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2 (2022). A website with official statistics on recent refugee immigration to Germany.

  2. Lorenz, G., Boda, Z., Salikutluk, Z., Jansen, M. & Hewstone, M. The link between social and structural integration: co- and interethnic friendship selection and friend influence within adolescent social networks. Sociol. Sci. 8, 371–396 (2021). An article providing evidence for the value of intergroup contact for ethnic minority adaptation, the integration of ethnic minority individuals.

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  5. Stanat, P. et al. IQB-Bildungstrend Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften 2018. (IQB – Institut zur Qualitätsentwicklung im Bildungswesen an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2022). The dataset analysed in this study.

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This is a summary of: Boda, Z., Lorenz, G., Jansen, M., Stanat, P. & Edele, A. Ethnic diversity fosters the social integration of refugee students. Nat. Hum. Behav., https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01577-x (2023).

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Social integration of refugee adolescents is encouraged by diversity. Nat Hum Behav 7, 847–848 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01578-w

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