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Is Diversity Enough? Exploring Intergroup Friendships In Italian Multiethnic Schools, Cinzia Pica-Smith, Rina Manuela Contini, Bob Ives

Human Services and Rehabilitation Studies Department Faculty Works

Italian schools are increasingly diverse spaces in which children of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, religious beliefs, and cultural-linguistic practices interact daily. Thus, these spaces provide fertile ground for a continuum of relational experiences from positive intergroup relationships and friendships to tensions and experiences of discrimination and marginalization. Research has demonstrated that diverse spaces can be ideal for positive intergroup contact, intergroup dialogue and the formation of intergroup friendship, which have been associated with prejudice reduction and a decrease in intergroup anxiety. Employing a theoretical framework based on intergroup contact theory (Allport, 1954) and research on intergroup friendships, (Pettigrew & …