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Contact, Identity, And Prejudice: Comparing Attitudes Toward Arab Americans Pre-And Post-9/11-2001, Meghan Kimberly Wight

Theses and Dissertations

Using social contact and social identity theories, I seek to show how attitudes of mainstream American society toward individuals of Middle-Eastern descent (Arabs) have changed eight years after September 11, 2001 when compared to similar data from shortly after the terrorist attacks. I use data gathered from nationally representative opinion polls and the theoretical constructs of social contact theory and social identity theory to understand how attitudes have changed in the eight-year period. I first provide a firm grounding in the social contact and social identity literature, analyze the race/attitudinal data, and finally show how both social identity and social …