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1. Origins of Ethnic Strife.

Author

Marietta Coll., OH. and Firestone, Robert W.

Abstract

Group identification is a major cause of religious, racial, and international conflict. Many forms of group identification are fantasy bonds, imagined connections with others offering security at the expense of individual self-realization. The fantasy bond forms in childhood in response to inadequate parenting. Human beings are not inherently aggressive, but interpersonal tension in families leads to hostile and defensive behaviors first acted out on family members and later extended to outsiders. These bonds become reinforced as the child becomes aware of death's inevitability. Social systems represent a pooling and projection of individual defense mechanisms into a cultural framework as mores, traditions, and secular religious beliefs. These traditions and beliefs become imaginary survival mechanisms for the individual, a way to deny death's finality. Since they represent immortality, these world views are strongly defended by their adherents, who feel threatened by groups with other beliefs, and will fight to defend their point of view. The outgroup is seen as peculiar, impure, or evil. Outbreaks of violence will continue to be a problem until destructive child-rearing practices and social processes fostering aggression change, and death is accepted as the natural end of life. (Contains 109 references.) (CC)

Published
1993

2. The Mixed Benefits of Diversity

Author

Schmidt, Peter

Abstract

Colleges have talked for decades about the educational benefits of diversity on their campuses without offering much research to show how students are affected by exposure to members of other racial and ethnic groups. In an effort to fill that gap, James Sidanius, a professor of psychology and of African and African-American studies at Harvard University, led a team of researchers in a long-term study of about 2,000 students who entered the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in the fall of 1996. The students were surveyed in the summer before they entered UCLA, at the end of their freshman year, and again each year until graduation or the end of their fifth year in college. Mr. Sidanius and his co-authors describe their results in a new book, "The Diversity Challenge: Social Identity and Intergroup Relations on the College Campus", published by the Russell Sage Foundation. The author interviewed Mr. Sidanius, who noted that book concludes that cultural diversity and multicultural practices neither significantly changed student ethnic identifies and views, nor heightened ethnic conflict and/or separation on campus; and the clear indication of negative influence of ethnically oriented student organizations.

Published
2009