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Although immigration is one of key issues facing European societies today, many survey respondents do not reply to questions about immigration and ethnic minorities. Using data from the 2014 European Social Survey, this paper explores the characteristics of nonrespondents and the potential mechanisms which might lie behind their refraining from answering immigration-related questions. Item nonresponse to seven questions on the impact of immigration (impact items) and six questions on allowing ethnic/racial/religious minorities into the respondent's country (openness items) is analysed. The results indicate that nonresponse to these items is systematically related to respondents' profiles, their experiences, the characteristics of the interviewer, and the country context. Respondents with a moderate amount of contact with ethnic minorities and who are interested in politics are least uncertain about their attitudes and most likely to report them. Contrary to expectations, nonresponse is not lowest among the more educated – indeed, the nonresponse rate for the openness items is highest for the most highly educated. The results also point to the importance of the interviewer effect, as nonresponse to immigration-related items varies more between interviewers than between countries. The paper concludes by highlighting the implications for the design and analysis of surveys measuring attitudes towards immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have been increasingly interested in how everyday interactions in various places with people from different ethnic/religious background impact inter-group relations. Drawing on representative surveys in Leeds and Warsaw (2012), we examine whether encounters with ethnic and religious minorities in different type of space are associated with more tolerance towards them. We find that in Leeds, more favourable affective attitudes are associated with contact in institutional spaces (workplace and study places) and socialisation spaces (social clubs, voluntary groups, religious meeting places); however, in case of behavioural intentions – operationalised as willingness to be friendly to minority neighbours – only encounters in socialisation spaces play a significant role in prejudice reduction. In Warsaw, people who have contacts with ethnic and religious minorities in public (streets, park, public services and transport) and consumption spaces (cafés, pubs, restaurants) express more positive affective attitudes towards them, but only encounters in consumption space translate into willingness to be friendly to minority neighbours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to recent intensification in international mobility in Europe, its citizens are exposed to a much wider range of lifestyles and competing attitudes towards difference. Individuals are, therefore, increasingly likely to encounter ‘strangers’ and are, therefore, required to negotiate discontinuities and contradictions between the values that are transmitted through different sites. In response, the article explores the concept of the ‘stranger’ through original data collected in the UK and Poland. The article highlights that the construction of who is a stranger depends on national historical contexts, core values and related visions of the society. The UK and Poland have very different histories and experiences with social diversity, impacting on the ways in which individuals negotiate strange encounters. In both countries, the ‘stranger’ is often seen in a negative way and in relation to the minority groups that are perceived to be visibly different, distinct or ‘unknown’ in contemporary times. In Poland, this is now largely articulated through sexual prejudice (homophobia), whilst in the UK, attitudes towards the ‘stranger’ are largely conveyed through religious prejudice (Islamophobia). As such, the article offers a means of understanding how encounters with difference ‘produce’ strangers in different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]