EAGER Exploratory Experiments in Mutual Accommodation

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

Every country in Western Europe has become multicultural in the most fundamental sense of the containing multiple cultures. But is far from obvious how to go forward. Universalism in the French style has not been successful. Neither has the approach taken by Great Britain or the Netherlands. If mutual accommodation is desirable, how can it take place. This purpose of this study is identify terms under which a national majority will willingly include Muslim immigrants as full members in their new societies on terms acceptable to both the majority and the minority populations. This will be done by conducting a series of experiments in the Netherlands and Denmark. The results of this study could be of use to policy-makers across the globe who are dealing with growing minority populations. Mutual accommodation is a topic that has just begun to be examined by social scientists. The usual manner of studying this topic is to either use limited ethnographic studies or to use national surveys to measure attitudes. While the ethnographic studies allow one to examine causal factors, they are limited in the scenarios that can be examined. The national surveys can uncover attittudes towards groups, but it is difficult through standard survey questions to get at what actions are possible. In this study the principal investigator will be using a series of survey experiments on two surveys that will be national in scope. The survey experiments will allow the teasing out of causation in a much larger population than usual ethnographic methods. In addition, it will allow the examination of what levels of accommodation are acceptable to both sets of parties.