For some years now, the prescribed wisdom has been that mixing people from different social backgrounds in residential developments is a great way of supporting social mobility.  The rationale is that exposing poorer people to those who are better off, not only provides good role models, but helps to establish the kind of social networks that are so important to modern life.

New research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst suggests the picture might be somewhat more nuanced than that.  The research suggests that previous research into the impact of intergroup contacts shows that the effects are weaker among historically advantaged groups, such as white people and heterosexuals, as opposed to interactions between historically disadvantaged groups, such as people of color and sexual minorities.  They also believe that whilst such contact can help to reduce prejudice, it does little to reduce social inequality.

“With our research, we wanted to examine whether and how contact between groups might help to promote support for social change, in pursuit of greater social equality, while also testing whether the effects of contact might vary depending on status relations between the groups and how the relevant variables were measured,” they explain. “So, we embarked on this multi-national study, which included researchers from more than twenty countries around the world, who gathered survey responses from 12,997 individuals across 69 countries.”

Social cohesion

The study found clear evidence that when members of historically advantaged groups interact with disadvantaged groups, they’re more inclined to support the kind of social changes that promote greater equality.

This is reversed, however, when historically disadvantaged groups mix with people from advantaged groups, as they become less likely to support such social-mobility boosting policies.  There was one exception to this apparent rule, however.

“Among both advantaged and disadvantaged groups, contact predicted greater willingness to work in solidarity to achieve greater social equality,” they explain. “Thus, this research may offer a new route to reach social cohesion and social change, such that social harmony would not come at the expense of social justice.”

Important questions

The researchers believe their findings raise a couple of key questions about both social mobility and also the need for further research into the best way to promote social cohesion.

The first of these ponders how such positive interactions between different groups might occur without subsequently reducing the support among disadvantaged group members for policies designed to drive social change.  The second asks how support for social change can occur among disadvantaged group members without running the risk of having negative contact experiences.

“Possible answers to both questions may be that advantaged group members who engage in contact should openly acknowledge structural inequalities and express support for efforts by disadvantaged group members to reduce these inequalities,” the researchers conclude.