Data from the FBI shows that Islamaphobia has risen considerably since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.  Similarly, data from Europe charts a similar spike in the wake of the refugee crisis in 2015.

Research from the University of Pennsylvania aims to explore some of the reasons why Muslim immigrants are discriminated against in Europe.  The study finds significant discrimination against Muslim women by native Germans.

The researchers set up a number of experiments on train platforms across Germany.  The experiments found that discrimination is often based on the false belief that Muslims are regressive in regard to women’s rights. This makes opposition to Muslim women especially high among feminists.

“Faced with waves of immigration from culturally different populations, many Europeans are increasingly supporting policies of coercive assimilation that eliminate those sources of difference by suppressing ethnic or religious marker, for example, by banning the hijab in public places or forcing immigrants to attend language classes,” the researchers say. “Our research shows that bias and discrimination can be reduced via far less coercive measures–as long as immigration does not threaten core values that define the social identities of native populations.”

Civic norms

The research builds on previous work by the team that questioned whether discrimination against immigrants fell when immigrants made it clear that they shared various civic norms with natives.  The results from that project did indeed find a reduction under such circumstances, although discrimination was not eliminated entirely.

The subsequent experiments involved over 3,700 unsuspecting bystanders from 25 cities spread across Germany, which was chosen due to the high number of asylum seekers in the country.

“Germany was a good case study because it has received the largest number of asylum applications in Europe since 2015, a result of the refugee crisis created by wars in Syria and other countries in the Middle East and Central Asia,” the researchers explain. “Germany has had a long history of immigration from Muslim countries since the early post-war period, and anti-immigrant sentiments have been high as a result of cultural differences. These differences are manipulated politically and become more salient.”

The experiment saw a woman approach a bench in a train station where bystanders were waiting.  The woman would ask them if they knew whether she could buy tickets on the train.  She would then receive a phone call where she audibly conversed in German about her sister, who was discussing whether to stay at home with her children or take a job.  The scripted conversation discussed the rights and responsibilities of women.

At the end of the call, her bag seems to tear and the lemons inside fall onto the platform.  The aim was to test whether bystanders helped her pick up the lemons or not.

Helping out

At different points throughout the experiment, the identity of the woman was varied, with some instances using a native German, while others used a Middle Eastern immigrant, who would either wear a hijab or not.

The results reveal that men were not particularly receptive to any of the messages about the woman’s attitude towards things like gender equality.  That was not the case for German women, however, for whom anti-Muslim discrimination evaporated when the woman signaled that she had progressive views on women’s rights.

“Women were very receptive to this message that we had about Muslims sharing progressive beliefs about women’s rights, but men were indifferent to it,” the researchers say. “We expected that there would be a difference, and that the effect of the treatment would be larger among women, but we did not expect that it would be basically zero for men.”

The researchers believe their work highlights the importance of gender identity in helping to establish a common identity between German women and immigrant women, which can in turn help to reduce discrimination without requiring Muslims to remove the hijab.

“You can overcome discrimination in other ways, but it is important to signal that that the two groups share a common set of norms and ideas that define appropriate civic behaviors,” the authors say.