Equalstrength

This Equalstrength consortium includes experts from 10 institutions based in 9 European countries with distinctive features that represent their uniqueness such as interdisciplinarity, used methodology and media experience. The researchers involved come from a wide breadth of fields, including sociology, economics, social psychology and demography. All scholars involved have an empirical extensive experience in survey design and implementation. All academics have experience in disseminating their research to broader audience and are part of knowledge exchange networks with policymakers. In addition, they also have a lot of media experience as their research findings have been cited in high impact media outlets such as The Economist, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Nature Podcast, El Pais, …

To find out what the project is about and why that is important we spoke with Prof. dr. Verhaeghe.

What is it about?

Pieter-Paul Verhaeghe:  “The unequal treatment of people or groups based on their ethnicity, race and/or religion is not only problematic from a normative perspective; it also has a negative impact on economic growth, social cohesion, and public health. From the perspective of victims, discrimination and prejudice – whether blatant or subtle, conscious or unconscious – are damaging for their wellbeing.

Conceptually speaking, EqualStrength aims at differentiating between settings. We study access to childcare services, employment opportunities and housing as three interrelated life domains. Because discrimination and hostility in one domain may, directly or indirectly, change outcomes and opportunities in other domains, a multi-domain approach can reveal a pattern of cumulative disadvantage and social exclusion over time and across generations.”

Why is it important?

Pieter-Paul verhaeghe:

”With EqualStrength the consortium aims to contribute to a more inclusive and egalitarian European society. It wants to foster impact by collaborating with civil society organisations and government officials in the design and implementation of new programmes or initiatives aimed at reducing discrimination and as such, mitigating its negative impacts.”

Aim

The main contribution of EqualStrength is to investigate cumulative and structural forms of discrimination, outgroup prejudice and hate crimes against ethnic, racial and religious minorities from a cross-setting and intersectional perspective. We deploy innovative, targetted and effective methods, which include field experiments, population-level secondary survey data, meso-level policy analysis and targeted data collection to include the perspective of minority groups who directly confront discrimination. Our approach allows us to meet five interrelated research objectives:

Methodology

First, we reveal structural and cumulative forms of ethnic and racial discrimination in Europe, focusing on the experience of Muslim, Roma and Black minorities.

Second, we assess the systemic nature of prejudice across life domains, targeting anti-Muslim, anti-Black and anti-Roma attitudes.

Third, we analyse policy and institutional factors that contribute to structural discrimination and prejudices.

Fourth, we document the lived experiences and coping strategies adopted to confront everyday discrimination.

And finally, we highlight the intersection of race, ethnicity and religion with other dimensions of inequality such as gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic position.

Impact

In meeting these objectives, we promise three key contributions:

-First, we shift the paradigm, moving from a focus on individuals at risk to a family perspective.

-Second, we reveal cumulative, structural and intersectional disadvantage, pushing beyond setting-specific and single-group discrimination.

-Third, we provide a multi-actor and multi-level perspective that simultaneously considers multiple actors (i.e. gatekeepers; ethnic, racial and religious minorities; majority groups) and levels of analysis (i.e. the micro-level of individual decisions; the meso-level of organisations, neighbourhoods, rental agencies and childcare facilities; the macro-level of countries and nation-wide institutions).