August 10, 2022

NUS marks the start of its academic year in August. As a global university centred in Asia, NUS along with other universities in Singapore, endeavours to embrace multiculturalism and racial harmony.

In ‘Effects of living arrangements on well-being, perceived conflict, and intergroup attitudes for local and international students: Results from a field intervention’ (Journal of Social Issues, 2021), Associate Professor Ya Hui Michelle See (NUS Psychology) and Assistant Professor Walter Patrick Wade (Georgia State University) examine the effects of clustering and integrating international students with local ones at two Singapore universities, as well as separating them. The researchers assess how living arrangements influence students’ intergroup contact, satisfaction with university life, perceptions of conflict, and intergroup attitudes.

A widely studied way of improving intergroup relations is encouraging intergroup contact. However, the researchers note that actual intergroup interactions can give rise to more anxiety, stress, and other negative feelings. For the population majority, efforts to avoid showing prejudices to the minority can be accompanied by stress and anxiety during intergroup interactions. For the minority, interacting with less prejudiced majority members can raise the minority’s sensitivities and expectations about future interactions.

To study how intergroup interactions in different living arrangements develop, the researchers randomly assigned student participants from two Singapore universities to one of three living arrangements in their hostels: separated (Singaporean and international students live on separate floors), enclave (international students live in a cluster surrounded by Singaporean students on the same floor), and integrated (local and international students are next-door neighbours). They then assessed the frequency and quality of the students’ intergroup contact over one year, according to their satisfaction with university life, perceived group conflict, and intergroup attitudes.

Early in the year, residents in the separated living arrangement tended to have less intergroup contact compared to those living in the enclave and integrated arrangements. But the frequency of intergroup contact among those living in the separated arrangement increased overtime. This indicates that although initiating intergroup contact can be stressful, positive experience during such contact may encourage more future contact. Students living under the separated living arrangement also reported lower satisfaction with university life over the year.

At the start of the experiment, all students had similar perceptions of conflict, but those in enclaves perceived greater conflict overtime, outranking those living separately. There was also a gradual tendency for international students in enclaves to have less positive attitudes towards local students. Interestingly, the experiment did not generate any evidence of tension created by the integrated living arrangement. Conversely, the integrated residents seemed to benefit from their living arrangement despite a small and gradual increase in perceived conflict.

The researchers conclude that policymakers interested in improving intergroup relations should provide more opportunities for integration, at least for living arrangements in the university context. They also emphasise the importance of avoiding the development of enclaves that induce perceptions of conflict, although enclaves fare better than separation does in some respects.

Read the article here:  https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/josi.12464