Research project Organised leisure activities as arenas of social integration

Meaningful intergroup contact is known to promote the development of positive intergroup attitudes and relationships.  Among children and youth, schools provide an essential arena for such contact. However, for the potential of OAs to come into fruition, a number of structural barriers needs to be transcended.

The project aims to examines intergroup contact within OAs and whether such intergroup contact co-vary with the establishment of intergroup friendships. As one likely important factor limiting intergroup contact in OAs is the lower participation rate among children and youth of ethnic minority and lower socioeconomic background, the project also aims to improve our knowledge of how such differences come to exist.

The project uses rich information from children, parents, and register data, drawn from three nationally representative surveys: The Survey of Living C onditions (ULF), the Level-of-Living Survey (LNU), and the C hildren of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in four European C ountries (C ILS4EU).

Results from the project thus provide information about how policies aiming to promote social integration though OAs would need to be constructed. Similarily, an improved understanding of the underlying causes of inequality in children's OA-participation is important for reaching policy objectives regarding all children and youth’s access to meaningful leisure.