A Minority-status Perspective on Intergroup Relations: A Study of an Ethnic Chinese Population in a Small Italian Town

Abstract

This study models the effects on attitudes and behaviour of intergroup contact between minority-status Chinese residents and majority-status residents in the Tuscan city of Prato in Italy. The study contributes to theory by building upon Allport’s original contact thesis through modelling the effects of intimate and non-intimate contact on behaviour, over and above their effects on attitudes in a setting in which a high proportion of the minority-status residents are international migrants. Results indicate that neither friendship nor non-friendship contact have significant effects on minority Chinese residents’ attitudes towards majority-status residents; however, minority Chinese residents who report having more friends among majority-status residents report more positive behaviour towards them. This result demonstrates the utility of not only differentiating between more intimate friendship contact and incidental non-friendship contact, but also differentiating between attitudinal and behavioural measures in the assessment of intergroup relations.

Introduction

Decades of research highlight the myriad social problems faced by societies with segregated ethnic communities (Fischer and Massey, 2004). Chief amongst these problems are racial prejudice and social exclusion. Italy currently has the fastest-growing immigrant population in Europe. In 2006, Italy received around 700 000 new immigrants, compared with 660 000 immigrants in Germany (Eurostat, 2007). The influx of large numbers of immigrants into Italy is impacting on the economic and social fabric of Italian life and contributing to mounting social tensions. The Chinese community represents an important immigrant population in Italy. Chinese immigration to Italy commenced in sizeable numbers at the beginning of the 1980s, which coincided with economic reforms and relaxation of emigration rules in China, but the strongest growth in immigrant numbers occurred throughout the 1990s and first half of the 2000s. In 1982, it was estimated that there were only 2000 Chinese in Italy (Rastrelli, 1999), but in the 1990s numbers rose from 15 776 in 1992, to 31 615 in 1997, to 62 314 in 2002 (l’Ufficio Indici di Mercato e Statistica, 2004). There were 145 000 Chinese with residency permits in Italy in 2007 (Toccafondi, 2009, p. 83). Of these, about 12 per cent reside in the Tuscan city of Prato, a traditional textile town 30 minutes north of Florence. This makes the Chinese the fifth-largest minority group in Italy behind Moroccans, Albanians, Romanians and Filipinos, and the largest minority grouping in Prato (Chen and Randolph, 2009).

Social interaction between majority-status residents and minority Chinese residents in Prato is an interesting case study of the social problems in Italy generated by increased levels of migration, particularly where there is a large concentration of an ethnic minority in one locale, and the social problems associated with societies divided along ethnic lines more generally. While Prato’s minority Chinese residents have become well integrated into the local economy of the city, at first making woollens and leather goods for Italian sub-contractors and more recently penetrating the supplier industry, several studies have observed that the Chinese remain unintegrated into the social fabric of Prato.

The methodological approach used in this study to document the nature and degree of overlap between the social worlds of Prato’s minority Chinese residents and majority-status residents is Allport’s (1954) contact hypothesis. The contact hypothesis states that intergroup contact can reduce intergroup prejudice, and hence improve intergroup relations and reduce social exclusion. Allport argued that positive intergroup attitudinal shifts occur when intergroup contact is of a specific nature that enhances positive intergroup outcomes. Some decades following Allport’s (1954) original thesis, Hewstone and Brown (1986) argued that the type of facilitative contact required to effect a generalisation of positive attitudes from a single member of an other-group to the whole other-group is contact that is ‘pleasant and co-operative’, such as friendship contact. Recent empirical studies have highlighted the importance of measuring contact conceptualised as ‘pleasant and co-operative’ when testing the contact hypothesis. Nielsen et al. (2006, 2007) demonstrated the differential effects of intergroup friendship and non-friendship contact on intergroup attitudes, such that friendship contact significantly reduced negative attitudes to the whole other-group, while more incidental, non-friendship contact had no significant effect on attitude change. Nielsen et al. (2006, 2007) studied the power of intergroup friendship in an intranational migration context, while in this study a high proportion of the minority-status group are international migrants.

While the bulk of contact hypothesis studies to this point have focused on negative attitudes of majority-status groups towards minority-status groups and how contact relationships can ameliorate these negative attitudes, we are only just beginning to see a refocus in the contact hypothesis literature to examine how contact might affect the attitudes of minorities to a dominant, or majority-status, group. This is important because Tropp and Pettigrew’s (2005b) meta analysis suggests that there are differences in the way that contact affects prejudice among members of majority-status and minority-status groups. The effect size is smaller for attitude change amongst minority-status groups (r = −0.18 for minorities as against r = −0.23 for majorities) and this may reflect the possibility that on-going histories of devaluation, in which minority groups tend to expect prejudice from majority groups, inhibit the degree to which intergroup contact effects positive attitude change among members of minority-status groups.

Empirical support for the contact hypothesis has been considerable (see Tropp and Pettigrew, 2005a, 2005b, for meta analytical reviews). However, the only two studies to have tested the contact hypothesis among ethnic Chinese samples have been Nielsen et al. (2006, 2007). Similarly, there have been few studies of the contact hypothesis undertaken in Italy and these are from the perspective of the majority-status group (Kirchler and Zani, 1995; Costarelli, 2006; Villano, 1999). None of these studies differentiates between effects of intergroup friendship and non-friendship contact. Drawing on the results of a survey of the Chinese resident population administered in Prato, the specific contributions of this study to this small literature are twofold. First, the study adopts the perspective of the adult minority-status Chinese resident population in Prato. Secondly, it employs the contact hypothesis to investigate the differential effects of intergroup friendship and non-friendship contact between minority-status Chinese residents and majority-status residents in Prato on intergroup attitudes and intergroup behaviour. Specifically, the study tests the following four hypotheses

H1: Minority Chinese residents who report having friends among majority-status residents will report more positive attitudes towards majority-status residents.

H2: There will be no effect of non-friendship contact on minority Chinese residents’ self-reported attitudes to majority-status residents.

H3: Minority Chinese residents who report having friends among majority-status residents will report more positive behaviour towards majority-status residents.

H4: There will be no effect of non-friendship contact on the self-reported behaviour of minority Chinese residents towards majority-status residents.

The results of this study potentially have far-reaching implications, because the contact hypothesis suggests that positive intergroup contact between individual members of conflicting groups can generalise to effect positive attitude change about the whole other-group; in effect, transforming ‘us’ and ‘them’ groups into a more inclusive ‘we’. Research based on the contact hypothesis has been used to inform social policies targeted towards the advancement of peace and social inclusion by promoting intergroup tolerance among conflicting social groups (Cairns and Hewstone, 2002). Results of the study will inform strategies to promote social inclusion and reduce the social divide between Prato’s majority-status residents and minority Chinese residents. And, more generally, the results will contribute to reducing the social divide between Italy’s majority-status residents and fast-growing immigrant population, who constitute a high proportion of minority residents.

Background to the Study

Chinese Migration to Prato

The migration flow from China to Italy has grown rapidly over the past 20 years. A large proportion of Chinese migrants to Italy reside in Prato where they constitute over 45 per cent of all migrants and form the largest Chinese community in Europe in per capita terms (Ehlers, 2006). While some 12 per cent of Italy’s estimated 145 000 Chinese were registered as residing in Prato in 2007, the actual number of Chinese migrants is likely to be larger, as one in five Chinese workers is undocumented and thus not officially residing in Italy (Lee-Potter, 200). As Ehlers (2006) explained, many Chinese migrants arrive in Italy illegally, smuggled in by ‘snakeheads’, who are human trafficking middlemen. On arrival in Italy, many Chinese work as forced labourers to pay off the snakeheads. Ehlers (2006) described the quite representative story of a 17-year-old Chinese migrant to Prato, who hemmed pants 18 hours a day, earning 500 a month under the table, just to pay off his snakehead. The working conditions for many Chinese migrants in Prato are harsh and remuneration poor compared with that which majority-status residents earn (Ceccagno, 2009; Chen and Randolph, 2009; Goldsmith, 2007), but it is nonetheless ten times the average worker’s wage in China.

The recognition of Chinese migrants’ importance to the Italian economy has led to a series of measures to legalise their residency status in Italy. One such measure was an amnesty in 2002 to allow the regularisation of migrant labour through the provision of residency permits. Under decree 195/2002, amnesty was extended to all undocumented migrants who had an existing work contract. Ceccagno (2003) reported that on one day in September 2002 alone, some 3000 Chinese migrants appeared at a temporary office of the Chinese Consulate in Prato to obtain the necessary documentation to qualify for an amnesty. Prato has always been a popular destination for Chinese migrants as the city supports a large textiles industry and a ‘ready-to-wear’ (pronto moda) garment sector keen on flexible and low-cost labour. From the early 1990s though, pockets of the Chinese migrant population in Prato turned entrepreneur, embarking in textiles and clothing-sector-related manufacturing, importing and exporting activities (although such self-employment was briefly denied to the Chinese in Italy from 1990 to 1998). This new generation of Chinese migrants has thrived. Prato has the highest concentration of Chinese businesses in Italy, with some 2000 active registered firms (Di Castro and Vicziany, 2009). One estimate suggests that Chinese immigrants own one-quarter of Prato’s textile businesses (Lee-Potter, 2007) and dominate Prato’s pronto moda industry. Since 2005, many Chinese workshops in Prato have ceased to be available to work for Italians, preferring instead to assemble garments for the Chinese-operated pronto modas in what has been described in the Prato media as “a trial of ethnic strength within the district” (Ceccagno, 2009, p. 61).

Social Interaction between Minority Chinese Residents and Majority-status Residents in Prato

While Prato’s Chinese community was once considered to be very closed, their immersion into the local economy has meant that increasing contact between minority Chinese residents and majority-status residents has become inevitable. Yet, while the Chinese have become an undeniable presence on Prato’s economic landscape, as a social group, Prato’s minority Chinese residents continue to be marginalised (Tocaffondi, 2009; Ehlers, 2006; Ceccagno, 2001). The former Mayor of Prato, Marco Romagnoli, has stated that the Chinese are a “blessing”, economically, and yet concurrently “are a catastrophe for the community” (reported in Ehlers, 2006). According to a telephone survey conducted with 600 adult majority-status residents of Prato in April 2008, commissioned by the Pratofutura Association,¹ almost one-fifth considered minority Chinese residents a problem “because they remain segregated from local society” (Toccafondi, 2009 p. 93). The minority Chinese residents, for their part, feel that majority-status residents ‘look down on them’. There are reported instances of minority Chinese being verbally abused by majority-status residents and suffering police harassment in the centre of Prato (Ehlers, 2006).

Many minority Chinese residents also regard majority-status residents as lazy. Majority-status residents in Prato are concerned that the reputation of ‘made in Italy’ is being harmed by attaching the label to poor-quality garments produced by the Chinese-operated pronto modas. However, many minority Chinese residents ascribe these concerns to a poor work ethic among majority-status residents in Prato. As one minority Chinese resident in Prato stated

The Italians are lazy. They don’t want to work late, during holidays or at weekends. We work, work, work and we are not greedy—we come cheap because we know that ‘made in Italy’ is ours for the taking (quoted in Lee-Potter, 2007).

Ethnic tension between minority Chinese residents and majority-status residents reached a high point when the Chinese New Year procession was banned from the streets of Prato in 2007. Andrea Frattani, the then Prato Councillor for Multicultural Affairs, angered the minority Chinese residents, when he stated to the media that he was upset by the “deafness” of minority Chinese residents who were not collaborating with majority-status residents on matters of the overseas Chinese integrating with the local culture and respecting basic European, national and local regulations ranging from sanitary to fiscal matters (Di Castro and Vicziany, 2009).

Methodology

Participants and Procedure

Surveys were administered in Chinese to a sample of 600 minority Chinese residents in Prato in September 2008, from which 402 valid responses were received. As 80 per cent of minority Chinese residents in Prato are from Wenzhou in Zhejiang province in China, the surveys were administered by three research assistants from Wenzhou who had good links in the local Chinese community in Prato and who spoke the Wenzhou dialect. In each case, the research assistant sat down with the participant, read through each survey item and the response categories, then recorded the participant’s response on the form. The 198 invalid responses, that do not form part of our analysis, were the result of individual participants refusing to answer one or more of the survey items. The most frequent item not answered by the participants asked about their average annual income. Some participants were generally reluctant to answer this item. This same problem was encountered in surveys administered to off-farm migrants in China (see for example, Li, 2006; Nielsen et al., 2007).

Survey locations were based on a mix of local knowledge of areas where minority Chinese residents typically congregate, as well as within several organisations that employ minority Chinese workers. We used a mix of enterprise locations to ensure that the sample was representative in terms of gender and the major employers of minority Chinese residents in Prato, which are textile and garment enterprises and firms within the service industry. Thus, surveys were administered in garment and textile factories, supermarkets, retail stores, cafés, restaurants and Internet cafés in the Via Pistoiese. Minority Chinese residents live in all parts of Prato, but the highest numbers are concentrated in the historical centre, in particular in Via Pistoiese. Via Pistoiese is popular with the Chinese because it is an old artisan area, rundown after the building of new industrial estates, with typically artisan hybrid housing and workplaces (Bressan and Tosi Cambini, 2009). One of the research assistants was familiar with teachers at a Chinese language school in Via Pistoiese. This connection facilitated access to the parents of the Chinese students, to whom surveys were administered. Other surveys were administered to individual minority Chinese residents passing on the Via Pistoiese or congregating near a Chinese supermarket at the market square on Via Pistoiese, around which an informal labour market for minority Chinese residents in Prato revolves (Fladrich, 2009).

Table 1 shows the demographic characteristics of participants. The mean age of the participants was 32.28 years (S.D. = 10.85) and 51 per cent were female. Over 70 per cent of the sample were married. The majority of the sample (77.7 per cent) had a level of completed education below senior middle school and many of the 11.7 per cent, whose highest education level was primary school or below, were in fact illiterate. As discussed in the next section, this latter point significantly affected the scope of the survey instrument that we were able to administer. Almost half (47.5 per cent) were employed in the textile and apparel industry. The average annual wage was in the range 10 000–30 000 Euros. Participants reported working an average of 10.06 hours per day in an average working week of 5.95 days.

Table 1.

Demographic profile of participants

Gender (percentage female)	51
Age (mean age)	32.28 years (S.D. = 10.85)
Income (mean annual income, euros)	10 001–30 000
Marital status (percentages)
Single	27.3
Married	71.2
Cohabitation	0.9
Divorced	0.6
Education (percentages)
Primary school	11.75
Junior middle school	52.5
Senior middle school	25.2
Polytechnic	3.7
Three-year university degree or above	7.1
Industry (percentages)
Agriculture, farming, etc.	0.9
Textile and apparel	47.5
Other manufacturing	1.2
Construction	1.5
Commerce	16.0
Banking and financial intermediation	0.6
Education, health and other social services	5.2
Other services	27
Hours worked per day (mean)	10.06
Days worked per week (mean)	5.95

Attitudinal and Behavioural Measures

To measure contact between minority Chinese residents and majority-status residents, participants were asked to indicate: “In an average week, how many majority-status residents do you interact with, or come into close contact with, because you are friends?”; and “In an average week, how many majority-status residents do you interact with, or come into close contact with, other than your majority-status resident friends?”. These two different questions were asked to measure differences between more intimate and non-intimate contact, since according to Allport (1954) only the former should translate into improved attitudes towards the whole other-group. Many of those with a junior school education or less were either illiterate, or literate only in a narrow band relating specifically to their job duties. This characteristic of the sample impacted significantly on our survey design, because it meant that our field researchers were required to read each item to each individual participant, explain the meanings of the individual response categories (for example, “if you answer ‘one’ it means you agree very much with what I have asked you”) and record each individual participant’s response on the survey page. The laborious nature of such an administration—coupled with the fact that many participants responded to the survey during their work time and hence were limited in terms of the time they had available—meant that we were quite restricted in terms of the number of items we could ask each participant. While we are well aware of the multidimensionality of attitudes and behaviour, the nature of the sample meant that we were restricted to using single-item indicators to measure these complex variables, as was also the case in Nielsen et al. (2006, 2007).

To measure self-reported behaviour towards majority-status residents we asked: “Apart from your majority-status friends, how well do you get along with other majority-status residents?”; and to measure attitudes towards majority-status residents we asked: “On the whole, what is your attitude towards majority-status residents?”. The behaviour item, operationalised as ‘getting along’ was answered on a five-point scale from ‘very badly’ to ‘very well’. The attitude item was answered on a five-point scale from ‘dislike very much’ to ‘like very much’.

Translation of the Survey Instrument

The original survey instrument was designed in English. This instrument was then translated into Mandarin by two native speakers of Mandarin, then back-translated to English to ensure the validity of the translations. Modifications of the translations continued until all translators agreed on the final versions. A native speaker of Mandarin then cross-checked the Mandarin instrument to ensure validity of the translation.

Results

Effects of Contact Type and Personal Characteristics on Minority Chinese Residents’ Attitudes to Majority-status Residents in Prato

To examine the effects of non-friendship contact, friendship contact and personal characteristics on minority Chinese residents’ attitudes towards majority-status residents, we ran an ordered probit regression in which the dependent variable ranged from 1 = dislike majority-status residents very much, to 5 = like majority-status residents very much. Following our hypotheses, we expected a significant positive effect of friendship contact on attitudes, but no significant effect of non-friendship contact. Independent covariates explored in the model were age, average number of hours worked per day, average number of days worked per week, non-friendship contact, friendship contact, annual income, number of people in household, individual proportion of household income and number of household members in paid employment. Independent factors included were gender, level of education (with three-year university degree or above as the reference category), industry (with other services as the reference category) and marital status (with divorced as the reference category).

The results of the ordered probit are in columns two and three of Table 2. Nagelkerke’s R²; indicated that 46 per cent of the variance in attitudes was explained by the specified model. As expected, non-friendship contact had no significant effect on minority Chinese residents’ attitudes towards majority-status residents. However, contrary to our prediction, friendship contact also had no significant effect on attitudes. Relative to divorced minority Chinese residents, those who cohabitated, were single or married had more positive attitudes towards majority-status residents. Age was also observed to be a significant factor, with older minority Chinese residents having more positive attitudes towards majority-status residents. Relative to minority Chinese residents with a three-year university degree or above, those minority Chinese residents educated in primary school reported more negative attitudes to majority-status residents.

Table 2.

Ordered probit regressions for the effects of intergroup contact and individual characteristics on migrants’ attitudes to Italian locals and relationship between migrants and Italian locals (N = 402)

Variable	Attitudes to Italian locals		Relationship with Italian locals
Variable	Estimate	Wald	Estimate	Wald
Friendship contact	–0.123	0.855	0.882	33.593**
Non-friendship contact	0.059	0.265	0.029	0.047
Gender	–0.250	3.483	0.355	5.149
Household	–0.031	0.227	0.070	0.913
Proportion	0.067	0.439	0.028	0.058
Employment	0.053	0.413	–0.156	2.541
Age	0.022	6.306*	0.002	0.051
Hours worked	–0.050	3.654	0.020	0.414
Days worked	0.067	0.764	0.012	0.020
Marital status (single)	2.438	8.122**	–2.550	2.877
Marital status (married)	2.457	8.557**	–2.509	2.837
Marital status (cohabitation)	3.504	10.166**	–4.790	7.959**
Education (primary school)	–0.861	6.155*	0.800	4.380*
Education (junior middle school)	–0.462	2.344	0.566	2.902
Education (senior middle school)	–0.258	0.698	0.466	1.848
Education (polytechnic)	–0.302	0.469	0.462	0.828
Income	–0.089	2.898	0.101	2.953
Agriculture, farming, etc.	0.652	0.867	–0.161	0.044
Textile and apparel industry	0.247	2.385	–0.207	1.216
Other manufacturing industries	0.381	0.382	–0.271	0.138
Construction	0.079	0.022	–0.770	1.617
Commerce	0.134	0.411	–0.153	0.399
Banking and financial intermediation	–1.487	3.331	0.967	1.160
Education, health and other social services	–0.058	0.028	0.185	0.233
–2 Log Likelihood (Unrestricted)	3725.498		696.469
–2 Log Likelihood (Restricted)	607.551		419.679
–2LR Statistic (25 df)	607.551		419.679
Nagelkerke Psuedo R²;	0.458		0.580
Number of observations	402		402

Notes: * p < 0.05, ** p <0.01. The reference category for marital status is divorced. The reference category for education is three-year university degree or above. The reference category for industry is other services.

Effects of Contact Type and Personal Characteristics on Minority Chinese Residents Self-reported Behaviour towards Majority-status Residents in Prato

To examine the effects of non-friendship contact, friendship contact and personal characteristics on the self-reported behavioural measure, operationalised herein as ‘getting along’, we ran an ordered probit regression where the dependent variable ranged from 1 = I get along very badly with most majority-status residents, to 5 = I get along very well with most majority-status residents. Again, from our hypotheses we expected a significant positive effect of friendship contact on self-reported behaviour and no significant effect of non-friendship contact. Independent factors and covariates to be explored in the model were entered in the same way as per the previous model.

The results of the ordered probit are in columns four and five of Table 2. Nagelkerke’s R²; indicated that 58 per cent of the variance in relationships between minority Chinese residents and majority-status residents was explained by the specified model. As predicted, minority Chinese residents’ more positive self-reported behaviour towards majority-status residents was significantly predicted by a greater degree of friendship contact with majority-status residents, but not by non-friendship contact. In terms of personal characteristics, relative to divorced minority Chinese residents, those who cohabitated reported more negative behaviour towards majority-status residents. Relative to minority Chinese residents with a three-year university degree or above, those minority Chinese residents educated in primary school reported more negative behaviour towards majority-status residents.

Discussion of Results

While only three of our four hypotheses were supported by these results, the results nonetheless demonstrate the utility of: differentiating between more intimate friendship contact and incidental non-friendship contact; and, differentiating between attitudinal and behavioural (‘getting along’) measures in the assessment of intergroup relations. Our results also show the impact of demography and human capital on these social relationships.

In terms of our behavioural dimension, there was support for Hypothesis 3, that minority Chinese residents who report having friends among majority-status residents will report more positive behaviour towards majority-status residents. There was also support for Hypothesis 4, that there would be no effect of non-friendship contact on self-reported behaviour towards majority-status residents. Consistent with Allport’s (1954) thesis and with the empirical results reported in Nielsen et al. (2007), these data support the thesis that intergroup contact needs to be of a more intimate nature before the positive effects of friendship on behaviour are extended beyond one’s friends to the whole other-group. Mere incidental contact, such as brief contact with other-group members in a shop or on the street, is not sufficient to promote more positive behaviour towards the wider other-group. In this cultural context, this is likely to be because such incidental contact is not in itself pleasant due to the prevailing social chasm between these groups. In this sense, not ‘getting along’ with those with whom only incidental contact occurs is both born of existing prejudice, while simultaneously serving to reinforce existing prejudice. Despite the wide divide that exists between these two social groups, these results indicate that the power of friendship relationships serves not only to bridge gaps between individual dyads of minority Chinese residents and majority-status residents in Prato, but also provides a schema for broader behavioural change oriented towards the whole other-group. Those minority Chinese residents who reported having friends among majority-status residents were overall less likely to report not ‘getting along’ with majority-status residents, even against the backdrop of the considerable social divide and suspicion that has emerged between minority Chinese residents and majority-status residents.

While friendship and non-friendship contact predicted expected differences in self-reported behaviour, this was not the case for attitudes. In terms of attitudes towards majority-status residents, there was support for Hypothesis 2 that there would be no effect of non-friendship contact on minority Chinese residents’ attitudes to majority-status residents. Consistent with Allport’s (1954) theory, intergroup contact of an incidental nature in this cultural context does not engender positive other-group sentiments. However, Hypothesis 1, that minority Chinese residents who report having friends among majority-status residents would report more positive attitudes towards majority-status residents, was not supported by these data. Surprisingly, favourable attitudes towards some individual members of majority-status residents were not enough to effect attitudinal shift about the whole other-group. One explanation for this finding may be that friendship contact with majority-status residents is so infrequent as not to provide sufficient social overlap for the formation of a common group identity (see Gaertner and Dovidio, 2000). Together though, the differential results for the attitudinal and behavioural measures indicate that, while the experience of friendship translates here into outward expressions of social cohesion, it does not translate to a concomitant reframing of the other-group. That attitudes and behaviour appear inconsistent might in fact suggest that seemingly positive behaviour—‘getting along’—is simply an artificially imposed response, rather than one grounded in cognitive change.

Conclusion

While studies of Allport’s contact hypothesis are numerous in the literature, the results in this study add to only a small number that investigate the power of contact from the perspective of a minority group (see Aboud et al., 2003; Hewstone et al., 2006; Nielsen et al., 2007). Further, they provide an analysis of the effects of contact not only on attitudes, but also on a behavioural measure. Despite these contributions to the literature, the study does nonetheless have two main limitations, which for the most part were artefacts of the challenges and complexities of undertaking field research in a closed and relatively disadvantaged community.

First, our sample is a convenience sample and thus cannot be assumed to be representative of minority Chinese residents in Prato. While the solution to this shortcoming would be to recruit a random sample, the reality is that such an undertaking would be practically impossible for a study such as this, since access to the closed community is dependent entirely upon a small number of contact gatekeepers in the local community, who themselves have only limited ability to recruit people into the study. The limitations of our sample should nonetheless be weighed against the benefit of being able to study such a population at all, and the potential applications that our results might have in similar minority communities.

A second limitation relates to the items we have used to measure our dependent variables. As discussed earlier, the challenges of collecting data among populations with low to no literacy generally mean that survey items are scaled back to allow for the time-consuming nature of individual administration. In our study, we were limited to developing single-item indicators to measure attitudes and behaviour to facilitate our data collection. While these single-item indicators are likely to have captured individuals’ overall assessments of their attitudes and behaviour, they do not capture the rich multidimensionality of these constructs and hence construct validity may be compromised. Future research might consider using multidimensional constructs with appropriate samples or, even with a sample such as that used in the current study, include an additional component in which a relatively small number of respondents could be engaged in more in-depth questioning to determine just what forms of contact they do have with majority-status residents and just what sorts of attitudes they have formed.

Another suggestion for future research is to do the reverse study to this and survey majority-status residents’ attitudes and behaviour towards minority Chinese residents using the Allport hypothesis. Such a study could be conducted in Prato, in which case it would provide a direct comparison with the results in the present study, or in another Italian city, such as Milan, in which there has been recent ethnic tension between minority Chinese residents and majority-status residents (see Tarantino and Tosoni, 2009).

Despite the many challenges of field research such as that reported in this study, it is important that the vast and significant social issues facing minority populations around the world are understood and addressed. While Prato’s minority Chinese residents are just one such minority group they no doubt share many common barriers to social inclusion with myriad other migrant and minority populations. Drawing on the decades of research demonstrating the positive effects of intergroup interaction, it is incumbent upon future research and community leaders to develop structures and processes to ameliorate intergroup prejudice and promote social harmony.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants from the International Strategic Initiatives fund and Institute for the Study of Global Movements, Monash University. The authors thank Chen Yi, Xu Huabing and Yang Xiangyin for research assistance on this project, Graeme Johanson and Tom Dennison for discussions throughout the project and the Editors and two referees for several helpful suggestions on an earlier version of this paper.

Notes

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