Die empirische Evaluation von Präventionsprogrammen gegen Fremdenfeindlichkeit

Abstract

Recent representative surveys in the EU show that Germany is among the countries with the highest levels of prejudice. Furthermore, criminal and violent acts against ethnic minorities increased by 58.9 percent since 1999. Much money is spent on programs to reduce prejudice and prevent violence without evaluating their effectiveness.

The paper presents the findings of a report ordered by the city of Düsseldorf to assess preventive effectiveness of practical programs against prejudice and anti-Semitism. Three types of interventions were distinguished: interventions to increase individual competencies, programs to expand knowledge about ethnic outgroup members, and measures to foster individual contact between members of different ethnic groups. The assessment was based on two criteria: the relatedness of the programs to empirically tested theories and the empirical evaluation of the program. The findings indicate that most of the intervention programs are theory based. Furthermore our analysis shows that only few of the programs had been evaluated. A meta-analytic method is proposed for further summarizing of empirical evaluation data.