One of the major challenges for modern western societies is the reduction of prejudice in order to achieve a sufficient level of integration of immigrants and especially refugees. The current literature thus presents a multitude of approaches to understand and reduce prejudices. Therefore, the following paper investigates the relationships between ethnic identity, acculturation attitudes, intercultural competence, and prejudice and how contact experiences shape these relationships for students in Germany with and without migration background. The results show that there is a significant relationship between prejudice and the social identity, cultural intelligence, and acculturation strategies. Furthermore, the results indicate that the experienced contact quality and quantity to refugees moderate the effect of acculturation strategies on overt prejudice and xenophobia. However, the relationship between acculturation strategies and covert prejudice is only moderated by contact quantity. Because of the relatively weak manifestations of the dependent variables in the study at hand, alternative instruments should be used for investigation. Based on the obtained results, this paper finally tries to give some guidance for the facilitation of diversity and reduction of prejudice at higher education institutions.

DOI: 10.1007/s12134-021-00872-8
ISSN: 1488-3473