Under what circumstances do young people learn to trust unfamiliar classmates or people in general? In a recent study, DSS researchers Andrea Wingen and Clemens Kroneberg (ECONtribute)) investigate a contextual influence that has so far been largely overlooked – the extent to which boys and girls in a class also differ in terms of their ethnic background. Such an overlap of demographic characteristics encourages the formation of separate friendship groups along those lines. As a result, adolescents experience parts of their class as more unfamiliar and learn less to trust peers who are socially distant. To examine this argument, Wingen and Kroneberg analyzed survey data from 26 schools in North Rhine-Westphalia. The data were collected as part of the ERC project SOCIALBOND.

Their analyses show that adolescents without a migration background generally report higher levels of trust in unfamiliar peers within their school year and in people in general. However, this trust is significantly lower when gender and ethnic background in the school class overlap – that is, when adolescents with a migration background tend to be of a different gender than those without a migration background. This pattern is not observed as clearly for adolescents with a migration background.

The findings suggest that schools, through more targeted assignment of students to classes, could not only reduce friendship segregation but also promote the development of social trust. Building on the findings of the Cologne-based ERC project, an Emmy Noether research group led by Hanno Kruse (University of Bonn and ECONtribute) is now further exploring related questions.