Dissecting Disorder Perceptions: Neighborhood Structure and the Moderating Role of Interethnic Contact and Xenophobic Attitudes

Journal Article (2019)
Author(s)

H.J. Janssen (TU Delft - Urban Studies)

Dietrich Oberwittler (Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Strafrecht)

Dominik Gerstner (Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Strafrecht)

Research Group
Urban Studies
Copyright
© 2019 H.J. Janssen, Dietrich Oberwittler, Dominik Gerstner
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1177/1057567719896020
More Info
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Publication Year
2019
Language
English
Copyright
© 2019 H.J. Janssen, Dietrich Oberwittler, Dominik Gerstner
Research Group
Urban Studies
Issue number
4
Volume number
32
Pages (from-to)
429-456
Reuse Rights

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Abstract

Although urban disorder has played a central role in neighborhood research, its impact may have been overstated in studies relying on the subjective perception of survey respondents only. Research on the “perception bias”—defined as the divergence between respondents’ subjective assessments and systematic observations of disorder—has revealed the ambiguous nature of disorder and opened a door to the analysis of the social construction of this environmental cognition. Using survey and observational data from 140 small neighborhoods in two German cities, we advance this research by focusing on the moderating role of residents’ interethnic contacts and attitudes. The results show that the effects of neighborhood minority concentration on the perception bias are conditional on the residents’ interethnic contacts and xenophobic attitudes. These findings highlight the subjectivity of disorder perceptions and caution against a naive understanding of Broken Windows theory.