Intergroup Contact and Social Distance Hypothesis: Australian University Students’ Views on Islam and Muslims

Abstract Australian and other Western survey research on intergroup contact, commonly referred to as “social distance”, has generally focused on negative attitudes and emotions as measures of prejudice. The current research, by contrast, investigates the level of social contact mainstream (non-Muslim) students in six Australian universities favor towards Muslims, as compared with other ethnicities. Three measures were used to test this proposition: intermarriage, friendship, and neighborhood. The findings revealed that acceptance of other ethnicities/religions as opposed to Muslims was higher than that of their parents. However, the gap narrows significantly between participants and their parents on the following two measures: “going out with” and “marrying” Muslims. Secondly, on the measures of “going out”, “being friends” with, and “marrying” someone from other ethnicities/religions, participants responses were more favorable than those conveyed towards Muslim groups. We suggest that future research is extended to measure other variables, namely gender, children of Muslim–Christian intermarriage, and the post effects of the shooting incidents in Christchurch on 15 March 2019.