Confidence in contact: A new perspective on promoting cross-group friendship among children and adolescents

This paper sets out a new theory to help guide future research and education programmes to encourage diverse friendships in young people (‘cross-group friendship’). Myself and Professor Rhiannon Turner have been conducting research into cross-group friendship since 2001. Here we draw on our experience and the most significant findings in the literature to lay out a new theory to help us understand what promotes cross-group friendship, and how we can encourage these essential relationships in our schools.  We think that ‘confidence in contact’ is key to helping young people form and maintain cross-group friendships and here we provide a road map for successful cross-group friendship in schools, with concrete recommendations for educators and policy makers.

We benefit in many ways from diverse friendships, what we call ‘cross-group friendship’. These are friendships between members of different groups, such as race, ethnicity, nationality, language, religion. Individuals with more diverse friendships are less prejudiced, more open-minded to other cultures, less anxious about interacting with people who are different, , and more inclusive in friendships and more likely to think discrimination is wrong. They also report increased self-esteem, well-being and resilience. However, some young people do not have an opportunity for diverse friendship groups because they live in a mono-cultural area. And in many diverse areas, young people self-segregate, choosing friendships with others from the same background as them, rather than their cross-group peers. In order to harness the power of cross-group friendships, and capitalise on the potential benefits of these important relationships, we need to understand the conditions that promote such friendships.

This is a state of ‘readiness’ for contact where young people have the necessary skills, confidence, beliefs and positive experience to interact successfully in diverse settings, and form cross-group friendships. We argue that individuals with ‘confidence in contact’ are ‘contact ready’ and so more open to and confident about cross-group friendship, and more likely to successfully initiate friendships that cross group lines.

Young people with ‘confidence in contact’ are characterised as being less anxious about interacting with others who are different to them in some way, increased perceived similarity across groups, belief that interactions across groups are accepted and even encouraged among peers, school, teachers, parents, increased confidence and positive previous experience of interactions across groups, and more advanced cognitive abilities such as empathy and perspective taking. Confidence in contact can be promoted through providing positive and structured opportunities for quality interactions between young people from different backgrounds, through diverse educational materials that provide examples of cross-group friendships, opportunities to explore similarities across groups, as well as strong leadership from school staff and peers to encourage and normalise cross-group friendship in diverse settings.

In this paper we make a number of recommendations for those working in diverse and non-diverse settings, and outline ways you can promote cross-group friendship, and ‘confidence in contact in schools.