We invited you to join us for an exciting, evidence-based discussion on inter-group cohesion, highlighting findings from evaluations of different strategies to promote trust or change perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors towards others in diverse societies. Salma Mousa offered a review of the evidence on the effectiveness of three promising approaches --- intergroup contact, perspective-taking, and building a shared national identity. Alexandra Scacco presented a new study examining whether intergroup contact between hosts and refugees reduces prejudice in Lebanon. This study builds on a program offering psychosocial support to vulnerable Lebanese and Syrian youth. It tests the effects of delivering this program in mixed classrooms, and of combining it with an additional intervention focused on empathy and perspective taking.

This event was part of the Social Cohesion Online Seminar Series jointly hosted by the World Bank Social Sustainability and Inclusion Global Practice, and the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). We cherished this opportunity to discuss the implications of a growing body of evidence on inter-group cohesion for policy and project design.

Agenda

Opening remarks

• Jana Kuhnt, Senior Researcher in the IDOS Research Programme “Transformation of Political (Dis-)order”

Speakers

• Salma Mousa, Assistant Professor of Political Science, UCLA  
• Alexandra Scacco, Senior Research Fellow and Vice Director of the Institutions and Political Inequality unit at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB)

Discussant

• Stephen Winkler, Social Development Specialist, World Bank