PhD researcher for The Integration Conundrum, KU Leuven, Brussels, Belgium. Deadline: 28 February 2022.
The selected candidate is expected to prepare a PhD that fits within the research project ‘The integration conundrum: An intergroup relations perspective on majority support for inclusion versus exclusion of immigrant minorities.’ The project addresses ‘the integration conundrum’ as an important cause of public concern and political contention in today’s Europe and zooms in on the acculturation views of the majority: do majority citizens expect minorities to engage mainly or exclusively with the mainstream culture, with the heritage culture, or do they expect them to combine both cultures? The project aims to discover when and how intergroup fit and misfit on integration strategies will politicize and drive support for policy and political action. As such, the project aims to explain support for policies and actions that challenge the exclusion of immigrants and promote social change towards more equal and inclusive intergroup relations. For this project, survey data were collected among a random sample of the Belgian majority population (N = 1600). These survey data can be enriched with new (digital, geospatial, text and administrative) data sources and complemented with embedded experiments. The data is to be analysed with advanced statistical methods.
The researcher will team up with a large research group consisting of several PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and supervisors, working on related topics. In addition, the researcher will be involved in existing national and international research networks in the field of intergroup relations. The PhD candidate will be stimulated to present research output at international conferences and participate in seminars and (methodological) training activities. An international fellowship and participation in teaching activities are among the possibilities.
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 