The role of peer, parental, and school norms in predicting adolescents’ attitudes and behaviours of majority and different minority ethnic groups in Croatia

Social norms in general have an important role in the regulation of intergroup relations. However, the effects of one specific type of social norms–in-group norms about intergroup contact–have not yet been extensively studied, especially among groups of different status or in different intergroup contexts. The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of three types of contact norms (peer, parental and school) on four intergroup outcomes (in-group bias, social distance, tendency to discriminate, prosocial behaviour towards the outgroup) among ethnic majority and minority adolescents from four different intergroup contexts of the Republic of Croatia, as well as to test for moderating effects of age, social status and intergroup context in the strength of these effects. The research was carried out on a sample of 1440 elementary and high school students, members of Croatian majority, and Serbian, Hungarian, Czech, and Italian minority. The results indicated that although all three types of norms predict most of the intergroup outcomes, their relative importance depends on the specific type of intergroup outcome (attitudinal or behavioural), group social status (majority or minority), intergroup context (history of a recent intergroup conflict or not), and for peer norms on the age of the adolescent.