Mechanisms reinforcing and countering segregation: How existing friendship and dislike ties impact friendship homophily and dislike heterophily among Muslim and non-Muslim students in German schools

Homophily is an important social force in many social networks. While homophilous tendencies among positive relations (such as friendship) and heterophilous tendencies in negative tie networks (such as dislike) have been extensively studied, less is known about how such tendencies might become stronger or weaker as a result of past experiences. Focusing on homophilous and heterophilous tendencies between non-Muslim and Muslim students in schools, this paper explores whether, in line with Intergroup Contact Theory , existing friendship connections with outgroup members will reduce their inclination to dislike outgroup peers compared to ingroup peers (i.e., reduce dislike heterophily), and reduce their preferences for ingroup friendships over outgroup friends (i.e., reduce friendship homophily). On the other hand, in line with Attribution Theory and Social Identity Theory , we propose that existing dislike connections with outgroup members are likely to strengthen dislike heterophilous tendencies and friendship homophilous tendencies, thus further reinforcing religious segregation in schools. To test these hypotheses, we apply Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models (SAOMs) to the friendship and dislike networks of 1678 Muslim and non-Muslim students (FIS data) across 17 German school settings where this religious divide is particularly salient. Contrary to what we expected based on Intergroup Contact Theory , our study shows that prior interreligious friendships do not weaken a person’s tendency for friendship homophily. However, it does seem to reduce heterophily in dislike, but only because it makes students more likely to dislike ingroup peers. On the other hand, prior interreligious dislike ties are found to amplify dislike to outgroups, while not affecting friendship homophily. Surprisingly, our study also shows that ingroup friendships reduce dislike for outgroup members. We explore the implications of the findings that friendship homophily appears unaffected by prior interreligious contacts, while dislike heterophily is strengthened by existing negative outgroup ties, but reduced by both outgroup and ingroup friendships.