What Makes People Targets: A Multi-Actor Study of How Ethnic Discrimination is Perceived, Tackled and Avoided

Project Information

TARGETS

Grant agreement ID: 101041908

DOI

10.3030/101041908

EC signature date 11 May 2022

Start date 1 September 2022

End date 31 August 2027

Funded under

• European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 499 290,00

EU contribution

€ 1 499 290,00

Coordinated by

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TARGETS (What Makes People Targets: A Multi-Actor Study of How Ethnic Discrimination is Perceived, Tackled and Avoided)

Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2025-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Despite the expansion of anti-discrimination laws and the promotion of diversity policies as pathways to inclusive workplaces, discrimination against ethnic minorities remains a persistent and widespread problem, especially in the labour market. At the same time, individuals who experience discrimination firsthand are often accused of being overly sensitive or labeled as troublemakers. Our approach uniquely emphasizes that discrimination is fundamentally relational: it involves multiple people and perspectives. We will examine how hiring and workplace discrimination is perceived, recognized or challenged by victims, bystanders, perpetrators, and professionals in HR and legal roles. Drawing on interviews, analysis of discrimination complaints and case studies, we will investigate how structures like anti-discrimination laws and diversity policies can confer or deny legitimacy to discrimination claims, shaping what counts as discrimination, both in workplaces and legal settings. While diversity policies and anti-discrimination measures can promote a sense of fairness, they may also hide ongoing inequalities in job access and career advancement. The TARGETS project aims to uncover these possible unintended effects. We will also focus on perceptions of discrimination in everyday workplace interactions, relying on innovative survey experiments to study how people react to situations that may be considered discriminatory. We will compare the perspectives of multiple groups (targets, perpetrators, allies and bystanders), focusing on the factors that lead to disagreements about whether an event is truly discriminatory. Additionally, we will collect longitudinal data on whether and how ethnic minorities strategically navigate their job searches to avoid discrimination. By doing so, we will challenge dominant views that portray them as passive agents and improve our understanding of how individuals’ actions can help counteract labour market inequalities. TARGETS is an ambitious and interdisciplinary research program that combines methods and insights from sociology, social psychology, organizational studies and sociolegal perspectives. Through its novel, multi-actor and dynamic framework, TARGETS aims to advance our understanding of how victims come to be recognized as targets of discrimination. Such knowledge is essential, not only for providing victims with appropriate support, but also for preventing conflict between groups and within organizations.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In the first 24 months of the project, the team consolidated the theoretical framework, drawing on different disciplines. In WP1, we focused on diversity policies and examined levels of policy support among hiring managers, using available data from the Netherlands. The variation in policy support that we found across different types of organizations will inform the sampling of HR professionals for the expert interviews. This work was presented at international conferences and at a stakeholder meeting with DEI officers, policy makers and DEI professionals. In WP3, we conducted a scoping review of 63 experimental studies on discrimination attributions. The findings revealed a significant gap in research, as European countries and groups other than African Americans have rarely been studied. The lack of systematic analyses of the role of perspective-taking (e.g. victim vs. bystander) in discrimination attributions confirmed the novelty of our multi-actor approach in the project. Based on this analysis, which was presented at several international conferences and is currently under review at a scientific journal, we are developing scenarios for the survey experiments to be conducted in a few selected European countries. In WP2, we observed similar results from an analysis of official complaints submitted by victims to a local anti-discrimination agency in the Netherlands. Contacts were established for later collaborations for WP2. Finally, for WP4, we collected measures of job search behavior to be used in the daily diary study of job searches. We categorized these strategies into three types: those that influence how individuals present themselves (identity management), those that impact the job search process itself in terms of effort, self-efficacy and perseverance, and those that focus on targeting specific types of organizations. For the latter, we consider the signalling role of diversity policies for job seekers. We are building on this threefold categorization for the digital daily diary. Across work packages, substantial efforts were made to enhance the project’s visibility and impact. To support this goal, the PI launched and coordinated the Interuniversity Network on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, facilitating knowledge transfer to practitioners in the field. Finally, the PI co-edited a special issue on the drivers of discrimination and authored a forthcoming methodological chapter in an edited volume.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The team has produced preliminary findings in several work packages, which will inform the research design of the qualitative, experimental and longitudinal studies that will be performed in the coming months. In WP1, we found that HR managers largely favour an unstructured screening process and strongly oppose binding quotas, especially if they lack HRM qualifications or work in smaller, less formalized organizations. Policies that explicitly combine diversity goals with meritocratic principles received stronger support, offering a promising model for future DEI efforts. Our analysis adds to the growing literature on the importance of countering zero-sum perceptions to strengthen support for diversity initiatives. In WP3, findings from the scoping review indicate that blatant actions, especially those targeting traditionally disadvantaged groups and perpetrated by high-status individuals like HR managers or company directors, are more readily recognized as discriminatory, consistent with theories of status asymmetry. In contrast, more subtle forms of mistreatment, such as unpleasant interactions between colleagues or those occurring in seemingly egalitarian contexts, are more likely to be overlooked. In WP2, we observed similar results: in ambiguous situations where clear-cut evidence is lacking, complaint handlers tend to rely on shared, prototypical notions of what counts as discrimination. This comes at the risk of ignoring more subtle experiences, or instances of inter-minority conflict. In future work, we will systematically examine the conditions that increase the likelihood of disagreement about what constitutes discrimination. We will focus on aspects that go beyond formal situations and have received less attention in the literature. This knowledge is crucial to reduce the risk that discrimination is misrecognized or overlooked in everyday interactions. We are particularly interested in exploring the possible unintended effects of diversity policies (in terms of both policy support and policy effectiveness). We also aim to systematically test the “illusion of fairness” hypothesis, which suggests that visible efforts to combat discrimination may unintentionally reduce people's awareness of discriminatory situations.

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