The “Diversity Assent” (DivA) Survey – Technical Report

by Lucas Drouhot (Utrecht University · The Netherlands), Sören Petermann (Ruhr Universität Bochum), Karen Schönwälder (MPI-MMG), and Steven Vertovec (MPI-MMG)

Working Papers WP 21-20
November 2021
ISSN 2192-2357 (MMG Working Papers Print)

Full text: pdf

Abstract:
How do people living in contemporary Germany react to diversification in their everyday life? What undergirds pro-diversity perspectives among those who live in rapidly diversifying cities? Conversely, what are their limits, and what groups are excluded? The Diversity Assent (DivA) project was designed to understand the foundations and mechanisms underlying the acceptance of socio-demographic heterogeneity on multiple dimensions in cities located both in West and East Germany. Two core motivations underlie the project. So far, we insufficiently understand what motivates those who oppose right-wing positions – usually a majority among inhabitants of cities in Germany and other Western European countries. Second, this project builds on a previous large-scale project of the Socio-Cultural Diversity department at MPI-MMG, “Diversity and Contact”. In particular, it explores to what extent attitudes and patterns of interaction have changed, or remained constant, in the decade from 2010 to 2020, which was a time of major ruptures and political polarization. We designed a large telephone survey of 2,917 respondents asking a set of interrelated questions on dispositions towards diversity, everyday experiences and diversification dynamics. This includes a set of survey experiments designed to tap and measure social norms of tolerance. This report presents technical aspects of the survey relevant to interested users of the DivA Dataset.