High-Quality Contact With Fellow Majority Group Students Is Associated With Better Academic Performance of Minority Group Students

Abstract

We examined the association between intergroup contact and academic performance at university among minority students in a context with a segregated pre-university school system. Study 1 tested whether participation in a group dynamics course, which involves intimate interpersonal contact between Israeli Arab (n = 125) and Jewish students, was associated with better grade point average (GPA). As expected, Arab students who participated in the course had a higher GPA than those who did not, even when controlling for pre-university achievements. The corresponding difference among Jews was substantially smaller. Study 2 (N = 90), a longitudinal study, revealed that the quality of contact with Jewish students at university was associated with Arab students’ subsequent higher GPA, even when controlling for pre-university contact, proxies of academic achievements, and perceptions of intergroup relations. The quality of contact with Jewish students was also associated with Arab students’ sense of academic belonging. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Intergroup contact—interpersonal encounters between members of different, often conflicting groups (Allport, 1954)—is one of the most studied topics in social psychology, with two “generations” of research (Paolini et al., 2021): The first generation has focused on achieving individual-to-group generalization and on establishing the value of intergroup contact for reducing prejudice (for a meta-analysis, see Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). The second generation has extended the contact literature in several ways, such as examining the mechanisms through which contact effects emerge and challenging its underlying assumption that prejudice reduction is the ideal route for social change. This has led researchers to examine the effects of contact on other outcomes, such as support for social equality (e.g., Hässler et al., 2020). The goal of the present research is to further extend the literature by examining a relatively understudied outcome of intergroup contact; namely, minority students’ academic performance—which, in many social contexts, tends to be lower than that of majority students. Indeed, group-based performance gaps in higher education are one of the most enduring educational challenges for many societies (Ladson-Billings, 2006).

Attempts to examine the effects of intergroup contact in educational settings can be traced back to Aronson’s classic work on the “jigsaw classroom,” developed in the early 1970s as a strategy to foster interracial cooperation in recently desegregated schools in Austin, Texas (see Aronson, 2002). More recent experimental studies conducted in the United States (Shook & Clay, 2012; Shook & Fazio, 2008) and South Africa (Corno et al., 2019) revealed that contact between Black and White students, introduced through living in interracial college dorms, resulted in better academic performance for Black students. Work by Mendoza-Denton and Page-Gould (2008) also demonstrated a positive link between cross-group friendship and U.S. minority college students’ adjustment to academic life.

In Europe, correlational research conducted with 18- to 35-year-old Turkish minorities in Austria and Belgium found that having cross-group friendship with majority group members was associated with higher educational attainment (Baysu et al., 2014). Research including junior high school students from Turkey, Russia, and Poland in Germany; from Morocco, Turkey and Suriname in the Netherlands; and from Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia in Sweden revealed that contact with nonimmigrant students was positively related to academic performance for all of these groups of immigrant students (Wölfer et al., 2019).

The present research aimed to extend current knowledge by examining for the first time the association between intergroup contact and academic performance among Arab students studying in Israeli universities. Arab citizens of Israel make up approximately 20% of the country’s population (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, 2020) and many share nationalism, identity, culture, history, narratives and goals with the Palestinian people—a group whose relationship with Jewish Israelis is characterized by prolonged violent conflict, perceived by many as zero-sum in nature (Sharvit & Halperin, 2016). Like minority students in predominantly majority academic institutions in other countries, the academic performance of Arab students in Israeli universities is lower than that of the Jewish majority students (Shaviv et al., 2013).

In addition, Israeli society is characterized by separate school systems in pre-university education. In segregated societies where intergroup hostility is high and majority and minority groups have their own schools, such as in Israel, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Northern Ireland, contact opportunities in earlier ages are rare (see Wölfer et al., 2016, for the importance of early intergroup contact experiences). All these factors; namely, the high level of intergroup hostility, the segregated school systems, and the consequent rarity of early contact opportunities might negatively affect the quality of contact at university; e.g., by increasing anxiety and avoidance behavior (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). Under such conditions, the positive association between contact and minority students’ academic performance, as observed in the United States and Europe, might be eliminated.

Although social psychological research has often paid little attention to questions of generalization and boundary conditions, current understanding highlights the importance of testing hypotheses in different contexts and using different operationalizations—rather than simply assuming broad generalizations (see Simons et al., 2017). The present research offers a step toward addressing the limitation in the breadth of societies in which the link between contact and minorities’ academic performance has been examined, by focusing on Israeli Arab students.

Contact and Sense of Academic Belonging

The second goal of our study was to investigate one potential psychological mechanism responsible for the expected association between contact and Arab students’ academic performance. Research among Black middle-school students in the United States suggests that their sense of belonging—that is, confidence in the quality of their social bonds and the feeling that they fit in the academic environment—is more contingent on environmental cues and hence susceptible to environmental threat than that of White students (Cook et al., 2012). Thus, the challenges that are typically experienced during transitions—such as from elementary to middle school (Cook et al., 2012) or from high school to university (in the present study)—might erode minority students’ sense of academic belonging (see Cook et al., 2012, for the decrease in Black middle-school students’ sense of belonging during the seventh and eighth grades). Low feelings of belonging may tax cognitive resources (Baumeister et al., 2002) and ultimately undermine minorities’ academic performance (Shook & Clay, 2012).

We reasoned that the experience of Arab students in Israeli universities might lead to lower sense of academic belonging for several reasons. First, the asymmetric power relations in the wider Israeli society are reflected in higher education institutions. Thus, Jewish students at Israeli universities enjoy cultural hegemony (Al-Haj, 2003). Second, as discussed earlier, prior to university admission Arabs and Jews study in separate educational systems that keep them apart (Al-Haj, 2003). Thus, Arab students have little contact with Jewish students or teachers and have little experience with Jewish institutions. Third, the hostility between Jews and Arabs is often overt (Sharvit & Halperin, 2016), which may lead Arab students to anticipate the possibility of open hostility from their peers. Finally, a military service of two to three years is mandatory for Jewish, but not for Arab citizens. ¹ Consequently, Jewish students in Israeli universities are typically older than Arab students, who tend to enter university immediately after high school, and are more experienced in dealing with large bureaucratic systems, such as the army and the academia (Shaviv et al., 2013).

We theorized that due to these factors, Arab students’ sense of academic belonging might be relatively low when beginning their studies, but that positive contact with Jewish students could increase it. Our theorizing was based on previous findings that academic environments, where members of different ethnic and racial groups live, socialize, and take classes together, can foster high-quality contact (Van Laar et al., 2005), including the formation of friendship—an especially powerful form of cross-group contact (Davies et al., 2011). Given that Arab students in Israeli universities enter an environment in which Jews constitute the hegemonic majority group, having positive contact with Jewish students may be critical for increasing their belief that they have the qualities to succeed in the university and will be accepted by others. Based on findings that students’ sense of belonging is positively associated with their classroom engagement (Furrer & Skinner, 2003) and motivation to succeed (Osterman, 2000), as well as findings that a stronger sense of belonging at university was associated with higher grade point average (GPA) among U.S. minority students (Shook & Clay, 2012), we predicted that Arab students’ higher sense of academic belonging would be associated with better academic performance.

This prediction is consistent with Wölfer and colleagues (2019) proposition, which has not been empirically tested yet, that growth in “social capital”—“social networks and the associated norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness” (Putnam, 2007, p. 137)—is responsible for the positive association between intergroup contact and academic performance among immigrant students in Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. We reasoned that if intergroup contact increases minority students’ “social capital,” this should translate into a stronger sense of academic belonging.

Notably, another mechanism that may seem plausible at first glance is that contact with Jewish students improves Arab students’ language proficiency in Hebrew. This could account for their improved academic performance because, while most reading materials are in English, the lectures and exams in Israeli universities are in Hebrew. However, research conducted in the United Kingdom revealed that while English language proficiency increased intergroup contact among minority refugees from Ethiopia, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo, there was no evidence for the other directionality—from contact to language proficiency (Tip et al., 2019). Even more importantly for the present research, Arab students must pass Hebrew proficiency tests prior to university entrance, so their level of proficiency is above a fairly strict required threshold, resulting in restricted range for this variable. We, therefore, reasoned that Hebrew proficiency was unlikely to mediate the link between contact and performance.

The Present Research

Our research was designed to test the prediction that contact with Jewish students—occurring either through participation in a structured course (Study 1) or spontaneously (Study 2)—would be positively associated with the academic performance of Arab students studying in Israeli universities. Study 1 examined the performance of Arab students who participated or did not participate in a group dynamics course that involved intimate interpersonal interactions between Arab and Jewish students. Study 2 was a longitudinal study that examined the association between contact with Jewish students and subsequent academic performance, while also testing whether sense of academic belonging mediated this association. Notably, Study 2 examined both the frequency and the quality of contact with Jews, outside and within the academic institution.

All measures and exclusions in both studies, Study 2’s protocol, data and code book, ² and additional analyses for the two studies are available in the OSF: https://osf.io/euryd/?view_only=88742f62b0e14165bce61ce725ffca98. No studies in this manuscript were preregistered.

Study 1

Besides regular academic courses, some degree programs in Israeli universities (e.g., psychology and social work) offer their students experiential group dynamics courses. Students who take these courses participate in group encounters, in which a small number of students meet throughout the semester for regular weekly sessions, facilitated by trained group facilitators. In these sessions, participants sit in a circle and talk about their psychological and social experiences within and outside the group. They are encouraged to observe and reflect upon their intra- and interpersonal dynamics, which promotes close interpersonal communication. Study 1 took advantage of the fact that these courses offer a structured opportunity for sustained and intimate intergroup contact between the Arab and Jewish students.

Study 1 tested the prediction that the academic performance of Arab students who took an experiential group dynamics course would be better than that of Arab students who did not take this course. Admittedly, because participation in this course is voluntary rather than mandatory, this effect is susceptible to at least one alternative explanation: Perhaps Arab students with higher pre-university academic achievements are more likely to choose to participate in this course than are students with lower pre-university achievements. It is possible that this preexisting difference, rather than the experience of intimate intergroup contact, is responsible for subsequent differences in academic performance. To address this potential selection bias, we tested for preexisting differences in academic achievements between students who took versus did not take the course, and controlled for students’ pre-university achievements in our main analysis.

In addition, we tested the difference in academic performance between students who took (vs. did not take) the course among Jewish students. We theorized that the opportunity for intergroup contact should affect minority students, who face the challenge of navigating an academic setting in which their ethnic identity is marginalized and stigmatized (see Chateignier et al., 2009, for negative stereotypes on Arabs’ intellectual ability), but not majority students, who do not face similar identity threats. Finding a substantially smaller effect of course participation for Jewish students could address the possibility that participation in and of itself leads to improved academic performance. For example, it could be that forming friendships as a result of the course has a positive effect on academic performance because it encourages the formation of effective study groups or increases readiness and confidence to participate in class, regardless of the participants’ ethnicity.

In sum, Study 1 tested whether participation in a course that involves meaningful opportunities for cross-group contact is associated with better academic performance among Arabs students, even when controlling for their pre-university achievements. It further tested the corresponding association among Jewish students.

Method

Participants

The samples included all students who began studying in the psychology department at a large Israeli university between the years 2005-2015. There was no attrition from the course. The Arab sample included 125 students, of whom 49 (39.2%) participated in the group dynamics course. A sensitivity analysis (using the G*Power calculator; Faul et al., 2007) revealed that this sample afforded 80% power to detect an effect size of ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ > .06. The Jewish sample included 2,179 students, of whom 1,052 (48.3%) participated in the group dynamics course. This sample afforded 80% power to detect an effect size of ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ > .004.

Procedure

We compared the academic performance of Arab students who took (vs. did not take) the group dynamics course. Academic performance was operationalized as their GPA in their psychology degree, calculated as the students’ average scores, on a scale ranging from 0 to 100, in all psychology courses at the end of their Bachelor’s degree. We controlled for students’ preexisting academic achievements by entering as a covariate students’ “Sechem score” (range = 527–778). This score is calculated by the university when students register, based on their psychometric exam and weighted mean matriculation scores (equivalent to SAT scores and high school GPA in the United States). The same analysis was conducted for the Jewish sample.

Results

As a preliminary step, we tested for preexisting differences in academic achievements prior to entering university between Arab participants who took, versus did not take, the course. A t-test revealed no difference in “Sechem scores” between Arab students who participated (M = 682.35, SD = 27.89) and did not participate in the course (M = 680.09, SD = 26.47), t(123) = .46, p = .649, d = −.08, 95% (CI)[−.44, .27]. These findings help to rule out preexisting differences in academic achievement as an alternative explanation. ³

As our primary analysis, we conducted an ANCOVA to predict Arab students’ Bachelor’s degree GPA based on course participation, with pre-university academic achievements (“Sechem score”) as a covariate. The results revealed a marginal effect for students’ pre-university academic achievements (higher scores predicted higher GPA), F(1, 122) = 3.30, p = .072, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .024, 90% CI[.00, .09]. As expected, participation in the group dynamics course was associated with higher GPA, F(1, 122) = 9.71, p = .002, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .07, 90% CI[.02, .15]. When running the same analysis for Jewish students, we found a significant effect for pre-university academic achievements (higher Sechem scores predicted higher GPA), F(1, 2176) = 221.78, p < .001, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .092, 90% CI[.07, .11]. Participation in the group dynamics course was associated with higher GPA, F(1, 2176) = 5.66, p = .017, ${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .003, 90% CI[<.01, .01]. There was no overlap in the CIs obtained for the Arab and Jewish samples, pointing to an overall difference between the two populations. Figure 1 presents the results for Arab and Jewish students.

Figure 1.

Bachelor’s degree GPA for Arab and Jewish students who participated (vs. not) in the group dynamics course, controlling for pre-university achievements.

Note. Error bars represent standard errors. GPA = grade point average.

Note that we conducted separate analyses for each group because of the large differences in cell sizes. The results of a single analysis; that is, a two-way ANCOVA with the predictors’ ethnic group (Arab, Jewish) and course participation (yes, no), and pre-university achievements as a covariate, are reported in the appendix (available in the OSF link). This analysis revealed a significant two-way interaction, such that the association between course participation and GPA was stronger for Arabs than for Jewish students.

Robustness checks

Also reported in the appendix are several robustness checks. First, to avoid disproportionate influence of single observations on our analysis, we excluded students whose studentized residuals were greater (in absolute value) than three. Doing so did not change the statistical conclusion about the positive association between course participation and GPA for Arabs (whereas the association among Jews was no longer significant). Second, we repeated the analyses reported in the “Results” section without controlling for pre-university achievements. Doing so did not change our statistical conclusions: The association between course participation and GPA remained significant for both Arabs and Jews, and there was no overlap between the CIs. Additional analyses and robustness checks (excluding students who did not complete their degree, permutation test, random under-sampling, and differences-in-differences analysis) are available on the OSF.

Discussion

The results of Study 1 supported our hypothesis, revealing a positive association between participation in a course that creates opportunities for close interpersonal contact with Jewish students and Arab students’ academic performance. This association cannot be explained by Arab students’ pre-university academic achievements, which were controlled for and, in any case, did not differ depending on course participation. Moreover, although participation in the course was associated with benefits for students of both groups, the association among Arab students was substantially larger and more stable across robustness checks than among Jewish students. This is consistent with our theorizing that the opportunity for intergroup contact should be especially beneficial for minority students due to their potential experience of identity threat when studying in a majority hegemonic institution.

From a practical point of view, it is a good sign that course participation was associated with better GPA for students from both groups. Some interventions have opposing effects on minority and majority group members; for example, an intervention that mitigated doubts about social belonging in college by framing them as temporary and transient increased Black students’ academic performance but decreased it among White students (Walton & Cohen, 2007, see also Rao, 2019 for how being integrated with poor students in elite private schools had a modest negative impact for Rich students’ GPA in India). Our findings offer initial evidence that better academic performance of Arab students need not inevitably come hand-in-hand with worse academic performance of Jewish students.

The natural yet structured intergroup contact setting is a clear advantage of Study 1. Yet, as is often the case with field studies (see Paluck & Cialdini, 2014), causal inference was limited because we were unable to control the study’s design. It was impossible to randomly assign students to participate (or not) in the course, or to compare students who chose to take the course but waited (or not) on a waiting list. That this was not possible made the study susceptible to selection bias. It was also impossible to assign Arab students who chose to participate in the course to either mixed (Jewish/Arab) or only-Arab groups. Doing so would allow to isolate the effect of intergroup contact, to which only students in the mixed groups would be subjected, from the general effect of course participation to which students in both the mixed and only-Arab groups would be subjected. Such a comparison may be feasible in academic institutions with a larger proportion of minority students than the one studied here.

Although some of the limitations were addressed through testing and controlling for preexisting differences, using covariates, and including both Arab and Jewish samples—others were not. For example, one might speculate that the course provided an opportunity for acquaintance with the department’s faculty, which is not possible in other large introductory courses offered to first- or second-year psychology students. Such an opportunity may be especially meaningful for minority students, whose access to faculty is limited compared with majority members (Milkman et al., 2015). This possibility, however, is unlikely because the facilitators of the group dynamics courses are not permanent faculty or university staff. It is also possible, but unlikely, that the content studied in the course, which focuses on intra-group relations (Bion’s theorizing about group phenomena), was responsible for students’ better GPA. Nevertheless, it is impossible to rule out the possibility that other components of the group dynamics course accounted for all or some of the observed associations between course participation and GPA. Future research might shed light on some of these other potential mechanisms using a more qualitative approach that includes interviewing Arab students who participated in these dynamics groups and asking them about their experiences.

Another possibility is that the intimate contact with Jewish students, which is an inherent part of the course, deterred some Arab students whose previous contact with Jews was scarce or negative from taking the course. If so, the Arab students who chose to take the course could be those who have had more positive contact with Jews in the past. Findings from the United States have shown that early contact with majority group members (living in diverse vs. segregated neighborhoods) is associated with better adjustment to college life among minority group members (Massey & Fischer, 2006). Thus, preexisting experience of contact for Arab students could offer an alternative explanation for the association between course participation and GPA.

In addition, previous research conducted in another context of relatively high intergroup hostility, post-civil war in Liberia, revealed that negative perceptions of the intergroup relations were associated with reduced willingness to engage in intergroup contact (Mazziotta et al., 2014). If so, perhaps Arab students who perceived Arab/Jewish relations in a more positive light are more likely to choose to participate in the course, whereas those who hold more negative perceptions chose not to. Although we are not aware of any research showing that positive perceptions of the intergroup relations are associated with better academic performance among minority members, we acknowledge that this could offer a plausible alternative explanation. For example, such positive perceptions may increase readiness to request and receive help from majority students or teachers (Halabi et al., 2013), which could, in turn, contribute to academic success. To address all these possibilities, in addition to contact with Jewish students, Study 2 also examined Arab students’ preexisting perceptions of the relations between the groups, as well as their intergroup contact prior to their university studies.

Finally, the structure of the group dynamics course, which includes 30 weekly 90-min sessions, did not allow differentiating between the effects of frequency as opposed to quality of contact. Yet, a nuanced understanding of how these different components of contact associate with academic performance is critical for the development and implementation of contact-based interventions. To address this limitation, Study 2 examined both the frequency and the quality of students’ experience of pre-university and in-university intergroup contact.

Study 2

Study 2 served four main goals. First, to increase confidence in the direction of potential causal relationships, we used a longitudinal design to examine the effect of earlier contact with Jewish students on the subsequent academic performance of Arab students. Second, to control for potential alternative explanations, we examined participants’ previous contact with Jews outside of the university and preexisting perceptions of the Arab/Jewish intergroup relations—two measures that were not available in Study 1. Third, we measured sense of academic belonging as a potential mediator of the association between contact and Arab students’ GPA. Finally, to provide a more nuanced understanding of the association between contact and academic performance, we measured Arab students’ interactions with Jews in terms of both the frequency and the quality of contact (i.e., the positivity, intimacy, and friendship with outgroup members; Davies et al., 2011).

Previous research that focused on contact and intergroup attitudes has revealed that the quality of contact plays a bigger role than its frequency in improving outgroup attitudes (De Coninck et al., 2021). Arab students, who constituted about 5% of the student cohort in Study 1, may have frequent contact with Jewish students merely due to their very small relative numbers, whereas high-quality contact might be rarer. Thus, we expected the quality, but not necessarily the frequency of contact with Jewish students to be associated with Arab students’ GPA. Study 2 is the first direct test of the unique associations between these two components of contact and academic performance.

Method

Participants

In exchange for participation credit in an introductory psychology course, we recruited Arab first-year undergraduate psychology students (N = 90) from three academic institutions in Israel: Tel Aviv University (n = 55), the University of Haifa (n = 19), and the Academic College of Tel Aviv–Yaffo (n = 16). Arab research assistants were recruited to advertise the study such that, ultimately, almost all Arab students who began their psychology studies in 2018 and 2019 signed up to participate (the cohorts were exhausted). Based on recent governmental records, the number of Israeli Arab psychology students is around 120 to 160 each year (in all universities and academic colleges), which constitute approximately 8.5% to 9.2% of Israeli psychology students each year (Wininger, 2021). Our sample, thus, included about a third of the target population.

Most participants were women (n = 82; men = 8), and the age range was 18 to 34 (M = 19.7, SD = 1.3). Most participants identified as Muslim (n = 56), while the rest identified as Christian (n = 17), Druze (n = 10), other (n = 4) or did not report (n = 3). A sensitivity analysis suggested that this sample of 90 participants afforded 80% power to detect a simple correlation with small-medium effect size (r = .26). Moreover, our sample afforded 80% power to detect an effect of r² = .08, when including 10 predictors in the regression.

Procedure and measurements

Participants were invited to take part in a study that examined “the experience of first-year students.” Participants completed the first questionnaire 4 weeks into their first academic year (Time 1), a second questionnaire during the break between Fall and Spring semesters (Time 2), and a third at the end of the spring semester (Time 3).

At Time 1, participants provided informed consent, which allowed us to access their GPA at the end of the academic year. They also provided background demographics and completed a questionnaire including the following measures (which, unless reported otherwise, were adapted from Hässler et al., 2020).

Pre-university academic achievements

Participants reported the number of courses they had to take in English and in Hebrew. In Israel, first-year students may be required to take language courses in English and Hebrew based on their psychometric test (the equivalent to the SAT). Participants indicated the number of language proficiency courses they were required to take in each language, with the answer ranging from zero to three such that more courses indicate students’ lower language proficiency. We calculated the total courses, such that lower scores represented higher pre-university academic achievements. Note that due to policy changes, we could no longer obtain participants’ Sechem scores, which served as the measure of pre-university achievements in Study 1. The number of required supplementary language courses, which like the Sechem scores is partially determined by performance on the psychometric test, served as an alternative assessment of preexisting academic achievements.

Negative perceptions of the intergroup relation

Four items, using 7-point scales, asked participants to indicate how they perceived the relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel to be like (e.g., Arabs and Jews are like 1 = Allies to 7 = Enemies). Higher scores represented more negative perceptions (α = .88).

Frequency of contact

A single item asked participants “How often do you interact (e.g., have conversations) with Jewish students at the university?” (1 = never to 7 = very often). A similar item adjusted to past tense asked participants about their pre-university frequency of contact with Jews.

Quality of contact

Five items captured participants’ perceptions of their contact with Jewish students. Example items include “My interactions with Jewish students are close and intimate, like good friends and family,” “The interactions are unpleasant” (a reversed item), “During the interaction, we behave as equals” (1 = not at all to 7 = very much; α = .86). Similar items adjusted to past tense asked participants about their pre-university frequency and quality of contact with Jews (α = .82).

At Time 2, during the break between semesters, to examine the stability of contact, participants again completed the same measures of quality (α = .93) and frequency of intergroup contact as those at Time 1. The Time 2 questionnaire also included a measure of sense of academic belonging.

Sense of academic belonging

The 18-item Social and Academic Fit Scale (Walton & Cohen, 2007) used 7-point scales (1 = not at all to 7 = very much) to assess students’ sense of academic belonging: the degree to which other people accept them (Social Fit: e.g., “People in my university accept me”), and the degree to which they feel that they have the potential to thrive in this environment (Academic Fit: e.g., “If I wanted to, I know what I need to do to succeed in the university”). In line with Cook et al. (2012), the two subscales were collapsed to form one measure (α = .81).

For exploratory purposes, at Time 3 (the end of the academic year), participants completed the same measures of quality (α = .86) and frequency of contact with Jewish students, and sense of academic belonging (α = .85). Of the 90 students who participated in Time 1, 78 completed Time 2 (86% retention) and 64 completed Time 3 (70% retention). Note that GPA, the key outcome variable, was available for all Time 1 participants.

Results

To test for selective attrition, a series of Welch tests were conducted to compare students who participated only in Time 1 (n = 12) with those who participated in both Time 1 and Time 2 (n = 78) in terms of their age, pre-university academic achievements, perceptions of the intergroup relations, frequency and quality of contact (both pre- and in university), and GPA scores at the end of the academic year. No differences were found for any of these measures (ps > .207). The same was true for the comparison between those who participated in all three occasions (n = 64) and those who did not participate in Time 3 (who participated only in Time 1, or in only Time 1 and Time 2; n = 26); ps > .087. See the appendix for descriptive statistics and the full results.

Means, standard deviations, and correlations between the variables are presented in Table 1. As expected, the quality of contact with Jewish students at Time 1 was associated with Arab students’ GPA score at the end of the academic year, while the frequency of contact was not. Also, the quality of contact with Jewish students at Time 1 was associated with Arab students’ sense of academic belonging at Time 2. Unexpectedly, however, Arab students’ sense of academic belonging at Time 2 was not associated with their GPA at the end of the year. ⁴

Table 1.

Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations Between Study’s 2 Main and Exploratory Variables.

Variable	M (SD)	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
1. GPA	72.32 (16.14)	—
2. Age	20.13 (2.64)	−.57**	—
3. Academic achievements PU	1.26 (1.29)	−.18	−.07	—
4. Contact frequency PU	5.11 (1.82)	.09	.23*	−.05	—
5. Contact quality PU	4.46 (1.38)	.28*	−.20	−.12	.14	—
6. Negative perceptions of relations T1	4.34 (0.97)	−.13	.02	−.05	−.09	−.39***	—
7. Contact frequency T1	3.38 (1.93)	.09	.10	−.17	.28**	.29**	−.14	—
8. Contact quality T1	5.34 (1.14)	.24*	−.09	−.24*	.09	.52***	−.29***	.52***	—
9. Contact frequency T2	5.22 (1.84)	.20	.01	−.12	.35**	.24*	−.20 a	.35**	.37**	—
10. Contact quality T2	5.35 (1.12)	.27*	−.18	−.14	.16	.41***	−.19	.32**	.68***	.29**	—
11. Academic belonging T2	5.18 (0.84)	.15	−.03	−.08	.21 a	.18	−.15	.24*	.32**	.34**	.45***	—
12. Contact frequency T3	4.93 (1.97)	.20	−.02	−.00	.37**	.10	−.18	.36**	.26*	.77***	.21	.14	—
13. Contact quality T3	5.54 (1.05)	.17	−.11	−.30*	.15	.44***	−.22	.28*	.61***	.35**	.71***	.32**	.36**	—
14. Academic belonging T3	5.09 (0.95)	.13	.01	−.20	.10	.15	.19	.19	.32**	.39**	.41**	.62***	.31**	.45***	—

Note. PU = pre-university; T1 = Time 1; T2 = Time 2; T3 = Time 3; GPA = students’ grade point average at the end of the first year of bachelor’s degree.

^ap < .06.

^*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Table 2 presents the results of the regression model in which GPA was the outcome variable, and the predictors were pre-university academic achievements, institutional affiliation (dummy-coded with Tel Aviv University as the reference group), gender, age, the year in which participants began studying, pre-university frequency of contact, pre-university quality of contact, perceptions of intergroup relations, and the frequency and quality of contact with Jewish students in Time 1. As expected, the quality (but not the frequency) of contact with Jewish students at university statistically predicted higher GPA, R² = .03, 90% CI[>.01, .16], above and beyond the other predictors, including pre-university frequency of contact, which also predicted better academic performance, R² = .04, 90% CI[.01, .17]. As reported in the appendix, the results persisted when, as an additional robustness check, socioeconomic status (SES) was added as predictor to the regression model.

Table 2.

Results of the Regression Model for Students’ First Year GPA.

Variable	B	SE	β	t	p	pr
(Constant)	70.50	1.89		37.35	.000
University (TY vs. TAU)	−2.44	4.65	−.06	−0.52	.602	−.06
University (Haifa vs. TAU)	6.79	4.089	.16	1.66	.101	.19
Gender	−3.07	1.36	−.20	−2.27	.027	−.25
Year beginning program	3.48	1.62	.21	2.15	.034	.24
Age	−11.05	1.69	−.58	−6.53	.000	−.61
Academic achievements PU	−0.03	1.55	−.01	−0.02	.983	−.01
Contact quality PU	−0.94	1.75	−.06	−0.54	.594	−.06
Contact frequency PU	3.89	1.65	.21	2.35	.021	.26
Negative perceptions of relations T1	−0.13	1.52	−.01	−0.08	.934	−.01
Contact quality T1	3.87	1.84	.24	2.11	.038	.24
Contact frequency T1	−1.84	1.64	−.11	−1.12	.268	−.13

Note. Gender was coded such that men = 0, women = 1. Model summary: R = .72, R² = .52, $R_{\mathrm{adj}}^2$ = .45, F(11,74) = 7.24, p < .001. TY = The Academic College of Tel Aviv–Yaffo; TAU = Tel Aviv University; PU = pre-university; T1 = Time 1.

Discussion

The results of Study 2 revealed that the quality of contact with Jewish students early in the academic year was positively associated with Arab students’ subsequent academic performance. This positive association persisted even when controlling for several demographic variables, preexisting perceptions of the intergroup relationship, pre-university academic achievements, and, importantly, pre-university contact with Jews. Interestingly, it was the quality, but not the frequency of contact with Jewish students that was associated with better academic performance. Possibly, frequent superficial contact with Jewish students does not impact outcomes that are most important for academic success, such as class participation, while high-quality contact does. Also, as explained earlier, due to their military service prior to university entrance, Jewish students are usually more experienced in dealing with bureaucratic systems than Arab students (Shaviv et al., 2013). High quality, rather than frequent superficial contact, might offer the opportunities for Jewish students to share their knowledge of bureaucratic structures and rules (e.g., awareness of the procedures for appealing exam scores or requesting an additional exam), which may ultimately improve students’ GPA.

Our predicted mediator, sense of academic belonging, however, was not associated with Arab students’ academic performance. This result is inconsistent with previous research that found that sense of belonging partially mediated the relationship between contact with Whites and Black students’ academic performance (Shook & Clay, 2012). However, these previous findings were somewhat weak statistically, as the observed mediation effect was only marginally significant, and sense of academic belonging was measured using only two (rather than 18) items. Moreover, both the present and previous studies were likely underpowered to reliably detect mediation (see Preacher et al.’s [2007] simulations). Thus, it might be premature to draw strong conclusions about the lack of association. Further investigations of the link between minority students’ sense of belonging and academic performance, in the Israeli and other contexts, are called for.

Notably, even if it does not lead to better academic performance, sense of belonging, a strong predictor of well-being (Williams, 2009), is an important psychological outcome in its own right. There is evidence that mitigating Black American students’ worries about belonging in college enabled them to connect to valuable resources in their environment (e.g., seeking and receiving mentorship from professors), which triggered an upward spiral of positive psychological outcomes such as subsequent career satisfaction (Brady et al., 2020).

Future investigations might also consider additional potential psychological mechanisms that could explain the association between contact and academic performance. First, it has been argued that contact with members of other groups may trigger more complex thinking, leading to better problem-solving skills and greater cognitive flexibility (Meleady et al., 2019). These could explain why contact that emerged through course participation was positively associated with academic performance for both Arabs and Jews in Study 1. However, that the association between course participation and academic performance observed in Study 1 was substantially larger for Arab than Jewish students, suggests that additional mechanisms were at play.

Another possibility might be changes in meta-stereotypes. Previous research involving Dutch Moroccan teenagers in the Netherlands (Kamans et al., 2009) found that they tended to act in line with their beliefs about how they were perceived by majority group members. Dutch Moroccan teenagers who thought that they were negatively stereotyped, expressed attitudes in line with this negative meta-stereotypes (e.g., legitimizing aggression and loitering). It is possible that positive contact with Jewish students reduced Arab students’ negative meta-stereotypes, leading them to believe that they are viewed by Jews as hard-working and competent (rather than lazy or incompetent). This change could reduce the self-debilitating tendency to align their behavior with these negative meta-stereotypes.

In terms of limitations, although Study 2’s longitudinal design provides better support for the proposed direction of causality from contact to academic performance than a cross-sectional correlational study, the problem of third variable causation cannot be ruled out. For example, it is possible that Arab students’ emotional intelligence (EI; the ability to understand and manage one’s own and others’ emotions, Colman, 2008) leads both to better academic success because people with high EI are skillful in navigating novel environments, and to having more pleasant interactions with Jews, because high EI associates with forming better relationships. Although previous studies on the relations between EI and academic performance have yield mixed results (see Brackett et al., 2011), we recommend future research to test the link between contact and academic performance while controlling for EI, and perhaps other relevant individual difference variables.

General Discussion

Two studies examined naturally occurring intergroup contact in the context of segregated school systems and where there is protracted and at times violent conflict and high levels of intergroup hostility. The results revealed that in this context, contact with majority group members was associated with greater academic success among minority group members. Study 1 showed that participation in a group dynamic course that offered opportunities for intimate contact with Jewish students was associated with higher bachelor’s degree GPA for Arab students attending a predominantly Jewish university. Moreover, this effect for Arab students persisted when controlling for pre-university academic achievements and the corresponding effect among Jews was substantially smaller.

Study 2, a longitudinal study, provided additional support for the association between quality of contact and academic performance. Higher quality contact with Jewish students early in the academic year was associated with higher GPA at the end of the year for Arab students. This association persisted when controlling for pre-university academic achievements, pre-university contact (which also associated with better performance), and preexisting perceptions of the intergroup relations. High-quality contact with Jewish students was also associated with subsequent greater sense of belonging which, unexpectedly, was not associated with better academic performance.

A major strength of the intergroup contact literature is that key hypotheses about the association between contact and prejudice or collective action have been tested across a wide range of contexts, illuminating both their generalizability and boundary conditions. However, research on the association between contact and minorities’ academic performance remains limited, focusing mainly on the United States and Western Europe. The present research offers an important extension to existing knowledge by documenting similar associations in a very different social context, where contact sometimes fuels rather than quells the conflict (Maoz et al., 2007).

In addition to the tests of our predictions, it is interesting to note that Study 2 revealed that Arab students’ pre-university contact with Jews was associated with the frequency and quality of contact they had at the university. This is consistent with previous findings that positive contact in one context increases openness for future contact in other contexts (Braddock & McPartland, 1989). Moreover, pre-university contact was associated with better first-year academic performance even when controlling for contact at university. These findings may have a special importance for countries where segregation is institutionalized in separate education systems. Separate education systems reduce opportunities for meaningful cross-group contact, which might lead not only to increased prejudice (Binder et al., 2009) but also to impaired academic performance of minority members when they later enter a university context dominated by the majority (see Massey & Fischer, 2006, for similar effects among minorities in the United States). This underscores the importance of contact opportunities both before and during the university studies.

Limitations, Future Directions, and Practical Implications

The present research was limited to samples of minority students in psychology. Compared with students in other disciplines, psychology students may place more value on interpersonal relations, making intergroup contact more meaningful for them. Future research should include students from a wider array of fields. Also, we examined only voluntary spontaneous contact. It is possible that implementing programs that make contact mandatory could lead to negative rather than positive cross-group contact or inspire reactance among some students, resulting in fundamentally different outcomes (Harwood, 2021). Indeed, the literature on intergroup contact has been criticized for being “non-policy ready” (see Paluck et al., 2021) because a considerable amount of research within this literature does not meet the methodological standards of randomized controlled trials. This criticism is also valid for the present research.

In addition, although their average perceptions of the relations between their ingroup and the Jewish outgroup were quite negative, ⁵ our participants were nevertheless Arab students who chose to study at a predominantly Jewish academic institution—rather than at a predominantly Arab institution, either in Israel or a neighboring country (e.g., the University of Jordan), or in a Jewish academic institution in which Arabs are the majority (e.g., Zefat College). Because the academic institutions examined in our research are known as selective, it is likely that students who were accepted into them would also have been accepted to these other institutions. Of course, Arab students are sometimes forced by the circumstances (e.g., location or cost considerations) to study in a predominantly Jewish academic institution. Thus, we do not assume that Arab students who study in predominantly Jewish institutions are necessarily interested in intergroup contact or accepting of majority hegemony. Nevertheless, studying in these institutions requires a readiness to tolerate a certain degree of contact and majority hegemony. The effects of contact in other, less tolerant samples might be different.

Finally, despite exhausting the available cohorts, the sample sizes were not very large, and Study 2 was underpowered. Both studies do allow a rather precise estimation of the population of Israeli Arab psychology students, as the samples are large relative to the size of this population. Nevertheless, inadequate power and sample size increase the risk of false positive and negative results (Giner-Sorolla et al., 2019), and statistical power is a critically important value in guiding current research practices (Lakens, 2021). Studying and including the experiences of diverse populations, however, is also critical to meaningful research (Hewer, 2015). Indeed, because minority group members are by definition harder to recruit, researchers may need to consider difficult tradeoffs between these two essential scientific values (Cortland et al., 2017). Over the past decade, there is a growing understanding that recruiting participants from underrepresented groups that are relatively hard-to-reach is essential for improving psychology as a science, as well as for making it more inclusive and representative of humanity as a whole (Henrich et al., 2010; Kahalon et al., 2022). Thus, while we recognize the limitations of smaller sample sizes, we see the contribution of the present research not only in terms of broadening our understanding of the effects of intergroup contact but also in terms of heeding the call for greater diversity in psychological science by including the experiences of diverse and smaller populations (Hruschka et al., 2018).

Relatedly, as mentioned in Study 1’s Discussion, there is often a trade-off between internal and ecological validity. Over the past five decades, our discipline has ascribed greater importance to internal over ecological validity (Doliński, 2018). The present research addresses the call of critiques (e.g., Cialdini, 2009) suggesting we reconsider these priorities, to make social psychological research more applicable and relevant to real-life social issues.

In terms of practical implications, our findings point to the potential benefits of creating opportunities for intergroup contact to reduce achievement gaps between minority and majority students even in highly segregated societies. Nevertheless, we must also consider previous findings that positive contact with the majority group members can reduce minorities’ support for social change toward equality (Hässler et al., 2020) and thus hinder social justice. Future research is needed to examine the connection between contact with majority students and a fuller range of outcomes for minority students, including ingroup identification, perceptions of intergroup inequality and injustice, and support for social change. Qualitative findings suggest that contact with Jewish students may strengthen, rather than erode, Arab students’ identification with their ingroup (Friedman, 2019). If so, perhaps improvements in minorities’ academic performance may not necessarily come at the expense of ingroup identification and support for social change. A direct, quantitative empirical test of this question is needed.

Conclusion

The present research heeds Dixon et al.’s (2005) call to study naturally occurring intergroup contact, instead of the idealized or relatively artificial forms of contact that are often used in social psychological research. For example, many studies have examined intergroup contact within educational interventions that implement equality of status between the groups; yet even when such conditions are successfully implemented, they tend to wane over time (Dixon et al., 2005). Other studies have examined imagined, rather than actual contact and focused on its short-term effects (see Paluck et al., 2021). By contrast, the present research examined real-life contact, as it happens in participants’ normal daily lives without external intervention and investigated its long-term effects on a societally relevant outcome.

Notably, we focused on minority students who enrolled in a predominantly majority academic institution and obviously wanted to succeed there. We believe that in addition to the importance of academic success for individual minority students, reducing group-based achievement gaps can foster social equality at a broad level. Minority students who perform well in majority-dominated academic institutions will enjoy more professional and economic opportunities and can serve as role models for younger students who choose to study in these institutions (Karunanayake & Nauta, 2004). This, in turn, may increase the representation of minorities in key positions of power where they can effectively promote social equality. To illustrate, an increase in the number of Israeli Arabs in health professions, such as medicine and clinical psychology, could serve as a route to reducing group-based disparities in physical and mental health (Popper-Giveon & Keshet, 2016). Identifying ways to improve the academic performance of minority students can allow them to fulfill their potential and hopefully benefit their group and society more broadly.