“It’s Their Responsibility, Not Ours”

Abstract

Abstract. In many countries, there is a gap in academic performance between native-born students and students with certain immigrant backgrounds. Based on ultimate attribution error theory, we examined the stereotypes and causal attributions that German student teachers use to account for immigrants’ underperformance. By including both Turkish-origin and Italian-origin migrants, we assessed whether these judgments are group-specific. A pilot study (N = 70) showed that Turkish-origin migrants were viewed more negatively than either Germans or Italian-origin migrants. Studies 1 (N = 65) and 2 (N = 54) showed that negative stereotypes moderated judgments of internal responsibility for both immigrant groups. Study 2 also showed that negative stereotypes moderated external attributions for the underperformance of Turkish-origin, but not Italian-origin, migrants.