Inaugural Jowell-Kaase prize winner announced

Dr. Carolin Rapp was awarded the inaugural Jowell-Kaase Early Career Researcher Prize for her paper on racial prejudice during the 3rd International ESS Conference.

'Is It All the Same? Forms of Racial Prejudice, their Origins and Consequences reconsidered' used the most recent wave of the ESS to suggest and validate a new measurement tool to analyze racial prejudice in a more sophisticated way than has ever been done before.

The post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Bern, Switzerland, won the prize - of €1,000 - despite strong competition from a number of other entries, submitted on a wide range of topics and disciplines.

Dr. Rapp’s paper distinguishes between four dimensions of racial prejudice using data from 20 European countries involved in Round 7 of the survey.

'Is It All the Same? Forms of Racial Prejudice, their Origins and Consequences reconsidered' shows how the origins and consequences of these different types of racist attitudes may vary.

The Jowell-Kaase Early Career Researcher Prize is given to a doctoral student or a researcher within three years of receiving their PhD, and is intended to recognize excellence in the field of comparative social research.

It was awarded to Dr. Rapp for the first time at the 3rd International ESS Conference that was held at the University of Lausanne from 13-15 July.

A unanimous decision was made by the scientific committee of the conference, consisting of Piet Bracke, Sarah Butt, Peter Farago, Peter Grand, Nicolas Sauger, Angelika Scheuer and Michèle Ernst Stähli.

Peter Farago, Director of FORS (Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences) and ESS General Assembly representative, said:

“The paper is not only theoretically well founded and empirically solid. It addresses a scientifically and politically relevant topic in an innovative way and makes full use of the rich ESS data on attitudes to immigration.

“In proposing a new and more nuanced way to explore the complex topic of racial prejudice, this paper has the potential to make a valuable contribution to social science, stimulating debate and prompting future research on this important issue.”

The Jowell-Kaase Early Career Researcher Prize is named after Professor Sir Roger Jowell and Professor Max Kaase, founders of the European Social Survey.