Social, Key Issue, How can knowledge of prejudice explain the Bradford Race Riots?

AO1 (Describe)

Over 10 years ago, Bradford witnessed riots that lasted over 3 days in which the large Asian community were at odds with the white community. One of the causes was the previous riots in 1995. Asian residents complained about a lack of opportunities and tensions with the police and white working class. They were ignored and 6 years later, tensions boiled over. Areas such as Manningham quickly turned into a battleground. Harsh sentences were given to the Asian offenders. The city realised they had slowly been becoming more segregated.  Both groups felt hatred and disgust at what the other group had done to their city. The BNP then gained council seats in the predominantly white areas and they encouraged the segregation. Lord Ousley's report laid out the drastic action that was needed to counteract the segregation. Today, the BNP is no longer in power, however there's much development that needs to happen, less job opportunities and schools are still segregated.

AO2 Relate to Prejudice and Discrimination

Both the Asian community and the white working class community held pre-judged ideas about the other group. This led them to have expectations on what individual members of the groups were like and led to discrimination through violence and the riots.

AO2 Relate to Social Identity Theory

Social Categorisation: Both the Asian community and the White working class communities categorised the other group into the in and out group (them and us) Social Identification: Each group would have adopted the ways and self-esteem of the group they belonged to. Social Comparison: Both groups bringing the other group down by attacking each other during the riots and saying it was the other group that had ruined their city. They felt hatred and disgust for each other. By bringing down the other group, it kept their own group's self-esteem up.

AO2 Relate to Realistic Conflict Theory

They were fighting over limited resources (lack of job opportunities and relations with the police)  The groups see the competition over resources as having a zero-sums fate, in which one group is the winner and the other loses. The Asian community believed they were getting less of the limited resources so feelings of resentment arose over this (disgust and hatred from one group to the other) They restored positive relations through the superordinate goal of focusing on new challenges such as lack of development in the city centre an fewer job opportunities after the area's financial services industry was hit by the economic downturn.