Mobilisant un sondage avec un devis expérimental, cet article cherche à comprendre l'effet que peuvent avoir les heuristiques numériques d'acceptabilité sociale sur la capacité de convaincre. L'expérience expose les répondants à un article de nouvelle sur les réfugiés syriens et irakiens et, selon le traitement, à un fil de discussion comprenant différentes heuristiques numériques d'acceptabilité sociale. L’étude démontre que la présence d'un fil de discussion modifie l'effet à court terme que peut avoir l'article d'actualité initial et démontre également et surtout la façon dont les heuristiques numériques d'acceptabilité sociale ont un effet d'amplification sur la capacité de convaincre et les émotions évoquées par les commentaires. Chaque unité d'heuristique ou chaque recommandation n'augmente pas nécessairement d'autant le pouvoir de convaincre des commentaires associés et, pour les commentaires que les individus ne sont pas prédisposés à appuyer, servent plutôt à consolider les attitudes préexistantes et à polariser.

Forty per cent of Europeans refuse to have Roma as their neighbours, while 80 per cent of these do not even have direct contact with them. Using these statistics as a point of departure, this study analyzes how attitudes toward Roma are constructed. It proposes to investigate this process in two similar environments but where local integration policies directed toward Roma differ, resulting in disparate forms of intergroup contact. The analysis is premised on two theoretical assumptions: that the integration of migrants is a local public policy issue and that intergroup contact frames attitudes between majority and minority groups. From semi-structured interviews in the French municipalities of La Courneuve and Ivry-sur-Seine, four theories are empirically tested: the contact theory, the halo effect, the impact of local immigrant integration policies and media influence. This study demonstrates that the implementation of municipal policies in favour of Roma integration can improve their living conditions and thus deconstruct prejudices attributable to their precarious situation. In addition, it illustrates how the media activate, maintain or solidify the way Roma are perceived.

Cultural theory (CT) has been widely used to explain variations in risk perception but has rarely been tested in Canada. This contribution represents the most thorough attempt to adapt CT to the Canadian context. Study results suggest that respondents’ commitment to egalitarianism was strongly correlated with risks from technology, while respondents’ commitment to hierarchism was strongly correlated with risks from criminal or unsafe behaviours. Respondents’ commitment to individualism was also correlated with risks from criminal and unsafe behaviours but differed from hierarchism in that individualism was not correlated with risk perceptions from prostitution and marijuana use. Respondents’ commitments to fatalism were strongly correlated with risk perception of vaccines. These conclusions are reinforced by results from a survey question that tests the extent to which such cultural predispositions map onto the myths of nature hypothesized by CT and by a survey experiment that tests how cultural commitments predict perceived risks from a controversial pipeline.

The political underrepresentation of women and racial minorities in Canadian politics is well documented. One political arena that has yet to be examined in this respect, however, is school boards. Using data from a candidate survey conducted during the course of the 2018 Ontario school board elections, as well as demographic data collected on the entire population of school board candidates, we explore the unique characteristics of school board elections. The research note begins by describing the gender and racial composition of candidates and trustees in Canada's most populous province. It then considers the ways in which school board elections may serve as a launchpad to higher office for either of these two traditionally underrepresented groups, as we explore the features of progressive political ambition, recruitment into school board campaigns and the relative electoral success of racialized candidates and women in this local office. While women do very well in school board elections, they are significantly less likely than their male counterparts to have the desire to move up to provincial or federal politics. Meanwhile, racialized candidates contest school board election in significant numbers and report similar levels of progressive ambition relative to their white counterparts, but they fare exceptionally poorly in school board elections.