A Study On The Social Distance Between Foreigners In China And Our Residents

With the global allocation and optimisation of labour,there has been a dramatic shift in the flow of people across borders.Globalised labour mobility is increasingly becoming the norm and international trade has become an important enabler of global financial,technological,cultural and social development.In China,rural-urban migrant workers have long received attention from the government and researchers for their unique contribution to society and their urban social integration dilemma.In fact,migrant workers are only one of the representative groups of China’s mobile population.The deepening of the "One Belt,One Road" and the building of a community of human destiny has attracted a large influx of foreigners into the country,and international trade has developed rapidly in response.The development of international trade and the migration of people across borders are of great importance to the economy,society and culture of China,and the study of foreigners in China has become an increasingly topical issue.However,foreigners in China are different from urban and rural migrants in that they tend to move further away,have greater linguistic and cultural differences,and have greater difficulties in social integration.The thesis explores the influence and mechanism of intergroup contact on the social distance between foreigners in China and Chinese residents from the perspective of foreigners in China and takes intergroup contact theory as the starting point.The research on the social distance between foreigners in China and Chinese residents reveals that the social distance between foreigners in China and Chinese residents from the perspective of the subject has the following characteristics: Firstly,the social distance between foreigners in China and Chinese residents is mainly medium distance,and the social distance between foreigners in China and Chinese residents is inconsistent in terms of overall attitudes and the distribution of attitudes in some latitudes.Among them,the indicator of willingness to intermarry is significantly lower.Secondly,the analysis of potential profiles reveals a divergence in the social distance between foreigners and Chinese residents in China.It divides into three main group types,namely the long-distance group,the medium-distance group and the near-distance group,with the medium-distance group and the near-distance group dominating overall at 56.4%,followed by the near-distance group at 31.1% and the long-distance group at 12.5%.In the study of the relationship between intergroup contact and social distance,the thesis attempts to further enrich the theory of intergroup contact according to the organisational characteristics of contact subjects.Under Brummer’s "stimulus-explanation-response" model,the hypothesis of organisational and non-organisational contact is developed.The study finds that both organisational and non-organisational contact in the place of immigration have a positive effect on the social distance between foreigners and Chinese residents in China,and that the effects and explanatory power of organisational and non-organisational contact on their social distance are not consistent.In the study of the mediating effect of language adaptation,we found that language adaptation exerts its economic and social benefits in the contact process and is an important mediating variable in the relationship between intergroup contact and social distance.However,the mediating effect of language adaptation varies significantly across pathways.In summary,this is reflected in the fact that organisational contact indirectly affects the social distance between foreigners in China and Chinese residents through language adaptation,and that the direct effect of organisational contact on social distance is no longer significant after the inclusion of the language adaptation variable.The inclusion of the language adaptation variable no longer has a significant direct effect on the social distance between foreigners and Chinese residents.Finally,the authors conclude the paper with a summary of the main findings and a reflection and summary of the main conclusions and research shortcomings of the paper.