Hate and Violence: Addressing Discrimination Based on Race, Ethnicity, Religion, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity

Social scientists have a potentially important role to play in combatting discrimination and hate-motivated aggression, as has been noted for over 50 years. Nonetheless, there is still relatively little research in this area, despite increasing recognition of discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics. One of the most important scientific trends in research on both discrimination and violence has been recognition of the intersectionality among many of these phenomena, including the intersection of characteristics that confer privilege or disadvantage, of different types of hate-motivated aggression, or among hate-motivated aggression and other forms of victimization. Much work still needs to be done to unpack the diverse sources and complex nature of prejudicial attitudes. In light of current events around the world, we are in urgent need of evidence-based approaches for prevention and intervention that focus both on individuals who commit hate-motivated aggression and those who are the targets of such behaviors. In this introduction to the special issue on hate and violence, we highlight key themes of a series of articles that advance our knowledge in this area. Given that they cover some, but not all, of the topics related to discrimination, we also present several recommendations for future research.