[ Veranstaltungen | Events ]

Although a heavily stereotyped group themselves, historians have so far made little use of social stereotypes as an analytical category. While there are numerous books on racial and ethnic, national, religious, and gender stereotypes in history, social stereotypes have been mostly ignored. While there is no lack of theoretical work on this subject by social psychologists, many historians prefer to talk about "images", "clichés", "figures", or "types" when dealing with widely held beliefs about certain social groups.
To examine why historians have not made more use of social stereotypes as an analytical category, the German Historical Institute London organized an international, interdisciplinary conference on this topic, bringing together social psychologists and historians from different countries and different fields of expertise.