False beliefs drive xenophobia in South Africa - and education only helps up to a point

Abstract

In September 2019, a fresh spate of deadly xenophobic violence swept Gauteng, just months after the government launched a national action plan to combat xenophobia and other forms of discrimination. While dissatisfaction with service delivery is often said to drive xenophobia, a recent HSRC study failed to find evidence to support this assertion. Instead, intolerance was most strongly linked to false beliefs about migrants. In some ways, this appears a truism. But the finding also contains important insights for how intolerance might best be tackled.