This project aims to give to the researcher different opportunities: the first one is to develop further the main results coming out from her previous research projects and apply them into a distinct issue, that of openness and closure of societies towards different communities. The second is to improve knowledge and expertise of the researcher, by training her in a different methodology. The researcher will thus be able to apply this methodology to her new research project. Finally this project will consent to her to bear fruit of her previous experience into the international academic environment and therefore to get further into it, through the IBEI’s worldwide connections. The core of the research project consists in the development of a previous researches result - the formulation of a functioning model of the process of identity construction - which she will use to analyse the effects of inter-ethnic relations in two different European contexts. This model illustrates how openness and closure of societies depends on a complex situation which is resulting from reactions of individuals and groups to a negotiation among social, personal and collective identities within the process of identity construction. Through the use of this model, the researcher will explore the elements that influence the perception of the “others”, and which make local communities distinguish immigrants into different categories. The researcher will analyse the interaction amongst different cultures, as well as elements which facilitate and those which obstruct relations with diverse communities. The project will have four phases: in the first the researcher will build the theoretical basis of the research, in the second she will analyse the two case-studies (one in Spain and one in Austria); in the third she will be trained in a new methodology (frame analysis); in the fourth she will apply frame analysis to her research project and in the final phase she will write the results.