Education and Racism by Louk Hagendoorn Shervin Nekuee

Author:Louk Hagendoorn, Shervin Nekuee [Louk Hagendoorn, Shervin Nekuee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, General, Education
ISBN: 9781138312630
Google: xhv0ygEACAAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 40981185
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1999-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

The demography of racial prejudice

A stream of research has focused on individual correlates of racial prejudice in attitude surveys rather than on explaining the phenomenon. The main thrust of empirical research has been to determine who expresses negative attitudes against racial minorities. The results of these studies are generally consistent.

Recent research has focused on the differences in the expression of racial prejudice between eastern and western Germany. Most studies have found a higher degree of racial prejudice in the eastern than in the western part of Germany. According to mainstream interpretations, these regional differences are the result of the poor economic climate and the high degree of anomie caused by the political revolution in the former East Germany.

In early research, Stouffer (1955) suggested that urbanism effects political tolerance and racial prejudice. According to Stouffer the diversity and heterogeneity of urban life induce heightened tolerance among city dwellers. The concentration of people with heterogeneous backgrounds and characteristics in urban areas leads, it is argued, to multiple secondary associations with others of divergent attitudes. Country dwellers, on the other hand, are more homogeneous in terms of background and characteristics, and are more engaged in relationships with others of similar values. Although the right wing parties gained a remarkable percentage of the electorate in cities like Berlin, Frankfurt, Bremerhaven, and, recently, Hamburg, in general, surveys have confirmed Stouffer's early hypothesis (see, Falter, 1994). The role of gender has been far more important than urbanism in the German debate on racial attitudes and right wing extremism. While some have argued that racial prejudice is essentially a characteristic of men, others have observed only slight or no differences between men and women (Falter, 1994; Heitmeyer, 1987; Heß, 1996).

As mentioned, several post-1945 studies on anti-Semitism have revealed a decrease in expressed negative attitudes against Jews. Explanations of this improvement focus on two demographic variables: education and age. Surveys have consistently shown that political tolerance has increased, especially amongst more highly educated young people. In part, older people revealed value priorities reflecting their socialisation in Weimar and Nazi Germany. According to existing literature dealing with attitudes towards minorities, education is one of the most important factors explaining racial prejudice (Bergmann & Erb, 1991; Weil, 1985). Due to increased rates of participation in higher education, it has been assumed that more tolerant people will in time, replace the older more intolerant people.

In addition, recent research on racial prejudice and right wing extremism has drawn attention to socio-economic background and occupation, both of which are related with education (Eckert, Willems & Wurtz, 1996; Krauth & Porst, 1984; Winkler, 1996). To the best of my knowledge, all surveys undertaken in the last decade have found that individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds express higher levels of racial prejudice. Thus, I predict that people from lower socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to express prejudice against racial minorities than those from higher socio-economic backgrounds.

The mean scores by prejudice by region, urbanism, gender, age, occupation, prestige of occupation, education and the percentage of foreigners are displayed in Table 6.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.