Changes in Social Distance among Afrikaans-Speaking South Africans

Abstract

As the social distance attitudes of English-speaking South African students showed a shift toward closer social contact by respondents with various racial groups in the country (2), this study determined the social distance attitudes of some Afrikaans-speaking South Africans to see whether similar trends are evident among this secrion of the white population for Afrikaners have been shown to be more conservative than English-speaking South Africans ( 4 ) . Bogardus' social distance scale measuring attitudes toward blacks, Asians, coloreds, and whites was administered after the height of the 1976 riocs to 56 Afrikaans-speaking undergraduate students in sociology (19 male, 37 female; M age 20.1 yr.) at Potchefstroom University. Scoring ( 2 ) gave social contact-distance indices as follows: toward whites: 1.1 1 ( S D = .41), toward coloreds: 3.53 ( S D = 1.67), toward Asians: 3.55 (SD = 1.65), toward blacks: 3.92 (SD = 1.69). It is clear that whites occupy the highest place and blacks the lowest place in the ethnic preference hierarchy though differences among the last three groups are much smaller. By comparison with earlier results ( 2 ) the present sample appears to display greater social distance. However, by comparison with data (1) from a group of Afrikaans-speaking students in 1972, a shift toward closer social contact by the respondents seems evident. In that study the following social contact indices were obtained: toward Afrikaans-speaking whites: 1.06; toward English-speaking whites: 1.13; toward coloreds: 4.17; toward blacks: 4.42; toward Asians: 4.48. The authors believe that these recent riocs may have played a determining role in this shift in ethnic attitudes. In a study of social distance among the general Afrikaans-speaking population of Johannesburg, Lever ( 3 ) obtained the following social-distance indices: toward Englishspeaking South Africans: 1.45; toward Afrikaans-speaking South Africans: 1.16; toward coloreds: 5.23; toward blacks: 5.40; toward Asians: 5.71. Although it appears that English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking South African students have become more tolerant in their racial attitudes, it would be advisable to conduct research among all sections of the general white population to determine whether these shifts toward closer social contact are evident for all classes of white South Africans.