Secularism, intercultural openness, and reasonable accommodation: the perspectives of francophones and anglophones living in south-eastern Quebec

Abstract

Some studies suggest that religion is becoming a salient marker of immigrant identity. The protective impulse by western democracies to defend secularism can thus act as a barrier to immigrant integration. Given its legislative stance on secularism, Quebec affords a unique opportunity to study the interplay of attitudes and political culture on host community openness to cultural diversity. Surveying 395 south-eastern Quebec mother-tongue French and English participants, we found that though the former deemed ethnic and religious targets as more open to close social contact than the latter, they were less accommodating of diversity. Their perceptions of religious target openness overshadowed their views of ethnic targets, thereby registering less accommodating attitudes while confirming their perception of religion as a salient marker of immigrant diversity. Contextualizing a social-psychological analysis of attitudes toward immigration seems relevant when seen through two linguistic groups differently related to the historical unfolding of modern Quebec.