Understanding multicultural attitudes: The role of group status, identification, friendships, and justifying ideologies

Abstract

Questions of multiculturalism and the management of cultural diversity are much debated in many countries. The present research aims to further the understanding of people's attitude toward multiculturalism by examining ethnic majority and minority group adolescents in the Netherlands. In two studies, the endorsement of multiculturalism was examined in relation to ingroup identification, perceived structural discrimination, outgroup friendships (Studies 1 and 2) and the ideological notions, communalism and individualism (Study 2). The ethnic minority group participants were found to be much more in favor of multiculturalism than the majority group. Furthermore, ingroup identification, perceived discrimination, outgroup friendships, and the two ideological notions appeared to be related independently to multiculturalism. However, high ethnic identification was related to lower endorsement of multiculturalism among the majority group and to higher endorsement of multiculturalism among the minority group. In addition, outgroup friendships only had a positive effect on multiculturalism for the majority group. The effects for perceived structural discrimination and communalism were positive and similar for both groups of participants. Individualism had a negative effect on multiculturalism for both groups.