Attitudes and prejudice towards immigration in rural and urban contexts in Spain

Abstract

Introduction: For years now, Spain has been a country that receives immigration wherein different cultures coexist. The aim of this research is to examine the levels of attitudes, subtle and blatant prejudice, as well as their dimensions, from native people to immigrant people in urban and rural areas. Methodology: The scale adapted to the native population by Rueda and Navas is from Meertens and Pettigrew’s scales of subtle and blatant prejudice and the scale of attitudes towards immigration by León, Mira & Gómez. Results: The results obtained from the prejudice scale (α=.804) and attitudes scale (α=.672) demonstrate an appropriate level of internal consistency. Results reveal that people living in rural areas did not exhibit higher levels of prejudice (subtle and blatant) than people living in urban areas. Discussion: Furthermore, people living in rural areas did not exhibit higher levels of attitudes (equality principles and policies attitude) than people living in urban areas. Conclusions: Finally, people living in rural areas did not exhibit higher levels of attitudes (negative social distancing attitude) than people living in urban areas. The results obtained are discussed, referring to the previous literature.