Integrating immigrant minorities: Developing a scale to measure majority members’ attitudes toward their own proactive efforts

Abstract

The present study is based on the premise that the integration of ethnic minorities may involve more than the majority's expression of tolerance. In order to promote inclusion, the majority may have to play a more active role in the integration process. We describe the development and validation of a new psychometric scale which assesses majority members' attitudes toward their own proactive contribution to the integration of immigrants within three domains: cultural and structural efforts, and openness to diversity. The scale is investigated by analyses of internal structure and exploration of construct validity in relation to relevant social psychological and personality constructs in a sample of 486 Norwegian university students (28% male, mean age = 26.5, SD = 6.08). Factor analyses supported a unidimensional structure and the estimated reliability of an additive scale was satisfactory (Cronbach's α = 0.91). The scale correlated negatively with measures of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation, and positively with global identity. It was weakly related to the personality traits agreeableness, intellect, extraversion, and conscientiousness. The potential utility of the scale in both applied and experimental social psychological studies are discussed.

Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric, Shifting Ideologies and the Criminalisation of the ‘Other’: An Analysis of Migrant Crime and Threat Discourse in the Norwegian Print Media From 2000 to 2014

“…Moreover, emotive and discriminatory language appeared as a consistent theme in both Aftenposten (broadsheet) and VG (tabloid) papers but appeared more evenly distributed across time periods for Verdens Gang (VG), when compared to Aftenposten (Ap), where it was more clustered in time period three. This theme has been found in 987 previous studies (e.g., Nafstad et al, 2009;Phelps et al, 2011;Wiggen, 2012;Bye et al, 2014) on similar subjects in Norway regarding discrimination and Muslims, and the current paper is no exception to this observation.…”

Global Human Identification and Citizenship: A Review of Psychological Studies

“…For his Masters Dissertation at the University of Oslo, Türken () developed a 10‐item Global Identity Scale, with five pro‐trait (“I consider myself more as a citizen of the world than a citizen of some nation”) and five con‐trait items (“One should first care about his or her nation, then others”). Phelps, Eilertsen, Türken, and Ommundsen () found for a large sample of Norwegian university students that the Global Identity Scale correlated with −.41 with right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA; Altemeyer, ), −.42 with the social dominance orientation (SDO; Sidanius & Pratto, ), but .59 with the desire to welcome and integrate immigrants into Norwegian society. Türken and Rudmin () reported that, for large samples of Norwegian, Turkish, and U.S. students, the Global Identity Scale correlated from .22 to .39 with the sum of six cosmopolitan behaviors (e.g., reading international news) and from .13 to .26 with the number of languages spoken.…”

The vicious circle of religious prejudice: Islamophobia makes the acculturation attitudes of majority and minority members clash

“…The results of the present studies demonstrate that religious prejudice held by majority members and experienced by minority members may increase this gap: The greater the fear of Islam, the greater the demand that minorities assimilate—the greater the perceived islamophobia, the greater the separation of minorities and the greater the fear of them (Figure ). This points to the responsibility of majority members for the integration of minority members and the societal climate in general (Kunst et al, ; Phelps et al, ). Instead of labeling Muslims as a societal group that islamizises society or refuses to integrate owing to cultural or religious characteristics, public discourse might fruitfully engage with the underlying mechanisms that further such tendencies.…”

“…Societal majority members hold not only general evaluations and emotions towards cultural minorities but also specific expectations about how these minority members should relate to their own culture and the culture of the dominant, national society. Although these “acculturation expectations” were part of the well‐known acculturation framework of John W. Berry already in 1974 (Berry, ), only in recent decades have researchers become particularly interested in majority members' acculturation attitudes towards their minority counterparts (e.g., Bourhis et al, ; Kunst, Thomsen, Sam, & Berry, ; Phelps, Eilertsen, Türken, & Ommundsen, ; Van Oudenhoven, Prins, & Buunk, ).…”

“…have researchers become particularly interested in majority members' acculturation attitudes towards their minority counterparts (e.g., Bourhis et al, 1997;Kunst, Thomsen, Sam, & Berry, 2015;Phelps, Eilertsen, Türken, & Ommundsen, 2011;Van Oudenhoven, Prins, & Buunk, 1998).…”