engleski

Attitudes towards multiculturalism and assimilationism among majority and minority adolescents in Serbia and Croatia

Multiculturalism and assimilationism as interethnic ideologies have important implications for integration processes of ethnic minorities and majorities in multiethnic societies. While assimilationism emphasizes that ethnic minorities should adapt and conform to the majority culture, multiculturalism supports ethnic diversity within the society by acknowledging and appreciating minority cultures. Recent research has shown that minorities generally hold more positive attitudes toward multiculturalism and less positive toward assimilationism compared to the majority. However, little is known about ideological attitudes when the same ethnic group holds different status (i. e. majority-minority status) in different countries. It could be predicted that the group status (and not ethnicity) per se is a key determinant of the attitudes towards multiculturalism and assimilationism. The goal of this study was to explore differences in attitudes toward interethnic ideologies among ethnic majority and minority adolescents in Serbia and Croatia. Specifically, we explored whether ethnic groups having different status in different countries (Serbs as the majority in Serbia and minority in Croatia, Croats as the majority in Croatia and minority in Serbia and Hungarians as the minority in both countries) differ in their attitudes toward multiculturalism and assimilationism. The participants were 1760 elementary and high school students who practice their schooling in their mother tongues in Serbia and Croatia. Results of univariate analyses of variance revealed significant differences in attitudes toward multiculturalism (F(2, 1683)=18.23, p<.01) and assimilationism (F(2, 1669)=74.62, p<.01) depending on both the country and the language of schooling. When minority (i.e. Serbs in Croatia and Croats in Serbia), members of the same ethnic group generally held more positive attitudes towards multiculturalism and less positive towards assimilationism than when majority (i.e. Serbs in Serbia and Croats in Croatia). The only exception were attitudes towards multiculturalism which did not differ in Croatian samples regardless of their majority or minority status. As expected, Hungarians, as a minority group in both countries, did not differ in their attitudes towards assimilationism. However, Hungarians from Croatia held more positive attitudes towards multiculturalism than those from Serbia. With only few exceptions, we corroborated expectations that minority group members endorse multiculturalism more favorable and assimilationism less favorable than members of majority groups within each country. The results will be discussed by highlighting group status, as well as contextual differences between the two countries.

multiculturalism attitudes, assimilationism attitudes, majority-minority differences

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