engleski

ON BEING MAJORITY OR MINORITY: MULTICULTURALISM, ASSIMILATIONISM AND IDENTITY IN CROATIA AND SERBIA

Cultural diversity policies have different effects on majority and minority group relations. While multiculturalism emphasizes appreciation of cultural differences, assimilationism promotes the adoption of majority culture. Hence, majorities usually endorse assimilationism more strongly, while minorities are more supportive of multiculturalism. Support for these diversity policies depends on ethnic identification and perceived outgroup threat. The more majorities identify with their ingroup and the more threat they perceive, the more likely they are to endorse assimilationism and less likely to endorse multiculturalism. The opposite can be expected for minorities. Group identity lens model (GILM) suggests that ethnic identification is an antecedent of perceived threat which then leads to the support of cultural diversity policies. The goal of this study was to test assumptions of the GILM of majority and minority groups in Croatia and Serbia and compare their attitudes towards multiculturalism and assimilationism. The study was conducted in two countries where the same ethnic group is the majority in one country (Croats in Croatia and Serbs in Serbia) but the minority in the other. In both countries Hungarians are the minority group. In total, 1367 Croatian, Serbian and Hungarian students from Croatia and Serbia completed the questionnaire. Results suggest that the same ethnic group when in majority position had less positive multiculturalism and more positive assimilationist attitudes than when in minority position. There is no difference between Hungarians who are minority group in both countries. GILM was partially supported only in Croatia, so we found that group status moderated the indirect effect of ethnic identification on multiculturalism attitudes via symbolic threat in expected directions. Also, the group status moderated the indirect effect of ethnic identification on assimilationist attitudes via symbolic threat with positive effect only for majority. However, group status did not moderate direct effect of ethnic identification neither on multiculturalism nor on assimilationism. Unlike Croatia, in Serbia we did not find evidence for moderated mediation. Group status moderated direct effect of ethnic identification only on multiculturalism with positive effect for minority and non-significant for majority. The partial confirmation of GILM highlights the importance of national context in understanding the majority-minority intergroup dynamic.

multiculturalism, assimilationism, group identity lens model, majority-minority ethnic groups

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