engleski

Social identities and attitudes towards assimilationism and multiculturalism in four multiethnic communities

Relations between the ethnic majority and minorities in Croatia have been developing under the influence of different circumstances. Hence we expect different social contexts to shape social identities of the majority and the minorities in different ways. The relationship between social identities and attitudes towards multicultur - alism and assimilationism, which determine the majority-minority relations, is particularly important. Therefore, we compared the importance of different social identities of the majority and the minority group in four multi-ethnic communities, where minorities exercise their right to education in their respective mother tongues (Croats, Serbs in Vukovar, Hungarians in Baranja, Italians in Istria and Czechs in Daruvar). In addition, we were interested in differences in attitudes towards multiculturalism and assimilation with respect to the status of the group and the region. We also wanted to investigate the relation between ideological attitudes and the importance of social identities. The data was collected from 745 primary and secondary school stu - dents, members of minorities and the majority, aged 12 to 19. The results show that the importance of specific social categories varies across regions and largely depends on the majority-minority group status. We found different patterns of relations between salience of specific social identities and the two ideological orientations, multiculturalism and assimilationism, depending on the region and group status. With an exception of Daruvar, among majority group members, ethnonationalism, rather than ethnic identity, was related to multiculturalism and assimilationism. Among minorities, these relations are considerably weaker and region dependent.

multiculturalism, assimilationism, multi-ethnic communities, social identities

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