Discrimination in a multiethnic environment: The importance of intergroup contact, social distance and ethnic identity

Abstract

Education of ethnic minorities in Serbia (and not only here) is often connected to the question of whether ethnic minorities should be educated only in their native language, and, even more importantly, for the field of intergroup relations, and whether this education should be integrated into the mainstream education and in which way. The Serbian educational system offers only two options to ethnic minorities: education fully in Serbian or education fully in their own language. In some regions, even the schools themselves are separated, so the children have even less contact with the out-group. This paper deals with the issue of the importance of intergroup contact, social distance and ethnic identity when it comes to discrimination of the out-group. The sample consisted of 795 children, aged 14 to 19, from Vojvodina. Out of them, 371 were Serbs, 240 Hungarians and 184 Slovaks. The instruments used included the Ethnic Identity scale (measuring ethnic pride and belief in ethnic superiority), the Social Distance scale and the scale measuring a tendency for discrimination in children's everyday lives. We also measured the frequency of contact with the outgroup. The results show that the regression model was significant (F(5,758)=77,29; p<.001; R²=0,33) and that all of the predictors were significant: social distance (b=.33; p<.001), frequency of contact with the out-group (b=-.24; p<.001), belief in ethnic superiority (b=.19; p<.001) and ethnic pride (b=-.11; p<.05). The findings indicate that, in schools that educate children in minority languages, the tendency for discrimination is largely determined by the negative attitudes towards other ethnic groups, but also by a stronger attachment to one's own group, both in the minority and majority groups.