Attitudes Toward Multiculturalism and Assimilation and Contact with Members of Outgroup

Abstract

Multicultural societies face the challenge of advancing intergroup relations. The group status in the society determines the presence of attitudes as well as mutual intergroup relations. The outgroup contact is one of the opportunities that assists the advancement of relations in the society.The goal of this study is to examine the differences of attitudes toward multiculturalism and assimilation in the majority and minority groups, and to which level we can predict the attitudes toward multiculturalism and assimilation based on the ethnic identity and contact with outgroup members. In this esearch, 361 youngsters are included. They are eighth and ninth grade students from five elementary schools in the city of Tetova, R. Macedonia. Of them, 166 study in Macedonian language, 195 in Albanian. To see the difference between the majority and minority group regarding the multicultural and assimilation attitude, t-test was used; for the prediction of intergroup attitudes, we used regressive analysis. The findings show that the minority group favors more multiculturalism while the majority group favors assimilation. As strong predictors of intergroup attitude, except ethnic identity, ethnic identification and outgroup contact appear as well. In order to advance the intergroup attitudes and relations as well as develop a multicultural society, the presence of outgroup members contact is important.