Multiculturalism in Australia: A Survey of Attitudes

Abstract

The assimilationist approach to Australia's large-scale immigration program since the Second World War has recently been replaced by a policy of multiculturalism. While it is clear that public policy may have accepted multiculturalism as the appropriate philosophy for contemporary Australia, there is evidence to suggest that much of the community has yet to agree. This study has been designed to investigate Australian-born respondents' attitudes toward the policy of multiculturalism. Specifically, the study focuses on two research questions: (1) what is the extent of support for the policy of multiculturalism and its underlying dimensions?, i.e., the belief that such a policy is in line with Australia's national interest, that the policy has benefitted Australian society, that it serves as a social justice strategy by providing a fair share of society's resources to all Australians, and that it will lead to social cohesion, and (2) what are the correlates of these attitudes? A total of 159 Australian-born respondents (89 males, 70 females) were surveyed. The results obtained indicated a discrepancy between support for the dimensions underlying multiculturalism and support for the policy itself. Specifically, the strong support for the underlying dimensions was not reflected in the moderate support for the overall policy. With regard to the correlates of these attitudes, the concept of ethnocentrism was found to be the only significant predictor, while none of the demographic variables (sex, age, education, and SES) was found to be significantly related to any of the multiculturalism variables. The implications of these findings for a policy of multiculturalism in Australia are discussed.

Multiculturalism: Construct validity and stability

“…However, many of these measurements consisted of one or only a few questions that were not intended to fully cover the concept of multiculturalism as a scale. For example, Ho (1990) asked Australian respondents five questions about the perceived consequences of and the level of support for a multicultural policy, but he analyzed the results for each question separately. In other instances, support for multiculturalism was operationalized as preferences with regard to minority acculturation strategies or the dimensions of culture maintenance and contact with the host society (see Zick, Wagner, Van Dick, & Petzel, 2001, for an overview of various studies in Germany).…”

Intercultural relations in Kabardino-Balkaria: Does integration always lead to subjective well-being?

“…A positive attitude toward multiculturalism has been found in Canada (Berry & Kalin, 1995) and New Zealand (Sibley & Ward, 2013). Neutral attitudes have been found in the Netherlands (Breugelmans & Van de Vijver, 2004), the United States (Citrin, Sears, Muste, & Wong, 2001), and Australia (Ho, 1990). A slightly negative attitude has been found in the United Kingdom and Spain (Van de Vijver, Breugelmans, & Schalk-Soekar, 2008).…”

The public view of immigrant integration: multidimensional and consensual. Evidence from survey experiments in the UK and the Netherlands

“…The existing research on attitudes towards multiculturalism finds that the economicbased theories do not contribute much to the public opinion on integration (Ho 1990), but we believe this is because most of this research presented a multiculturalist model for public evaluation -often in direct contrast with assimilation -and therefore did not explicitly tackle the socio-economic attainment dimensions of integration. In line with research on immigration attitudes, which puts particular weight on these dimensions, we will therefore expect that both the individuals' generalised economic attitudes and economic position will explain their preference for socio-economic dimensions of integration.…”

“…There also seems to be a linear understanding of assimilation in the eyes of the public: losing one's own ethnic culture and values is perceived as inevitable as one adopts those of the majority culture (Arends-Tóth and Van De Vijver 2003). Looking at studies conducted in various national contexts, the public perceives multicultural policy as a gateway to separate ethnic rather than common national loyalty, and these are mostly seen as mutually exclusive (Ho 1990;Zick et al 2001;Arends-Tóth and Van De Vijver 2003;Breugelmans, Seger, and Van De Vijver 2004). However, this linear and inevitable pathway towards assimilation may be an artefact: these studies usually present pre-defined options, rather than multi-dimensional and 'messy' combinations to choose from.…”

“…According to these theories, individuals perceiving high level of symbolic threat have negative attitudes towards members of the out-group (McLaren and Johnson 2007). Unsurprisingly, research on attitudes towards integration found that ethnocentric beliefs in particular explain the preference for cultural assimilation as a way of achieving integration and negative attitudes towards multiculturalism (Ho 1990;Zick et al 2001). However, since the support for cultural assimilation and the other dimensions of integration have not actually been compared, we can add to this body of literature by hypothesising that cultural ethnocentrism will explain the preference for cultural, but not the other, dimensions.…”