Regional differences in attitudes towards international migration by secondary school students and their determinants

Abstract

In recent years Czech public discourse has been highlighting the belief that there are profound and ever-deepening cleavages within Czech society that also have a significant geographic dimension. One of the issues on which public opinion differs greatly in different regions is the perception of migrants and migration in general. The aim of this paper is therefore to evaluate the extent to which this perception indeed differs across regions, and what factors can explain the variation. For this purpose, a questionnaire survey was fielded among secondary-school students in three Czech cities, which proved the existence of significant regional differences in attitudes towards migration. However, these differences greatly depend on how the attitudes are measured-by far the most pronounced differences are found in the attitudes towards the refugees and immigrant groups associated with the recent wave of refugees, attitudes towards whom were three times more negative among students in the Zlín region than among students in Prague. These differences can only partly be explained by the different characteristics of the regions and students. By contrast, friendly contact with foreign nationals seems to be the most vital explanatory variable. The article also presents a model that illustrates the possible process by which individual factors may shape students' attitudes towards migration.