Student Attitudes Towards Migrants in the Pre-Covid-19 Period

Abstract

There is no doubt that prior to Covid-19 outbreak the issue of migration had been one of the top priorities across the European Union, especially after so-called ‘’refugee crisis’’ of 2015-2017. However, the situation rapidly changed since Covid-19 outbreak, when migration has fallen off the radar as a political issue. The aim of this paper is to analyse students' attitudes towards migrants, in the period before COVID-19, and our initial thesis is that the fact that attitudes towards migrants are rooted in individual values and when established can be resistant to change. The paper consists of three parts. In the first part of the paper, we give an overview of available reports on the impact of Covid-19 to public attitudes towards migrants. Although is too early to make some general conclusions about it, the surveys made so far show that external factors, such as Covid-19, does not make important changes to public attitudes towards migrants. Having this in mind, in the second part of the paper we present the results of our research which was developed as a part of the project ''Creating Welcoming Communities'' of the Association ''MI''. The purpose of this research was to identify the attitudes of students of the Faculty of Law Osijek for the acceptance and integration of migrant into society. The target group of survey participants covered by the research was defined so as to include students of different levels (Intergrated Undergraduate and Graduate Study Programme, Professional Administrative Study Programme, University Undergraduate Study of Social Work) and the sample of students included 300 persons. Finally, in the third part of the paper we give a synthesis of our research and a review of the topic from the perspective of human rights and social work in the community.