Monday, February 16, 2015

One in four Swiss residents has xenophobic attitudes...

In a series of face-to-face interviews conducted between 2010 and 2014, gfs.bern researchers probed the mind-set of Swiss citizens and foreign residents, looking for systematic and repeated expressions of xenophobia.

The overall trend of xenophobia showed a decline, from 30% harbouring negative opinions towards foreigners in 2010 to 24% in 2014. These were respondents who, for example, favoured a restrictive naturalisation policy and perceived foreigners as social welfare cheats.

Attitudes towards foreigners and other groups were measured in a variety of ways, such as how people felt about their neighbours, how freely they expressed their opinions in public, how they felt in the presence of “others” and what stereotypes or negative views they agreed with.

When it came to “being bothered” by the presence of people of other skin colours, religions, nationalities or languages in public, only 6% of respondents went this far.

The most dynamic results by far related to Muslims. The survey first measured anti-Muslim sentiment in the aftermath of a 2009 national vote to ban the construction of minarets. At that time (April 2010) 45% of respondents admitted to subscribing to negative stereotypes of Muslims. Full story...

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