Attitudes of Finnish students towards immigrants
Keywords:
immigration, attitude, accultaration, FinlandAbstract
Traditionally Finland has been the losing party in migration. During the last hundred years about 600.000 Finns have emigrated permanently. Since the late 1980s the migration balance has been positive to Finland due to decreased emigration and increased migration, especially from the former Soviet Union area. The aim of the paper was to give answers to the following questions: What are the attitudes towards immigrants and demographic internationalism among the students in Finland? What are the main factors explaining the differences? How do the students fit into Berry’s acculturation model (his model consists of four acculturation groups: integrated, assimilated, segregated, and marginalized groups)? The material was collected in May 1994.The population of the study consisted of all the students who started their studies between 1990-1993 at the University of Turku. The sample was 300 and 187 students returned the questionnaire (62.3%). Using factor analysis and sum-variables four different attitude groups were created: ethnocen- trics (35%), hesitants (21%), egoists (13%), and globalists (31%). The results of the study indicated that Berry’s model is also useful when categorizing the attitudes of the people of the host country: more than 92% of the globalists had an integrative opinion about immigration. As few as 4% of the globalists were marginalists (against immigration), while the corresponding figure among ethnocen- trics was 14%.
