National identity and ethnic prejudice in a Turkish sample

Abstract

The study was carried out to investigate Turkish university students' stereotypes of and attitudes toward ten ethnic groups living in urban Turkey. Within the framework of Social Identity Theory (Tajfel, 1982), it was hypothesized that the degree of students' identification with their national and/or religious in-group would have an impact on their attitude toward ethnic minorities. It was also hypothesized that prejudicial attitudes would decline as interethnic contact and socio-economic status of the respondents increased. A modified version of Bogardus' (1928) Social Distance Scale was used to measure ethnic prejudice, and Katz & Braly's ( 1933) Adjective Checklist was used to identify each group's stereotypes. The results demonstrated that both national and religious identities were highly correlated, and that both identifications predicted the degree of social distance toward the out-groups, religious identity being a stronger predictor. As expected, social distance toward all groups was found to decrease as interethnic contact increased. Although there was a tendency for prejudice to decrease as socio-economic status increased, the homogeneous character of the sample in terms of SES limited the generalizability of the findings. An unexpected implication of the findings was the tendency among university students for prejudice toward some groups to be related more to perceived social class of the groups than to ethnicity per se. The results were discussed with reference to social, political, and historical background of relations with each group.