Negative Attitudes towards Immigrants: Explaining Factors in Germany, Switzerland, England, and Denmark

A major focus of the IEA Civic Education Study concerned attitudes of adolescents towards different aspects of social life. One of these aspects deals with the attitudes towards immigrants. There are four countries – Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and England – in which more than 10 percent of the students are likely to disagree or strongly disagree to all statements regarding the rights of immigrants. By means of data from samples of the four different countries it is shown that attitudes towards immigrants can be related, apart from gender, to several characteristics such as patriotism, trust in government-related institutions, classroom climate, civic knowledge, understanding for people with different ideas, the ability to cooperate with other students, and attitudes towards women’s rights. Data pertaining to more than 10,000 students have been analyzed using multilevel logistic regression approaches, demonstrating the differential impact of the predictors. Having learned in school to understand people with different ideas and to cooperate with others, civic knowledge and the classroom climate, as well as trust in institutions, attitudes towards ones own nation and towards women’s rights are factors which are very closely related to processes in school and education. The results of this analysis should, therefore, be of particular interest for all teachers, not only those in the named four countries.