- 45% with closed attitudes towards foreigners;
- the 40% with an attitude of openness and acceptance;
- 20% are openly hostile, which is xenophobic and racist.
It follows that, among young Italians (range from 18 to 29 years) without prejudice and tolerant people are a minority.
In the search are then three distinct groups,
1. the "Roma-Albanian-Rumanian phobic", 15.3% of respondents, shows its intolerance especially to those cultures: the majority (56%) here are women;
2. behavior-oriented subjects with racism openly, 10.7% of young people, because he refuses and expresses annoyance at all, except Italians and Europeans.
3. the "xenophobic
for election" (ie choice), 20% of young respondents, or how many forms do not express of hatred so violent but nevertheless considers that the other ethnic groups should live outside of Italy.
The open attitude belongs only to 39.6% of the sample which can in turn be divided into:
a) "inclusive" (19.4%) with a total opening and serene to the different cultures (55.3% )
b) "tolerant" (14.7%);
c) "commencement lukewarm" (5.5%) or young anti-racists, but with more conservative forms and deductions, less interaction with foreigners and greater recognition reduced homosexuality.
the average position, finally, there are "mixofobici" (14.5%) do not support close but not its opposite, in fact living with a feeling of discomfort that keeps them away from the identity Italian.
Europeans, Americans and the Italians of the South are popular with young Italians. But most worrying is the sharp end against Sinti, Roma and Romanians (Europeans, but apparently considered by the children of series C). From research it appears finally that "The profile of the most extreme racism among young people describe a person who flaunts superiority and the continuing need for power. He openly homophobic attitudes, anti-Semitic impulses, a conviction of the inferiority of women. It does not accept any racial or ethnic other than their own. A profile covering the 10.7 per cent of young people. "The most worrying thing is that this 10.7% is a very strong minority, with a sense of community, cohesive, homogeneous and ideologically compact. Suffice it to say that on Facebook have been surveyed about 1,000 racist groups and xenophobia.
What is particularly striking that produce a sense of community is now the only ethnic resentment. A community is by definition closed, its members and makes consistent track clear boundaries between self and what is external to it, satisfying two needs important of human society, that of identity and to refer to a clear difference from the other by itself. The community, the group do, gives an 'air di famiglia", stabilizza sia dal punto di vista psichico che da quello sociale chi si sente "spaesato" di fronte ai flussi migratori e alle convivenze difficili che essi inevitabilmente generano.
Ci sarebbe poi da tornare su un altro grande tema indagato dalla psicologia sociale postbellica, ovvero se l'ostilità nei confronti dell'altro che manifestano i giovani italiani è propria della natura umana o è una costruzione sociale (cfr. Cotesta 2001, pp. 186-240). Se Adorno, nelle ricerche da lui coordinate sulla personalità autoritaria, aveva mostrato che alla base dell'ostilità nei confronti dell'altro vi è una componente di personalità (tratti autoritari della personalità) che una risocializzazione democratica potrebbe make better, Tajfel, in his study of categorization and stereotypes, believes that stereotypes are a powerful cognitive tool that helps reduce the complexity of the world, reducing the effort we make to interpret and decode it. It follows that stereotypes serve to give guidance to individuals in social relations are like a simplified guide for those who can not or will not strive to "remap the territory in which he lives and take action. Put simply, you know, you live better and Tajfel was aware of.
That young people tend to xenophobia and racism is then, following Tajfel, that they would always give up the effort to understand the world and thus also to transform in a different place, where it could be more beautiful to live.
Links and sources:
Observatory of the House on the phenomena of xenophobia and racism (WebTV)
Rassegna.it Site Information on work, politics and social Th.W. Adorno et al.: The Authoritarian Personality , tr. com. Milan 1997.
G. Allport, 1954: The nature of the injury , tr. com. Firenze 1976.
V. Cotesta, 2001: Sociology of ethnic conflict. Racism, immigration and multicultural society , Roma-Bari.
Mazzara BM, 1997: Stereotypes and prejudices , Bologna.
H. Tajfel, 1981: Groups human and social categories , tr. com. Bologna 1995.
