‘Truly being a New Zealander’: ascriptive versus civic views of national identity

ABSTRACT

This article explores the relative strength of public support for ascriptive and civic aspects of national identity to assess the boundaries of ‘inclusion’ or ‘exclusion’ within New Zealand’s national imaginary. Data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) module on citizenship in 2015 provide a unique window into public understandings of what characteristics are associated with ‘truly being a New Zealander’ in the 21st century. Although New Zealanders have relatively inclusive attitudes overall, those with low education and those who sit on the political Right or vote New Zealand First were more likely to relate to ascriptive views, while female and Māori respondents were more likely to associate with civic notions of New Zealandness. Older respondents were more likely to associate with both ascriptive and civic views about truly being a New Zealander. The implications of such findings for social cohesion and belonging will be of interest to both policy-makers and national identity theorists.

KEYWORDS:

• National identity
• attitudes
• New Zealand
• ascriptive
• civic

Acknowledgements

The International Social Survey Programme citizenship module data upon which this article was based was funded through the New Zealand European Centres Network, as well as University of Auckland’s Business School, Faculty of Arts Summer Scholarship programme and Centre of Methods and Policy Application in the Social Sciences. The survey was run by Peter Boxall, Louise Humpage, Kate McMillan, Barry Milne and Martin von Randow. Louise Humpage wishes to thank Clark Tipene, who conducted early statistical analyses, and Barry Milne for sharing his technical expertise.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Term commonly used to refer to white New Zealanders, usually of European descent.

2. 2003 data sourced from Gendall and Wood (2004). A different number of options were available and this may affect comparability.

3. This is because χ² is an indicator of exact fit: one’s test is either significant (the model does not fit) or not (the model does fit) and because we have sample sizes over 200 χ² will always be significant (Barrett 2007). Due to this limitation we additionally present indicators of relative fit: The TLI, CFI, and RMSEA. Standard guidelines or ‘rules-of-thumb’ generally recommend that an RMSEA of less than .08 indicates acceptable model fit. While we are over this value, Hu and Bentler (1999) propose that CFI and TLI should be greater than .95, but a CFI and TLI greater than .90 may also indicate a reasonable model. See Barrett (2007) and Hu and Bentler (1999).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Centre of Methods and Policy Application in the Social Sciences [N/A]; New Zealand European Centres Network [N/A]; University of Auckland’s Business School [N/A]; Faculty of Arts Summer Scholarship programme [N/A].

Notes on contributors

Louise Humpage

Louise Humpage is an associate professor in Sociology at the University of Auckland. Her research interests include indigenous affairs policy, social policy and welfare reform, refugee policy and adaptation, citizenship and national identity.

Lara Greaves

Lara Greaves (Ngāti Kurī, Te Āti Awa, Ngāpuhi) is a Ph.D. student in the School of Psychology working with the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS) and currently works part time with the Centre of Methods and Policy Application in the Social Sciences. Lara’s research focuses on statistically modelling longitudinal change in Māori identity, health and wellbeing, and voting behaviour and political attitudes.