Generalised ethnocentrism among high-school students in a multicultural setting: the role of the degree of multilingualism

ABSTRACT

Within psychological consequences of multiculturalism, it is often emphasised that multiculturalism and interculturalism decreases ethnocentrism, and increases openness towards other cultures, and, consequently, ethnic, linguistic and religious tolerance. We tested this empirically poorly supported assumption on high-school students from South Bačka District in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, in northern Serbia, a multicultural setting. In this research, languages are treated as the most important carriers of culture, and it is assumed that the degree of multilingualism could be associated with the level of generalised ethnocentrism. Subjects (N = 354, mean age 18.3 years) were divided into a group with lower, and a group with higher degree of multilingualism based on the self-assessment of their language skills in the languages learned in school or acquired and used in their environment, and they filled in the Generalized Ethnocentrism Scale. The group with higher degree of multilingualism showed lower level of ethnocentrism. The difference between the groups is of medium intensity. Higher openness is more prominent in female participants and students that have better average school grades.

KEYWORDS:

• Multiculturalism
• multilingualism
• ethnocentrism
• openness to other cultures

Acknowledgment

Data collection was organized by graduate psychologist Bojana Bogdanović, to whom we express our special gratitude.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Lajos Göncz http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7834-1014