Friday, March 25, 2011

Wrestling Ring Blow Up

Living Together: European Citizens Against Racism and Xenophobia. Discourses on immigration and ethnic minority young upper-middle class

Young people are another social group affected by politically correct speech. Have traditionally been tolerant and pro-immigration and ethnic minorities. But the social context of economic crisis is creating xenophobic discourse, as seen in Table 2. In the Netherlands, for example, GD2 was the only group in which immigrants criticized for taking advantage, supposedly, of the welfare state. However, other participants in this discussion group countered these criticisms by saying that immigrants come to benefit from the facilities of its welfare state, but looking for better job opportunities and a better future. In Spain, the GD2 was the discussion group which placed more emphasis on the negative impact of immigration on the labor market. He blamed immigrants for rising unemployment and declining wages for "working for less money" and it undermines the employment prospects for Indigenous job seekers. The same arguments were heard in Portugal and other countries. The term "Problem" was used often when young people talked about immigration. The economic crisis also gave this group a long time to debate, as seen in Table 2.

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both good and bad experiences with immigrants and other minorities affect their attitudes towards them. In Finland, have created an image of young people themselves tolerant and at the same time are aware of the contradictions in his own mind, which comes up in your contacts daily with immigrants. In the Netherlands, where the discussion focused on generalizations about the color of the skin, several participants noted that they (the younger generation) did not judge entire groups of immigrants for the (bad) behavior of some of them as did their parents and grandparents ("I think there is a huge difference between our generation and the previous generation. I think the older generation will make judgments based on that [the color] more easily. (...) Do not know how it happened, but I have the impression that we are more open about this issue. ") And in Portugal, although the first speech showed bias to personal relationships with people of other ethnic groups, most participants cited factors that hinder this possibility. Like the one hand stated that differences in cultural and religious phenotype were not important, but on the other hand they said that having a "culture" or different ethnicity made it difficult for people to find common ground on their interests and ways of being. In Sweden, each of the participants said they personally had no bias, but the society around you (the discourse of individual tolerance and Finland).

The "second generation" is mentioned repeatedly (in contrast to other GDs), probably because they had greater contact and closeness with the people who constitute the "second generation" (schools, universities, neighborhood ...). Were central themes of discussion: the economic crisis and employment prospects, the concentration of immigrants (or ethnic minorities), which do not favor the interaction with the locals, their barriers to integrate into working life by a lack of mastery of the language; their abuse of the welfare state and the rights of indigenous as opposed to foreigners. The complaint expressed by those most reluctant to Spain (for example) was that "immigrants have more rights The English "(reverse discrimination), and that" all aid going to them. " Unlike in the GD1, immigration was not considered "necessary" for economic development, but as harmful (unskilled labor to accept any job), and that only benefits employers. However, as in GD1, views contrary: "If the English really need to work, act as immigrants." There was a part of the GD more receptive to immigration than offset the above arguments with positive ones: our ancestors emigrated. Affirmative action plays social function of integration on the one hand there is also no problem of immigration (plurality of cultures and religions), the immigrants do not have to be blamed for the crisis.

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