Abstract
Certain migrant groups are received negatively by their host countries compared to others. This may be because feelings of social distance influence sentiments towards certain migrant groups. In addition to feelings of social distance, colonial history and incompatible cultural values may be contributing to these feelings amongst Swedish politicians. To examine how social distance influences Swedish politicians’ responses to immigrant groups, I compiled research on over 130 Swedish news articles to determine how the social psychological theory of social distance changes depending on the culture of migrants’ country of origin. As expected, Swedish politicians have increasing feelings of social distance towards non-European and Muslim migrant groups and have lower feelings of social distance towards European migrants. The Muslim identity had the largest impact on shaping politicians’ feelings of social distance and influenced their opinions on these migrants.
Type of Work
Thesis - Limited Access
Department or Program
Sociology
Institution
Hamilton College
Degree
Bachelor of Arts
Date of Graduation
5-2023
Faculty Advisor
Jamie Kucinskas
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Citation Information
Corporan, Melissa '23, "The ‘People’s Home’ for who?: How Social Distance Influence Swedish Politicians’ Views on Immigrant Groups" (2023). Hamilton Digital Commons.
https://digitalcommons.hamilton.edu/soc_theses/72