The development of ethnic prejudice: An analysis of Australian immigrants

Abstract

Prejudice is found in all societies, but it is a particular problem in immigrant societies. In this article we use Bogardus's social‐distance scale to identify patterns of ethnic prejudice in Australia and test four explanations to account for it: personality, socio‐psychology, social structure, and social contact. The data are a national sample of the Australian‐born and of three immigrant groups: Maltese, Lebanese, and Vietnamese. The results show that ethnic prejudice is not unidimensional and that there are at least two dimensions, which we label social prejudice and cultural prejudice. The analyses indicate that Australians and longer‐resident Maltese emphasize the social dimension of prejudice; the newly arrived Vietnamese emphasize the cultural dimension. For Australians, prejudice is rooted in personality factors; but for immigrants, none of the four explanations is significant. The results point to the interaction between personality factors and social learning within the society as the most important determinant of ethnic prejudice.