The social valuation of multiculturalism and monoculturalism in Europe

Abstract

Following Verena Stolcke’s thesis, which defends that a change on the discourse through which native population rejects immigrants, an empirical research has been carried out attempting to verify if the discourses based on cultural fundamentalism are replacing those explicitly racist or xenophobic. Cultural fundamentalism warns against the risk that massive immigration implies for the homogeneity and cultural integrity of the nation. A new typology of Europeans based on their monoculturalism (valuation of cultural homogeneity) or their multiculturalism rate (valuation of cultural diversity) has been created through multivariable analysis using data from the European Social Survey. This typology also allows for a distinction between those Europeans who defend monoculturalism for pragmatic reasons and those who argue from an essentialist conception of culture. Considering a classification into four types, the orientation of each of the European countries has been determined, as well as the existing correlation between the degree of monoculturalism and three important variables for socio-cultural dentification: education level, ideological orientation and religiosity.