La medición de las actitudes ante la inmigración

Evaluación de los indicadores tradicionales de "racismo"

Abstract

During the last few years there has been an increase in criticisms of the efficiency of conventional
surveys in the measurement of «real» attitudes towards immigration. This study evaluates the
degree of effectiveness of the indicators traditionally included in such surveys. Analysed here are
CIS surveys (studies 2214, 2383 and 2498), which are compared with those carried out by
CIRES/ASEP, CEMIRA and Eurobarometers of the European Communities. Through an
analysis of principal components of the 41 indicators selected from the first CIS study, 10 dimensions
of the concept of racism are obtained. The contribution of each dimension is verified using a
discriminatory analysis. In harmony with the new proposals for racism, the items relating to social
rights and citizenship are the most useful in measuring attitudes towards immigration, followed
by those relating to immigration policy, to the detriment of traditional indicators of racism.
Furthermore, the analysis of K-means conglomerates confirms the limitation of such surveys for
capturing the attitude against immigration (only 6% of interviewees are classified as being
against immigration). The conclusion reached through these analyses is that there is a need to
introduce modifications into the measuring instrument so as to improve the harnessing of the
«real» attitude towards immigration.