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Using a role by role interview to measure the minority effect: A note on ongoing research
Abstract
This report on research in progress is based on data obtained through written questionnaires administered to UBC (University of British Columbia) and Ottawa University students who were asked to rank the importance and the degree of satisfaction associated with 14 characteristics of either the self or the social environment (gender, age, nationality, profession, religion, preferred political party, place of birth, province of residence, city of residence, university, ethnic group, language, family, and friends). Using gender, language, and race as examples, the author shows the usefulness of a role by role approach in comparative analysis, notably for the study of minority groups.
... The institutions that the respondents would come from were determined prior to the survey, as well as the year of their studies, thus gaining a relatively homogeneous population. Students from the second and third year of their studies were surveyed in the area of social sciences from three state universities from R. The main assumption of the research is based on the phenomenon of the so-called minority effect (Laponce, 2004), according to which the members of the minority groups have the tendency to attach greater meaning to the traits specific of the minority, as they are especially important for identity of their group (language, religion, ethnic background, tradition, etc.). ...
... However, the differences are the greatest and statistically relevant in regard to the attachment to R. Macedonia, the ethnic group, and the Balkan. As expected, the Macedonians show much greater attachment to R. Macedonia than the Albanians, and the Albanians are much more attached to their ethnic group than the Macedonians (which confirms the minority effect (Laponce 2004). It is worth emphasizing that there if a very high attachment of both ethnic groups to religion ( Table 6). ...
The research of the ethnic and national identity in a multicultural society such as the Macedonian one is relevant in reference to the question how those who identify with their ethnic group position themselves towards the broader political community. Does the strong attachment towards one's own ethnic group, especially when minority groups are concerned, means absence of attachment towards and identification with the state, as many authors who study social identities show? Taking into consideration the Macedonian social context, we have set off from the assumption that it was possible for these two identities to be mutually exclusive, but also compatible. In a survey of student population in the R. Macedonia, four categories that express the relation of ethnic versus national identity have been offered. The results proved the general hypothesis– namely, the minority effect-according to which the minority group gives greater significance to the characteristics of their own minority belonging. However, the largest majority of ethnic Albanians chose modalities that indicate compatibility of the two researched identities, even in cases when they emphasize their ethnic background. This could be an encouraging indicator in a multicultural and divided society, but still the question remains what almost half of the examined population of ethnic Albanians mean when they choose the categories that contain both ethnic and civic traits. Some of the results which refer to the attachments to different categories and the presence of the participative component, partly provide an answer to this question.
... It has many aspects: racial, ethnical, religious, national, gender, personal etc. As Laponce (2004) notified, personality is a collection of roles which are being played according to the context. Roles are result of whit what we have been identified. ...
Abstract
The use of the Internet social networks exploded in popularity
during in the last several years, as well as the other electronic means, mainly
used by the younger population, to present some information about them
and to communicate with others. One of the most popular sites is Facebook,
which was initially created as a students’ forum, but is used today by people
of all ages worldwide. This cyber-world opens the question of the process of
creating identity, because one creates his/her own digital identity when
enters into online communication. Social networks are places where very
little can be controlled and it is a suitable place for expressing various
acceptable and unacceptable types of behavior. Internet brings the
opportunity of self-presentation in a variety of ways, so one can change
his/her identity by changing age, history, personality, physical appearance
even gender. Hidden positive and negative parts of oneself may seek
expression in imaginary identity that comes to life online. Digital identity is
electronic presentation of the human being from the real world. The chosen
username, the details, the information given about oneself or the photos
presented on the Facebook profile - all are important aspects of how people
manage their identity in the cyber-world of Facebook.
This research has been oriented to identify what kind of behavior is
presented in such a place as Facebook is, and to compare the identity
presented on Facebook profile with the real self-concept of students.
Adolescents’ self-concept is complex and it reflects how they evaluate
themselves in several domains which compose adolescence self concept:
scholastic competence, athletic competence, physical appearance, peer
acceptance, close friendships, romantic relationship and conduct/morality.
Two instruments have been used for comparing these two
expressions of identity. The first one is a questionnaire about digital identity
and it included the following components: usual activities of eighth grade
students on the Internet: listening to music, searching information, chatting,
downloading music; profiles of eighth grade students on Facebook: picture,
name, sex, time of editing the account; features of Facebook friendships:
number of friends, sex and age of friends, familiarity with fb friends and type
of written or received comments. The second one is the self-concept scalefor youth (Hadley MA et al, 2008). This scale included the following domains:
Sports Competency, School Competency, Acceptance by peers,
Conduct/ethics and Physical Appearance. Cronbach Alpha for subscales was
between 0.51 and 0.77.
The target population was students aged between 14 and 15 (8th
grade) from one elementary school in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia. The
results showed that, in general, they have positive self-concept and there is
no difference between self-concept and their digital identity on Facebook, so
digital identity is actually the same with the self-concept in real life. Social
networks, especially Facebook are representation of identical societal context
which has its own real existence, it is a technologically updated tool for
communication in which we present ourselves as we are in real life without a
lot of mystification regarding our virtual, and real life and identities.
Key words: Facebook, Digital identity, Self-concept
... The other tool that was applied in this study was a questionnaire designed by Laponce (2004), aimed at determining the minority effect. Laponce constructed a questionnaire concerning 14 different roles which every individual "plays" during their life (gender, age, nationality, ethnicity, occupation, religion, preferred political party, nationality, place of residence, university, ethnic background, language, family, close friends) 7 . ...
This research was focused on the association between aspects of identity orientation and
collective identity among students in Macedonia and Austria. The survey in Macedonia
was conducted among Macedonian and Albanian state university students, and in
Austria, it was conducted among students from the Department of Political Science and
Sociology at the University of Salzburg. The same methodological procedure was applied:
orientation towards two aspects of identity - Personal aspect of Identity (PI) and Social
aspect of Identity (SI), measured with the AIQ (Aspect of Identity Orientation) Scale. The
collective identity was run through a grid of one scale (according to Laponce): importance
was given to each of 13 social groups, such as: family, friends, gender, age, profession,
religion, preferred political party, place of birth, residence, university, ethnicity, class, andcitizenship. According to the results on the PI and the SI scales, four groups of respondents
were obtained. The first group, termed “Integrated”, was the group with high scores on
both scales; the second group, termed, “Ego-oriented”, had high scores on the PI scale and
low scores on the SI scale; the third group, “Pre-defined”, presented individuals with low
scores on both scales, and the last group, “Over-socialized”, was the group that had high
scores on the SI scale and low scores on the PI scale. The main topic of research was the
importance that each of these four groups (in a Macedonian and Austrian context) assigned
to the collective identity. The comparative study underlined some important issues: family
and friends are the first and second most important social groups for the four groups in
both samples; in both samples, the “Integrated” group places the highest importance to the
collective identity; the collective identity is mostly predominant among the Macedonian
students, and, no matter how much personality is integrated, the least important group for
the Austrian sample of students is religion, while for the Macedonian sample of students -
political party.
... The basic assumptions of the study are based on: a phenomenon called "minority effect", under which members of minority groups tend to attach greater importance to minority affiliations that are particularly important for their group identity (language, religion, ethnicity, tradition, etc.) (Laponce, 2004), and the certain interdependence between individual and collective identity. ...
In multicultural societies as the Macedonian one, the attachment of citizens to particular identity traits is important for the democratic stability and peace. The aim of this paper is to find out how students from different ethnic origins in the R. Macedonia relate to their identity traits, especially to their national and ethnic identities, and relative to other identity traits. The basic assumptions are based on a phenomenon called "minority effect", according to which members of minority groups tend to attach greater importance to minority affiliations that are particularly important for their group identity (language, religion, ethnicity, tradition, etc.). Aside from importance of identity traits, the emotional and behavioural components of these attachments were also examined. The research results show that regardless of the ethnic origin, students attach greatest importance to their identities connected to their immediate social environment (family, friends), but also religion. In accordance with the “minority effect” hypothesis, religion and then ethnicity, are perceived by the ethnic Albanians as a strong cohesive and mobilising factor, whereas that is not the case with the ethnic Macedonians. When it comes to nationality, the responses suggest that for ethnic Albanians it has marginal importance (through the cognitive, emotional and the action component), while ethnic Macedonians show controversial relation to their national identity.
... The main assumption of this research is based on the phenomenon of the so-called minority effect (Laponce, 2004), according to which the members of minority groups have a tendency to attach greater meaning to the traits specific of the minority, as they are especially important for the identity of their group, including their treatment in society by the ethnic majority. ...
One of the fundamental problems of the multicultural societies is the feeling of marginalization and even exclusion of minority groups from society, which is closely linked with a motivation for political mobilization and action. Therefore, the goal of the presented research is to find out how the student population from different ethnic origins in the R. Macedonia experience discrimination. More specifically, the paper seeks to identify the prevalence of discrimination, to identify the spheres of life in which such discrimination is most present and the categories of citizens who are privileged or marginalized in our society.
There is awareness of a widespread discrimination in Macedonian society in the most important areas of life. The bases for discrimination are numerous (ethnicity, social status, as well as friends and connections), where political affiliation is the most important factor for privileged treatment in society. The differences in perceptions between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians are in the ranking of the grounds for discrimination. However, party-political affiliation is a factor of impact for which there is the greatest concurrence of opinions and views between the two ethnic groups. When it comes to ethnicity, ethnic Albanians rank it higher than ethnic Macedonians in all areas of life examined that is in line with the main assumption of this research based on the phenomenon of the so-called minority effect.
... Locating the ethnic and the national in the hierarchy of importance we attach to our many roles and identities is particularly useful to comparative analysis. Preliminary surveys that Gingras and Laponce did at UBC and Ottawa (Gingras and Laponce, 2001;Laponce, 1999Laponce, , 2004Laponce, , 2005, extended later on by Gingras to France, Switzerland, and Belgium, show two regularities: A) minorities tend to attach more importance to their minority markers than the dominant group attaches to its own markers B) Family and Friends are always located at or near the top of the hierarchy of importance. ...
Many are the terms used to describe either groups or communities having in common actual or assumed inherited characteristics. So many and so ill-defined are these terms that they stand in the way of proper comparative research, at least when the comparison involves many ethnies, nations, and countries. The article recommends the use of more discriminating criteria to avoid confusion between “origin” and “identity,” between “grouping” and “community,” and between the ethnic and the national. The author concludes that, for the sake of theory building, hypotheses are, at present, normally better tested by comparing a few well-selected cases than by means of large multistate data sets.
In order to explore the student involvement in the student organization, field research was conducted amongst 669 students. The research instrument contained a questionnaire on students’ perception and satisfaction of the student organization; two scales of IPIP NEO (short form): Agreeableness (A) and Conscientiousness (C), and one dimension of the Laponce’s questionnaire: the importance of the social role of the university student. The analysis of the overall obtained data showed a very low level of involvement in student organization and a weak expression of the importance of the social role of the university student. A relatively weak connection between two personality dimensions and the involvement of students in the student organization has been found. A student’s involvement is determined more by the importance of the role, than by personality dimensions.
The world language system is profoundly affected by the increase in the frequency and density of communication on a world scale. Most of the languages spoken today are not expected to survive the century and most of those surviving will lose or fail to get control of some higher functions of communication, notably in the fields of commerce and science. The minority languages best able to resist the pressure of more powerful competitors are those having a government as their champion, and their best overall protective strategy remains territorialization, either within the boundaries of a unilingual state or, in the case of multilingual societies, on the territorial model of Switzerland and Belgium that juxtaposes rather than mixes languages at the regional level.