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Attitudes toward Official Bilingualism in Multilingual States: The Canadian Case
Abstract
The paper is divided in three parts. In the first part, we briefly offer
an overview of the Canadian linguistic regime and different demographic data that are important
to understand the intent and scope of our study. In the second part, we introduce different
theoretical perspectives, inspired by a vast literature on attitudes toward immigration and ethnocultural
diversity, to account for attitudes toward official bilingualism. Finally, in the third
section, we explore the factors that account for current attitudes toward official bilingualism.
This paper examines the bases of opposition to immigrant minorities in Western Europe, focusing on The Netherlands. The specific aim of this study is to test the validity of predictions derived from two theories - realistic conflict, which emphasizes considerations of economic well-being, and social identity, which emphasizes considerations of identity based on group membership. The larger aim of this study is to investigate the interplay of predisposing factors and situational triggers in evoking political responses. The analysis is based on a series of three experiments embedded in a public opinion survey carried out in The Netherlands (n = 2007) in 1997-98. The experiments, combined with parallel individual-level measures, allow measurement of the comparative impact of both dispositionally based and situationally triggered threats to economic well-being and to national identity at work. The results show, first, that considerations of national identity dominate those of economic advantage in evoking exclusionary reactions to immigrant minorities and, second, that the effect of situational triggers is to mobilize support for exclusionary policies above and beyond the core constituency already predisposed to support them.
Perceptions of threat occupy a central place in race relations in Blumer's theory of prejudice but few direct efforts to study such perceptions exist. Ex- tending Blumer's reasoning, we hypothesize that such perceptions are driven by a group's feelings of racial alienation within the larger social order The more that members of a particular racial group feel collectively oppressed and unfairly treated by society, the more likely they are to perceive members of other groups as potential threats. We also examine whether such percep- tions spring from simple self-interest, orthodox prejudice such as negative feelings and stereotyping, or broad beliefs about social stratification and inequality. We use data from the 1992 Los Angeles County Social Survey, a large multiracial sample of the general population, to analyze the distribu- tion and social and psychological underpinnings of perceived group compe- tition. Our results support the racial alienation hypothesis as well as the hypotheses positing effects for self-interest, prejudice, and stratification be- liefs. We argue that Blumer's group-position framework offers the most par- simonious integration and interpretation of the social psychological processes involved in the formation of perceptions of group threat and competition. O ) ngoing immigration from Asia and Latin America and the earlier internal migration of African Americans out of the rural South have made most large cities in the United States remarkable multiracial conglomerations (Waldinger 1989). An im- mediate sociological concern raised by the growing heterogeneity of urban areas is whether members of different groups view one another as direct competitors for scarce economic, political, and social resources (Olzak 1993). Such perceptions may influ-
Theories of political socialization contain competing expectations about immigrants' potential for political resocialization. Premigration beliefs and actions may be resistant to change, exposure to the new political system may facilitate adaptation, or immigrants may find ways to transfer beliefs and behaviors from one political system to another. This analysis empirically tests these three alternative theories of resocialization. The results indicate that both transfer and exposure matter; there is little evidence that premigration beliefs and actions are resistant to change. Moreover, how immigrants adapt depends on which orientation or behavior is being considered and on what kind of political environments migrants come from.
A number of researchers have argued that the effects of prejudice on the racial policy attitudes and general political beliefs of white Americans may be restricted to the poorly educated and politically unsophisticated. In contrast, rather than being motivated by prejudice, the racial policy attitudes and ideological values of the politically sophisticated white Americans should be more firmly informed and motivated by the tolerant values at the heart of American political culture. These values include such things as individualism, notions of fair play, and devotion to the principle of equality of opportunity. We tested this hypothesis using white respondents from the 1986 and 1992 National Election Studies. Our evidence generally indicated that racial policy attitudes and political ideology were more powerfully associated with ideologies of racial dominance and superiority among politically sophisticated white Americans than among political unsophisticated white Americans. Moreover, even among the sophisticated, we found that various forms of egalitarianism predicted support for-rather than opposition to-affirmative action and that support for equal opportunity is not uniformly distributed across the political spectrum. African and African American Studies Psychology
PETER BURNS and JAMES G. GIMPEL examine mass attitudes toward immigration policy in the United States, asking whether widespread restrictionist sentiment is stirred more by economic insecurity, by negative ethnic stereotypes, or by some combination of the two. For some, prejudice is rooted in economic insecurity, but prejudice also has roots that are quite independent of economic fears. Anti-immigrant sentiment will not disappear simply because economic conditions improve.
Assessed attitudes toward aspects of multiculturalism (Multicultural Ideology, Perceived Consequences of Multiculturalism, and Multicultural Program Attitudes) and toward ethnic and immigrant groups, as well as Tolerance and Canadianism with 3,325 Ss. Attitudes toward multiculturalism were moderately positive, and tolerance moderately high; there was also a relatively high sense of attachment and commitment to Canada. Immigrant and ethnic groups of European origin were more positively evaluated than those of non-European origin. Variations in these attitudes by region of residence and ethnic origin revealed significant differences, as Ss of French origin living in Quebec tended to be less supportive than Ss of British and other origins living outside Quebec. Despite some signs of ethnocentrism, there are good prospects for achieving a diverse and tolerant society in Canada. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
argue [that] it is emotion based on some enduring predisposition rather than on the tangible costs and benefits of the matters to which the [political] symbol refers / offers a theory of individual psychology, described as a theory of symbolic politics, to explain this phenomenon / takes up the major alternatives to a symbolic politics theory in three contexts: the implicit theories of human nature undergirding political theories of democratic systems, the major classic general psychological theories, and contemporary sociopsychological research on information processing (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Using data from 3 different samples, the authors found that: (a) the relationships between political conservatism and racism generally increased as a function of educational sophistication; however, the relationship between political conservatism and anti-Black affect did not increase with educational sophistication. (b) The correlation between political conservatism and racism could be entirely accounted for by their mutual relationship with social dominance orientation. (c) Generally, the net effect of political conservatism, racism, and social dominance orientation on opposition to affirmative action increased with increasing education. These findings contradict much of the case for the principled conservatism hypothesis, which maintains that political values that are largely devoid of racism, especially among highly educated people, are the major source of Whites’ opposition to affirmative action.
This paper examines the role of national identity in sustaining public support for the welfare state. Liberal nationalist theorists argue that social justice will always be easier to achieve in states with strong national identities which, they contend, can both mitigate opposition to redistribution among high-income earners and reduce any corroding effects of ethnic diversity resulting from immigration. We test these propositions with Canadian data from the Equality, Security and Community survey. We conclude that national identity does increase support for the welfare state among affluent majority Canadians, and that it helps to protect the welfare state from toxic effects of cultural suspicion. However, we also find that identity plays a narrower role than existing theories of liberal nationalism suggest, and that the mechanisms through which it works are different. This leads us to suggest an alternative theory of the relationship between national identity and the welfare state, one that suggests that the relationship is highly contingent, reflecting distinctive features of the history and national narratives of each country. National identity may not have any general tendency to strengthen support for redistribution, but it may do so for those aspects of the welfare state seen as having played a particularly important role in building the nation, or in enabling it to overcome particular challenges or crises.
Will immigration undermine the welfare state? Trust beyond Borders draws on public opinion data and case studies of Germany, Sweden, and the United States to document the influence of immigration and diversity on trust, reciprocity, and public support for welfare programs. Markus M. L. Crepaz demonstrates that we are, at least in some cases, capable of trusting beyond borders: of expressing faith in our fellow humans and extending help without regard for political classifications. In Europe, the welfare state developed under conditions of relative homogeneity that fostered high levels of trust among citizens, while in America anxiety about immigration and diversity predated the emergence of a social safety net. Looking at our new era of global migration, Crepaz traces the renewed debate about “us” versus “them” on both sides of the Atlantic and asks how it will affect the public commitment to social welfare. Drawing on the literatures on immigration, identity, social trust, and the welfare state, Trust beyond Borders presents a novel analysis of immigration’s challenge to the welfare state and a persuasive exploration of the policies that may yet preserve it. "Crepaz contributes much to our knowledge about the link between immigration and social welfare, certainly one of the central issues in current national and international politics." ---Stuart Soroka, Associate Professor of Political Science and William Dawson Scholar, McGill University "Finally! A book that challenges the growing view that ethnic diversity is the enemy of social solidarity. It addresses an issue of intense debate in Western nations; it takes dead aim at the theoretical issues at the center of the controversy; it deploys an impressive array of empirical evidence; and its conclusions represent a powerful corrective to the current drift of opinion. Trust beyond Borders will rank among the very best books in the field." ---Keith Banting, Queen's Research Chair in Public Policy, Queen's University "Do mass immigration and ethnic diversity threaten popular support for the welfare state? Trust beyond Borders answers no. Marshaling an impressive array of comparative opinion data, Crepaz shows that countries with high levels of social trust and universal welfare state arrangements can avoid the development of the welfare chauvinism that typically accompanies diversity." ---Gary Freeman, Professor and Department Chair, Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin.
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We examine the relationship between blatant racial prejudice and anger toward affirmative action. (1) Blatantly prejudiced attitudes continue to pervade the white population in the United States. (2) Resistance to affirmative action is more than an extension of this prejudice. (3) White resistance to affirmative action is not unyielding and unalterably fixed. Analysis of experiments embedded in a national survey of racial attitudes. Some of these experiments are designed to measure racial prejudice unobtrusively. Racial prejudice remains a major problem in the United States, but this prejudice alone cannot explain all of the anger toward affirmative action among whites. Although many whites strongly resist affirmative action, they express support for making extra efforts to help African-Americans.
The relationship of national identifications to preferences about immigration is a subject of empirical controversy. The hypothesis we explore here through a comparison of Canada and the United States is that the normative content of national identity—how people define the meaning of patriotism in their country—mediates the relationship between national pride and sentiment about immigration and multiculturalism. How political elites construct what citizens should be proud of matters. In comparisons based on the 2003 International Social Survey Program's “National Identity Module,” Canadians seem more divided than Americans over their nationality and generally less chauvinist. Canadians are more receptive to maintaining the current level of immigration and see newcomers as less threatening to economic and cultural values. The relationship between identification with the country and support for immigration and multiculturalism diverges sharply between the countries: where in Canada the relationship is positive, in the US it is negative.
Résumé. Le lien entre l'identification à la nation et les préférences quant à l'immigration est un sujet de controverse. À travers une comparaison du Canada et des Etats-Unis, l'hypothèse que nous explorons ici est que le contenu normatif de l'identité nationale, c'est-à-dire le sens donné par la population au patriotisme envers leur pays, joue un rôle intermédiaire dans la relation entre la fierté nationale et les sentiments vis-à-vis l'immigration et le multiculturalisme. La façon dont les élites politiques construisent ce en quoi les citoyens devraient être fiers revêt donc une importance particulière. À titre comparatif, en se basant sur le « Module Identité Nationale » du International Social Survey Programme de 2003, les Canadiens semblent plus divisés que les Américains sur la signification de leur identité nationale et, de façon générale, sont moins chauvins. Les Canadiens sont également plus réceptifs à l'idée de maintenir l'immigration à son niveau actuel et voient les nouveaux arrivants comme étant moins menaçants pour leurs valeurs économiques et culturelles. La relation entre l'identification au pays et le support pour l'immigration et le multiculturalisme diverge nettement entre les deux pays. Alors qu'au Canada la relation est positive, aux Etats-Unis elle est négative.
The transformations in recent patterns of immigration have the potential to reshape the trajectory of Canada's regional political dynamics. Drawing on data from the 1993-2006 Canadian Election Studies, this analysis explores how immigrants adjust to the prevailing regional political norms in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Do newcomers adopt the political orientations (feelings towards Canada and their province, confidence in provincial and federal governments, perceptions about how the province is treated by the federal government and support for the Liberal party) that resemble those of their native-born provincial counterparts? The results suggest that immigrants, especially newer waves from non-traditional source countries, tend to develop orientations that arc more federally oriented than the local populations in their province. This tendency is most pronounced in Quebec where both groups of immigrants from traditional and non-traditional source countries internalize political grievances and norms less efficiently than their counterparts in other provinces.
Students of race and politics in the U.S. have long asserted a relationship between the racial composition and public policies of states. A related but distinct line of research demonstrates a strong connection between white attitudes about the perceived recipients of social welfare spending—blacks and members of other minority groups—and support for these programs. This article bridges these lines of scholarship by asking how racial diversity shapes aggregate attitudes about minorities in the American states and how these opinions in turn influence welfare spending. Using public opinion data from the General Social Survey (1974–96), I find that diversity has a direct influence on welfare policy in the states, as well as an indirect influence through shaping majority-group racial attitudes. Diversity and racial attitudes are found to have these effects even when controlling for factors traditionally used to explain variation in state spending levels, such as party competition, lower class mobilization, ideology, and state capacity.
The role of the public service in managing territorial diversity has too often been overlooked in the literature on multilingual states. In the article, we explore the issue of bureaucratic representation of the federal public administration of Belgium, Canada and Switzerland, three economically advanced federal states in which language has become over time the dominant cultural marker and dividing line. We argue that variations observed in mechanisms of bureaucratic representation can be explained by differences in the configuration of two variables: discourse about the contours of the political community and how it has been channelled through the policy-making process of each country.
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Following the work of Blumer (1958), I extend and test a theory of prejudice based on perceived threats to dominant racial or national groups by subordinate groups. Perceived threat is hypothesized to be a function of economic conditions and of the size of the subordinate group relative to the dominant group. I test the group-threat theory using a multilevel model that combines population data with survey results on attitudes towards immigrants and racial minorities from Eurobarometer Survey 30. "Group threat" explains most of the variation in average prejudice scores across the 12 countries in the sample and has a small but statistically significant effect on the influence of certain individual-level variables on prejudice. These results demonstrate the importance of perceived intergroup threat in the formation of prejudicial attitudes and suggest a re-interpretation of past findings on the relations between individual characteristics and expressions of prejudice.
Language rights represent claims of entitlement not only on behalf of individuals, but also on behalf of linguistic communities. As such, they raise deep questions of identity and affinity for Canadians. This study, the first report of the Charter Project, investigates mass and elite attitudes toward language rights in Canada. Beginning with the problem of double standards—whether anglophones and francophones want to affirm certain rights for their own group but not for the other—this study finds that attitudes toward language rights are shaped by an interplay between core values to which citizens subscribe and their concern for the status of the groups, both linguistic and partisan, with which they identify.RésuméLes droits linguistiques représent des revendications de droits non seulement pour le compte des personnes, mais aussi pour celui des communautés linguistiques. À ce titre, elles soulèvent pour les Canadiens(nes) de profondes questions d'identité et d'affinité. La présente étude, qui est le premier rapport du Projet de la Charte, sonde les attitudes des masses et des élites envers les droits linguistiques au Canada. En commençant par le problème de double standard, à savoir si les anglophones et les francophones veulent ou non affirmer certains droits pour leur propre communauté, et non pour l'autre, la presente étude trouve que les attitudes envers les droits linguistiques sont façonnées par une interaction entre les valeurs essentielles auxquelles les citoyens(nes) souscrivent et leur préoccupation quant à la position à la fois linguistique et partisane de la communauté à laquelle ils (elles) s'identifient.
This article examines the political ideology of Canadian elites on the basis of a sample survey conducted in 1977. The six hundred respondents include business executives, politicians, government bureaucrats, labour leaders, lawyers, media executives, and academics. Our purposes are, first, to make comparisons among and examine variation within these sectoral groups; second, to relate ideological cleavages to differences in support for the federal political parties; and, third, to examine the correspondence between more general ideological principles and elite opinions on a variety of specific public policy issues.
In this study, I look at the relationship of black population and white racial attitudes in the contemporary South. Merging county-level census data with individual-level N.E.S. data from the 1980s to create a variable tapping “racial environment,” I also use this study to test the validity of a group conflict theory of racial-political attitudes. I find that racial environment has a strong and consistent effect on racial-political attitudes, but little-to-no effect on measures of prejudice. Moreover, this racial environment effect is pronounced among those most affected by black political progress (southern Democrats evaluating Jesse Jackson). Contrary to a symbolic racism approach to the study of racial-political attitudes, these three findings support the contention that threat, in the form of group conflict, influences political positions on racial issues.
This article examines the role of racial attitudes in shaping white Americans’ opposition to welfare. Past research on welfare views has focused on economic self-interest, individualism, and egalitarianism. Using a covariance structure model, I confirm the significance of these factors, but find that racial attitudes are in fact the most important source of opposition to welfare among whites. In addition, racial attitudes influence the pattern of support white Americans express toward various aspects of the welfare state: negative attitudes toward blacks lead many whites who support spending for education, health care, and the elderly to oppose means-tested programs aimed exclusively at the poor. Finally, this research carries implications for broader theories of race and politics. Contrary to the suggestion that traditional racial prejudice is no longer a potent force in American politics, I show that at least one aspect of traditional prejudice—the stereotype of blacks as lazy—is still widespread and continues to have a profound impact on whites’ political thinking.
This paper explores the historical background, logical contours and policy implications of recent attempts by the Government of Canada to achieve the ‘effectively balanced participation’ of francophones in the federal public service. Historically, various crucial events concerning French Canadian participation in the federal bureaucracy are recounted with an eye to understanding both the roots of present policies and the distinctive inherited elements which shape them. Logically, the generic concept ‘representative bureaucracy’ is employed as a prism for shedding light on its Canadian variant, ‘balanced participation’: the logic of representative bureaucracy and the arguments for and against it are explicated, with concern for how these pertain to the Canadian case. Finally, the foregoing historical and logical elements are brought to bear on the question of sociological proportionality in the federal public service, especially as it might involve the use of quotas. It is maintained that sociological heterogeneity in the federal bureaucracy is a positive value, and that recruitment and promotion procedures should strive to attract people with manifold backgrounds, perspectives and talents. The use of legislated quotas, however, is viewed as an inefficacious and potentially destructive means for addressing this task. With respect to the issue of francophone participation specifically, the adoption of legislated quotas would be superficial and anachronistic.
Ceci est le compte rendu d'une analyse de données déjà recueillies résultant d'une étude nationale sur la qualité de la vie (Quality of life study, 1977) qui compare les attitudes des Canadiens anglais et des Québécois face au multiculturalisme. Nous avons mis à l'épreuve 5 prédictions basées sur l'hypothèse de la classe ethnique; 4 se sont avérées sans fondement. La question du revenu par exemple, avail les mêmes types de rapports avec les attitudes multiculturelles chez les groupes des deux langues; et ces rapports n'étaient pas moins marqués parmi les Québécois, tel que prédit par l'hypothèse de la classe ethnique. Cependant l'attitude des Québécois a été plus négative envers les cultures minoritaires et la valeur de la contribution qu'apportent les immigrants à la société canadienne. Ils ont étéégalement plus enclins à l'idée de limiter l'immigration en général, et en particulier l'immigration des pays de langue anglaise et de l'Italie. D'autre part, les résultats ont démontré une plus grande opposition parmi les Canadiens anglophones aux immigrants venant de l'Inde, du Pakistan, et des Antilles. Nous terminons avec quelques observations sur les orientations différentielles face au multiculturalisme dans les deux communautés.
In this article, we discuss the role of perceived competition for resources in determining negative attitudes toward immigrants and immigration in North America. We first provide background information on immigration policies and levels of immigration to Canada and the United States. Following an overview of our theoretical perspective, we then describe the research we have conducted in Canada and the United States indicating that perceived zero-sum competition between groups, whether situationally induced or a function of chronic belief in zero-sum relations among groups, is strongly implicated in negative immigration attitudes. In addition, we describe our recent attempts to improve attitudes toward immigrants and immigration through the targeting of zero-sum beliefs and through manipulations of the inclusiveness of national identity.
The major objective of the present research is to examine the long-standing theoretical proposition that hostility and discriminatory attitudes toward out-groups are likely to rise with relative size of the out-group population. Using data from The German General Social Survey (ALLBUS, 1996) we provide, for the first time, an examination of the impact of both actual and perceived size of the foreign population on discriminatory attitudes toward foreigners. Specifically, by using a multiple-indicators analytical model, we examine the theoretical proposition that perceived threat posed by an out-group population mediates the relations between size of the out-group and exclusionary attitudes toward the out-group. The analysis does not support the theoretical expectation that actual size of the foreign population in the locale is likely to increase either perception of threat or exclusionary attitudes. Perceived size, however, is found to be associated, as expected, with perceived threat, and perceived threat is found to mediate the relations between perceived size and support for exclusionary practices against foreigners—the higher the perceived size, the more pronounced are both the threat and anti-foreigner attitudes. The findings and their significance are discussed in the light of sociological theories on the relations between minority size and discrimination.
The Evolution of Public Opinion on Official Languages in Canada Available at: http://www.ocol-‐ clo.gc.ca/html/evolution_opinion_e Trust Beyond Borders: Immigration, the Welfare State and Identity in Modern Societies
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in Modern Societies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Two 'Official' Languages of Work: Explaining the Persistence of Inequitable Access to French as a Language of Work in the Canadian Federal Public Service
- Helaina Gaspard
Gaspard, Helaina. 2014. Two 'Official' Languages of Work: Explaining the Persistence of
Inequitable Access to French as a Language of Work in the Canadian Federal Public Service.
Unpublished PhD Dissertation, University of Ottawa.
Racial Attitudes Gaspard, Helaina. 2014. Two 'Official' Languages of Work: Explaining the Persistence of Inequitable Access to French as a Language of Work in the Canadian Federal Public Service
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Gilens, Martin. 1995. " Racial Attitudes Gaspard, Helaina. 2014. Two 'Official' Languages of Work: Explaining the Persistence of
Inequitable Access to French as a Language of Work in the Canadian Federal Public Service.
Unpublished PhD Dissertation, University of Ottawa.
Ethnic and Multicultural Attitudes
- Rudolf Kalin
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- Richard Johnston
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Citrin, Jack, Richard Johnston and Matthew Wright. 2012. "Do Patriotism and
Multiculturalism Collide? Competing Perspectives From Canada and the United States."
Canadian Journal of Political Science 45 (3): 531--52.
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Unpublished PhD DissertationGaspard, Helaina. 2014. Two 'Official' Languages of Work: Explaining the Persistence of Inequitable Access to French as a Language of Work in the Canadian Federal Public Service
- Helaina Gaspard
Gaspard, Helaina. 2014. Two 'Official' Languages of Work: Explaining the Persistence of
Inequitable Access to French as a Language of Work in the Canadian Federal Public Service.
Unpublished PhD DissertationGaspard, Helaina. 2014. Two 'Official' Languages of Work: Explaining the Persistence of
Inequitable Access to French as a Language of Work in the Canadian Federal Public Service.
Unpublished PhD Dissertation, University of Ottawa.
The Evolution of English-French Bilingualism in Canada from
- Jean--François Lepage
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Lepage, Jean--François and Jean--Pierre Corbeil. 2013. The Evolution of English-French
Bilingualism in Canada from 1961 to 2011. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.