National frenemies: Linguistic intergroup attitudes in Canada

Abstract

Intergroup sentiments have been shown to be an important determinant of social stability in multinational countries. The present study explores the present state of linguistic intergroup tensions in Canada to contribute to the understanding of outgroup attitudes among minorities and majorities. Four main findings are derived from the results of empirical analyses on survey data. (1) Cultural threat impacts outgroup attitudes in both the national minority and the national majority. (2) Education has a strong impact on feelings towards the linguistic outgroup. (3) Unexpectedly, age does not display a statistical influence on intergroup attitudes. (4) Specifically relating to Canada, intergroup feelings between Francophones and Anglophones have over the last quarter century become considerably more positive, both groups hold quite positive attitudes towards one another.