Moving into multiculturalism. Multicultural attitudes of socially mobile individuals without a migration background

Abstract

In various Western European cities, international migration has transformed the former ethnic majority into a numerical ethnic minority. We study people without a migration background to shed light on the former majority’s attitudes towards multiculturalism in these majority-minority contexts. Among those without a migration background, we specifically focus on socially mobile individuals in order to disentangle the influence of primary and secondary socialization on attitudes towards multiculturalism. Using survey data on Amsterdam, Antwerp, Malmo, Rotterdam and Vienna (n = 2,457), we found that, whilst controlling for the effects of primary and secondary socialization, both upward and downward mobility associates to more optimistic multicultural attitudes. We argue that the experience of social mobility equips people with a reflexivity which allows them to have a more optimistic perspective on the multi-ethnic city. In this way, this article improves our understanding of why some people are more willing than others to adapt to multi-ethnic contexts.