Young people's attitudes towards Muslims in Sweden

Abstract

With the use of multiple regression technique, the principal objective of this study is to clarify and examine young people's attitudes towards Muslims, and the relationships between these attitudes and a large number of background factors. We use a representative sample of 9,498 non-Muslim youths between 15–19 years of age. The main results show that when controlling for several background variables simultaneously, the country of birth, socio-economic background and school/program factors all have an effect on the attitude towards Muslims. Moreover, socio-psychological factors, the relationship to friends and the perceptions of gender role patterns are found to be important. In addition, local factors like high levels of unemployment, high shares of immigrants in a local environment also have an effect. No differences in the attitudes of boys and girls were found. Further, the study establishes a correlation between negative attitudes and right-wing populist seats in local government.