Page 171 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Social Stratification

Notes Note : Countries are ranked as a function of effect size (difference of national identification levels
between majorities and minorities). Means are corrected for the effects of age, gender and education
level. Ethnic identification was not measured in Great Britain and Latvia.
*** = p < .001. ** = p < .01. * = p < .05.
A different and less coherent picture emerges for levels of ethnic identification. In four out of
eleven countries (Slovenia, Czech Republic, Russia and Germany), majority groups had higher
levels of ethnic identification than minority groups. In North-American countries (Canada and
U.S.), the opposite pattern was observed : minorities had higher levels of ethnic identification than
majorities. In the three remaining countries (Slovak Republic, Bulgaria and New Zealand), the
differences were not significant. Overall, majorities express a slightly higher level of ethnic
identification (M = 3.28) than minorities (M = 3.20), but this difference is very small. These results
suggest that there is no systematic pattern of the importance majority and minority groups attach
to ethnic subgroup membership, but that this difference is to a large extent contingent upon
contextual and historical factors.

What do you mean by native groups ?

Relationship between National and Ethnic Identification

A series of regression analyses were performed in order to test the second prediction that a
positive relationship between subgroup and superordinate identities should be observed for
majorities, and that this relationship should be less positive for minorities. First, within each of the
nine national contexts, the majority and the minority groups were analysed separately. Ethnic
identification was the dependent variable, and national identification was entered into the regression
equation as the main independent variable, along with the control variables of age, sex and
education level. Table 8.2 shows the unstandardised regression coefficients. As expected, results
show that in 8 out of 9 majority groups, the relation between ethnic and national identification
was significantly positive. For minorities, in contrast, we found two positive (Bulgaria and Russia),
two negative (Canada and U.S.), and three non-significant relations between subgroup and
superordinate identities (Germany, Czech Republic, and Slovak Republic). New Zealand and
Slovene minorities were not analysed due to the low number of minority respondents.
In a second step, a series of slope analyses tested whether the relationships between ethnic and
national identification were significantly different in minority and majority groups (Aiken and
West, 1991). An interaction term was computed as the product of subgroup status (minority or
majority) and national identification. In order to test the null hypothesis that regression coefficients
were the same across minority and majority groups, the interaction term was entered in the
equation after the main effects of group membership and national identification (again controlling
for the effects of sex, age, and education level). Regression analyses were performed separately for
each of the seven national contexts where minorities and majorities could be compared.
Table 8.2
Ethnic Identification Regressed upon National Identification (Unstandardised Coefficients)
with Slope Tests

Majorities Minorities Slope test Natives
B SE B SE t B SE
Germany .63*** .03 -.22 .22 -7.93***

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