Colour-Blind Attitudes among Welfare Professionals: Examining the Relationship Between Colour-Blind Attitudes, Anti-immigration Attitudes and Social Desirability

Abstract

Colour blindness is a concept that is established in the US context, and it has gained increased attention among European scholars. Yet we find less studies in the European context that measure colour-blind attitudes and show its prevalence among different groups. Therefore, this paper examines the prevalence of colour-blind attitudes among Swedish welfare professionals’ and how these attitudes are associated with anti-immigration attitudes but also social desirability. To this end, survey data is examined with a regression analysis. Welfare professionals who report greater levels of colour-blind attitudes are simultaneously more likely to report greater levels of anti-immigration attitudes. This paper thereby tests how colour-blind attitudes, a concept from the US context, can be applied to a Swedish welfare institutional context and finds convergent results.

Keywords

• colour-blind attitudes
• anti-immigration attitudes
• migration
• welfare work
• racial inequality
• quantitative