Revista de Paz y Conflictos (Jun 2016)
Are young people from Huelva racists? A five schools case study
Abstract
In just two decades, the city of Huelva and its agro-industry belt has gone from being mainly farming spaces to become cities completely urbanized. Among other consequences, this population boom is due to the increase of the immigrant population, mostly from Europe’s East, North Africa and Latin America. Therefore, migration is a global phenomenon, but the current radical tendencies and the increase of racism threaten the peace of prosperous societies. The situation of young people regarding the migratory phenomenon notices their differences in the educational ambience across the factors that determine the social functioning. In this article appears empirical evidences of a quantitative research conducted in four centers of Obligatory Secondary Education with the aim of addressing the attitudes and the behaviors of the young people from Huelva regarding immigration. On these results is highlighted a marked pattern of otherness where half of the interrogated persons identifies East Europeans like «others». The same happens with the religion or the race, though in this case the vast majority refers to the Muslim religion or the black race, respectively. Nonetheless, the most relevant result appeared is that more than 40 % of the interrogated persons maintains the denial of the right of asylum or the reduction of other rights to the newcomers. So, despite being favorable to the immigration and having an intercultural point of view, the young people of Huelva, in certain contexts, suggest features or values that usually coincide with the rejection or even the racism.
