| Popis: |
The paper deals with social factors and consequences of destruction of traditional identities in the display of interethnic intolerance. The authors reveal the contradictory nature of the processes of maintaining intergroup tolerance and formation of stable group identities. They substantiate the thesis that the existing contradiction may be removed only if a human can identify himself / herself not only with “his / her own” group (which is not alien to him / her), but also extends the identification mechanism to other social groups, considering their representatives as those who belong to “his / her own” group. From a sociological viewpoint it means a possibility to reduce the social distance in respect of the “aliens” to such boundaries where abide those who are “not aliens”. When considering the relationship between interethnic tolerance and identities in the context of reduction of the social distance between representatives of different ethnic groups, the authors used the Bogardus social distance scale as a method for investigating the outlined problem.The investigation has revealed that the so-called East-Slavic solitariness, as well as ethnic isolationism and xenophobia still remain at a high level in the collective interethnic consciousness of the Ukraine’s adult population. Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians are mainly perceived by Ukraine’s population as “natives” (not foreigners). At the same time, representatives of most nationalities and ethnic groups are perceived as “foreign” (i.e. “alien”) and “expelled” by collective consciousness beyond the borders of Ukraine. The increase in the level of isolationism and xenophobia recorded by monitoring research is the phenomenon embracing all categories of the population of Ukraine. Such variables as sex, age, nationality / ethnicity, marital status, family’s ethnic composition, income level and type of employment have practically no influence on the level of interethnic tolerance. However, characteristics like educational background, type of occupation, language of daily communication and type of settlement can influence the level of interethnic tolerance to a certain extent. |
