The salience of specific content of stereotypes concerning the Jews and the Roma. The function of the social context based on a qualitative pilot study
Małgorzata Skowrońska, Radosław Poniat
University of Białystok
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The questions regarding attitudes towards other ethnic groups are present in numerous social surveys in Poland. Regardless of a time period or an actual question form, they usually lead to the conclusion that the Roma and the Jews occupy relatively low positions on the scale of Polish ‘likes and dislikes’. The present findings, obtained either through straightforward questions about attitudes, or through more complex question sets based on the Bogardus social distance scale, are treated in the survey reports as obvious. Our presentation focuses on a deeper investigation into the phenomenon of (re)constructing the image of the Jew and the Roma. What we examine here is the function of the social context as well as its influence on the proportion and salience of specific content of stereotypes. While presenting the findings of a series of in-depth interviews we are also trying to describe the process leading to the answers obtained in the quantitative social surveys [ the respondents’ ’essentials definitions’ of the Jews and the Roma, the qualities prescribed to those groups, the ‘reasons’ given for attitudes towards these two groups]. We also pay attention to some contrasts appearing during the interviews such as the difficulty with which the respondents’ defined the concept of an ethnic group, the lack of some basic knowledge of these groups or some flagrant mistakes present in our research and, finally, the specific impact of historical/political relations of Poles versus Romani people as well as Poles versus Jews.
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