Critical Review Related To Immigration Essay

Studies on the topic of attitudes of immigrants have mainly focused on threats to economic interests and cultural values. However, others have looked at many other variables such as education, political affiliation, and several others.

In one study Quillian (1995) argues that as perceived threats go up, attitudes towards immigrants become more negative. The causes he gives for this are the “economic circumstances” and “the number of immigrants relative to the group.” He argues that this is because “individual characteristics” do not matter but it all has to do with the group and group positions. Esses, Jackson, and Armstrong (1998) are of the opinion that attitudes are related to the economy as well. Their study argues that as the perception of competition for resources go up, attitudes towards immigrants becomes more negative. They are also looking at this from a group not individual level. The reasons they give for this correlation are that because resources are scarce and because the natives

The study done by Sniderman (2004) looks at the two perceived threats suggested, threats to economy and threats to culture, and compared them. His conclusion is that while both perceived threats cause attitudes towards immigrants, it is threats to culture that cause more negative attitudes. Another study divided the types of threats into four different groups and tested to see if they all affected attitudes. The four types of threats studied by Riek, Mania, and Gaerner (2006) were threats to resources, values, group image, and distinctiveness. They concluded that all four threats had a negative correlation with attitudes to immigrants and since the four were correlated there must be an “underlying factor” that affects them