Acceptance and tolerance of diversity amongst university students

Abstract

The objective of this dissertation is to analyze the willingness of acceptance and tolerance in relation to foreigners specifically Europeans, Americans, Australians, Asians and Africans. This was achieved by researching University students through random quota sampling and applying their approach by faculty and gender. Several issues were considered in order to get a better picture of the students' attitudes and perceptions and towards which foreigners are likely to be accepted most. The questionnaire helped to further understand their experience towards everyday factors that may lead to racism and make them more aware of what may have been the main triggering factors to their developing attitudes. Questions from Bogardus Scale, European Values Survey and Malta Values Survey were modified so as to help verify whether University students are racists and if yes to what extent are they racist. The study explored and described factors about nationalism, race and racism, xenophobia and discrimination. An identification of studies of these issues conducted in Malta was included so as to give a holistic understanding of how diversity is established. Throughout the research, there seemed to be a tendency to accept certain issues over others and a dominance to accept certain nationalities over the others. In general females were more likely to tolerate foreigners than males. The tendency in faculties was to accept Europeans, Americans and Australians rather than Africans and Asians.