Are we becoming more distant?: exploring the nature of social polarization along ethnic lines in the city of Izmir

Official URL: http://192.168.1.20/record=b1379282 (Table of Contents)

This study aims to contribute to the narrowly researched dimension of Turkey's Kurdish issue, which includes its reflections on the societal level and is analyzed a social-psychological framework. More precisely, it intends to offer a snapshot of the level of social polarization between the Turks and the Kurds and seeks to unveil the present nature of in-group - outgroup attitudes along the lines of ethnic background. The city of Izmir is chosen as the context of the study due to the fact that it has received a remarkable number of Kurdish migrants from the southeast in the last few decades. The findings are presented in two sections. The main objective of the first section is to illuminate the differences in the way Turks and Kurds conceptualize the Kurdish conflict and identify its root causes, as well as to display their varying levels of social and political tolerance, social distance and prejudice in a comparative manner. While the Kurdish minority displays significantly higher levels of social tolerance and lower levels of preferred social distance, the correlation analyses made in the second section suggest that there is a strongly negative correlation between perceiving the Kurdish issue as a terrorism problem and social and political tolerance for the Turkish sample. Moreover, a stronger in-group identity and nationalist attitudes predict higher prejudice levels for both sample groups and lower social tolerance for the Turkish sample.