Germans or Foreigners? Attitudes Toward Ethnic Minorities in Post-Reunification Germany

Europe in Transition: The NYE European Studies Series

by Richard Alba (Editor), Peter Schmidt (Editor), Martina Wasmer (Editor)

This book examines contemporary attitudes towards ethnic minorities in Germany. These minorities include some of immigrant origin, such as Italians, Turks, and asylum seekers, and the principal non-immigrant minority, Jews. While the findings demonstrate that intense prejudice against minorities is not widespread among Germans, many of whom in fact can be considered immigrant- and minority-friendly, a crystallization of attitudes is also evident: that is, attitudes towards immigrants are strongly correlated with anti-Semitism and with other worldview dimensions, such as positioning in the left-right political spectrum. In this sense, the fundamental question of whether immigrants and other minorities should be regarded as fellow citizens or ethnic outsiders remains relevant in the German context.

316 pages, Hardcover

First published February 25, 2000

About the author

Richard D. Alba was an American sociologist, and a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center, CUNY and at the Sociology Department at the University at Albany, SUNY, where he founded the University at Albany's Center for Social and Demographic Analysis (CSDA). He was known for developing assimilation theory to fit the contemporary, multi-racial era of immigration, with studies in America, France and Germany. In 2020 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.