Territorial sense of community, ethnic prejudice and political orientation

This research focused on territorial sense of community and ethnic prejudice. In particular, we related these two constructs and investigated their relationship to individual characteristics (personal political orientation, contact with immigrants, etc.) and community-level ones (such as ethnic composition and the political orientation of the local government). Two studies were conducted in four small towns in central and southern Italy. For each study, 160 people were contacted. The instruments used were a questionnaire, the Italian Sense of Community Scale and the Blatant Prejudice Scale. The results showed that territorial sense of community is not related to ethnic prejudice or to the ethnic heterogeneity of the territory. It was also found that people with right-wing political sympathies revealed higher levels of prejudice than people with left-wing sympathies. Finally, in a town with a stable and consolidated left-wing orientation of the local government we found, when the influence of personal political orientation was controlled for, lower levels of prejudice than in a town with a right-wing orientation. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.