Abstract:

Green, E.G.T. (2006).
The Pros and Cons of Examining Multicultural Policy Support on Different
Levels of Analysis: a Comment on Liu and Sibley (2006).
Papers on Social Representations, 15, pages 4.1-4.4
[http://www.psr.jku.at/]

Nowadays when multicultural issues are high on the political agenda of most first world 
countries, it is fascinating to learn about the similarities and differences in the ways 
majority populations react to cultural diversity. Liu and Sibley’s (2006) article on 
differential effects of societal anchoring and attitude certainty presents a timely analysis 
of majority population attitudes towards bicultural policies in New Zealand. First, they 
predicted that the European majority population differentiates between policies aiming 
to redistribute resources in favour of Maori and policies integrating Maori heritage in 
mainstream culture. Policies integrating Maori values were expected to be favoured over 
policies requiring resource redistribution. Second, by means of a multi-level model Liu 
and Sibley hypothesised that intra-individual factors (i.e., perceived policy importance 
and attitude certainty) predict support for bicultural policies, whereas societal and 
interpersonal factors (i.e., perceived media salience and peer discussion) predict 
opposition to these policies. The article provided sophisticated empirical support for 
these predictions. In this commentary, I will present my insights concerning the two 
main findings of their paper.