Mapping bi-cultural policy attitudes

Published: 2012. Contact: James Liu

Overview

This paper with the European Journal of Social Psychology uses latent class analysis to identify response profiles of bicultural policy attitudes (ie. attitudes involving the relationship between Māori and the Crown) across a national sample of New Zealanders (the New Zealand Attitudes & Values Survey).

The most prevalent profile among New Zealand Europeans was ambivalency, with high support for symbolic policy items, and opposition to resource-based biculturalism. A more moderate ambivalency characterised newer migrants (e.g. Asians and Pasifika).

Māori were most likely to be pro-bicultural, whereas older New Zealand Europeans tended to be over-represented in the anti-bicultural profile.

Latent class analysis enables the research analyst to construct groups on the basis of their responses to items, rather than use demographic categories.

The data show that bicultural attitudes are very diverse within each ethnic group, even though there were unique patterns prevalent among each.

You can read the research "Relocating attitudes as components of representational profiles: mapping the epidemiology of intergroup policy attitudes using Latent Class Analysis" here