Xenophobia and Social Contact in University Students

Due to increasing human mobility in today’s world, relations among groups are becoming more and more important. As people with different cultures come in close contact they begin to influence inter-group attitudes (Barni et al., 2020; Turner et al., 2020). Xenophobia, which can be described as negative attitudes towards migrants, is one of the most serious problems between groups caused by migration (Peterie Neil, 2020). This study aims to investigate the relationship between social contact and xenophobic attitudes towards Syrian migrants among university students in Turkey. Data were collected from 142 university students through the Xenophobia Scale and the Revised Social Contact Scale. The data obtained were analyzed by multiple linear regression technique. The findings show that while the quality of social contact significantly predicts the xenophobic attitudes of university students, the quantity of social contact does not. The quality of social contact explains 43% of university students’ xenophobic attitudes. It is understood that the quality of social contact is highly effective in reducing xenophobic attitudes towards migrants