Comparing levels of anti-Muslim attitudes across Western countries

In this study we describe differences of the ethnic majorities' attitudes toward Muslims across Western countries. Using data from the Pew Global Attitudes Survey (2005), we were able to increase and test cross-cultural comparability of anti-Muslim attitudes. We constructed a single factor CFA model with three indicators, which was tested for scalar equivalence. Our results indicate that anti-Muslim attitudes differ significantly across the countries in our analysis. Germany and the Netherlands turned out to display relatively high levels of anti-Muslim attitudes, whereas these levels were relatively low in Great-Britain and the USA. We conclude our study with giving some post-hoc explanations for the differences found across countries