Qual Quant (2011) 45:1151–1174
DOI 10.1007/s11135-009-9284-1
National attachments, economic competition,
and social exclusion of non-ethnic migrants in Israel:
a mixed-methods approach
Rebeca Raijman · Oshrat Hochman
Published online: 18 December 2009
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
Abstract This paper provides a specific example of how mixed-methods can be used as
a useful research design in the study of ethnic exclusionism. Specifically, we investigate the
ways in which conceptions of national identity and nationalism and perceptions of socio-
economic threat explain exclusionary attitudes of the majority group (Jews) towards labor
migrants in Israel. We show how the implementation of the mixed-method approach to the
study of discriminatory attitudes towards migrants not only provided evidence for conver-
gence, but also improved our understanding of the complex nature of ethnic relations in
modern societies.
Keywords National identity · Chauvinism · Perceived threat · Labor migrants · Israel ·
Mixed-methods
The growing literature on the relationship between national attachments (e.g. national identity
and nationalism), perceptions of socio-economic threat, and exclusionary attitudes towards
immigrants at the micro-level of analysis has been developed within a quantitative perspective
(see e.g. Jones 2000; Jones and Smith 2001a,b; Lewin-Epstein and Levanon 2005; Janmaat
2006; Blank and Schmidt 2003). Few studies have used qualitative data to study perceptions
and feelings of national attachments (Lister et al. 2003; Miller-Idriss 2006), and the ways
these perceptions shape attitudes towards migrants. Furthermore, to our knowledge no study
has so far combined the use of both qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis in the
study of exclusionary attitudes towards migrants in host-societies.
R. Raijman (
B
)
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Haifa, 31905 Haifa, Israel
e-mail: raijman@soc.haifa.ac.il
URL: http://hevra.haifa.ac.il/∼soc/new/en/staff/show_details.php?id=67
O. Hochman
Center for Doctoral Studies in Social and Behavioral Sciences,
University of Mannheim, D7 27, room 313, 68131 Mannheim, Germany
e-mail: ohochman@rumms.uni-mannheim.de
URL: http://cdss.uni-mannheim.de/fileadmin/files/cdss/CV/FisrtRound/CV_Hochman.pdf
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