Abstract
In recent years, far right movements characterized by behaviors such as hate speech toward minorities have been recognized as a problem extending also to Japan. The purpose of this paper is to use a quantitative approach to specify, in an exploratory fashion, the determinants of the anti-foreigner sentiments regarded as social attitudes supporting such movements. The data was a survey conducted by mail in 2012 of voters in municipalities affiliated with the "Council of Cities with a High Concentration of Foreign Residents." In developing an analysis model, the framework of social awareness theory-which precisely specifies the meaning of the covariance relationship between variables expressing position in a social structure and the objective variable-was used by introducing multiple attitude concepts. The following three points were discovered as a result of the analysis: 1) Social structure variables which directly act on the formation of anti-foreigner sentiments were not evident, and anti-foreigner sentiments varied in a fashion mediated by social awareness; 2) The largest factor which directly boosted anti-foreigner sentiments was assimilationism, with assimilationism being stronger with increasing age; and 3) The factor which directly inhibited anti-foreigner sentiments was general trust. General trust is higher when social networks are broader, and social networks are broader when educational attainment is higher. Based on the above discoveries, this paper discusses the fact that, in order to inhibit the anti-foreigner sentiments which impair integration and order of society as a whole, it is important to have resources (often scarce) which might be called "multicultural relations resources." It is also necessary to reevaluate the value of multicultural relations resources, and make systematic efforts to reproduce these resources.
