Young People’s Attitudes Toward Freedom of Movement and Immigration in Europe. Results from ICCS 2016

The freedom of movement and residence for persons in the EU is the basis on which European citizenship has been developed since the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992, with the ultimate aim to create an integrated economic area for EU citizens. European citizens tend to consider positively the free movement within the European Union and they have benefited for different purposes. According to survey data from 2015 (European Commission, 2016), almost all citizens had moved freely in the EU at least once in their lifetime. While findings from Standard Eurobarometer 85 survey (European Commission, 2016) also highlighted generally positive attitudes toward the topic, it has become an argument for Eurosceptic criticism of European Union membership, as for example in the referendum on EU membership in the United Kingdom where a majority of participating voters opted for leaving the EU. According to Eurobarometer survey data (European Commission, 2016), immigration is considered by respondents one of the most important issues at European level. While a large majority of respondents (61%) judged immigration of people from other EU member states as positive, 56 percent of respondents expressed concerns about immigration of people from outside the EU. Findings from the European Social Survey (ESS) also suggested that public attitudes towards immigration are closely linked to people’s educational background (Masso, 2009; Paas, & Halapuu, 2012) and that young and high-educated people show more favourable attitudes towards immigrants than older and low educated people do. Fourteen countries from across Europe participated in the latest cycle of the IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2016) which surveyed lower-secondary students in their eighth year of schooling and provided a rich data set with unique possibilities for comparative analyses of young people’s attitudes toward Europe (Losito, Agrusti, Damiani, & Schulz, 2017). This paper will describe in a comparative perspective the extent to which young people endorse freedom of movement and equal rights and opportunities for immigrants, both across countries as well as with results from the previous ICCS survey in 2009 (Kerr, Sturman, Schulz, & Burge, 2010). The analyses presented in this paper will be based on surveys of lower-secondary students (13-15 years of age) across 14 European countries participating in ICCS 2016. They will be conducted in two stages. In a first step, descriptive results will be presented in comparative perspective across countries as well as with the previous survey in 2009. In a second step, multivariate analyses will further investigate the relationship between student attitudes to freedom of movement and equal rights for immigrants with student background (sex, immigrant family background, and home context), students’ civic interest and knowledge, as well as opportunities for civic learning at school.