Degree of knowledge about the refugee problem and attitudes toward them

Abstract

The problem of refugees is a complex matter that in recent years has gained greater visibility and media coverage, so that –even though indirectly– it is regularly present in our lives. The matter is not a novelty because having to leave the own country due to persecution has been recurrent throughout the History. But, in broad of the 21st century, we are facing a serious humanitarian crisis. Faced with this, and as far as psychosocial aspects are concerned, not always the level of knowledge of the population and the degree of sensitivity towards the subject are the adequate. In the present work it is tried to analyze, by means of a descriptive investigation, the level of knowledge on this subject, the degree of sensitivity and empathy towards the refugees, the level of involvement and the opinion regarding the situation of the same ones that present a sample of individuals. To do this, a developed by the authors questionnaire was used, consisting of open, closed and Likert-type questions, which was applied to a sample of 60 individuals (29 women and 31 men). The results found reveal that, in the analyzed sample, the degree of knowledge towards this subject is much scarcer than, in principle, it could be expected and, even so, the attitudes in some way prejudiced seem to be evident.