‘Away with prejudice’: an anti-discrimination campaign among municipal officials in the Netherlands

This article reports on a study into the scope of an anti-discrimination campaign among Dutch municipal officials in a large city. A questionnaire was completed by 698 people. Our major research questions were: are there any high-risk groups of officials that distinguish themselves from their colleagues by intolerant, etnocentric prejudices? Did such an attitude also entail that these groups participated less in the campaign activities? Our results indicate that most of the activities of this, in its scope unique, one-year anti-discrimination campaign are well-known. From our analyses of sex, age and salary differences it appears that the group with the most pronounced etnocentric attitude is that of the men in the lowest salary group: more than one in three of this group of male officials agrees in principle with etnocentric statements. The study shows that the found differences in participation in the campaign activities of male and female officials with a low, medium or high salary could be understood by the extent to which ethnocentric views were common in those categories.