ZAGREB, October 22, 2019 – The widely held belief in Croatia that young people are radical and intolerant has turned out to be wrong, the head of the Croatian Helsinki Committee on Human Rights, Ivan Zvonimir Čičak, said on Tuesday while presenting the results of a survey.
The survey, entitled “Tolerance and religiousness of students”, debunks stereotypes based on young people’s behaviour on social media and shows that incidents that occur in Croatia do not reflect the practice of the majority, Čičak told a round table.
The survey was led by sociologist Ivan Markešić from the Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences, who polled 324 students from four faculties of humanities in Zagreb via Facebook. It shows that humanities students are tolerant towards others and those who are different and are opposed to discrimination against minorities.
The students were given a high average grade of 4.07 on a scale of 1 to 5, said Erik Brezovec, an assistant lecturer at Croatian Studies who was involved in the conduct of the survey.
Brezovec noted that there was no difference between religious and non-religious students in their attitude towards those different. The survey also revealed that a majority of those polled do not agree that the Church should play a decisive role in society, he added.
Speakers at the round table highlighted the need for more surveys of this kind, including one on the attitude towards the native Muslim community in Croatia and Muslim migrants, and for expanding the sample to include the entire country.
The round table was organised by the Croatian Helsinki Committee on Human Rights and the Electronic Media Council with the participation of prominent intellectuals, philosophers, theologians, students and dignitaries of religious communities in Croatia.
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