This thesis seeks to examine what causes the prevalent perceptions of integration of non-Western immigrants and descendants of immigrants amongst the ethnically Danish majority population in Denmark and how the culture of politics and media influence these perceptions.
The thesis poses the question of whether perceptions of integration can be explained by attitudes toward immigration alone, as radical readings of the theory of Motivated Political Reasoning suggests, or if and what more factors must be considered to satisfactorily explain how perceptions of integration are created.
By using data from the analysis “ The Danes believe that integration is much worse than in reality” and “Every other Dane believes that immigration poses a serious threat” published by Danmarks VIdenscenter for Integration in 2021, where a representative sample of the adult Danish population consisting of 2015 respondents were asked to first state their political beliefs, self-rated level of knowledge on and level of interest in matters of integration and then asked to estimate values associated with seven different integration ratios regarding education, crime rates, population size, employment level and adherence to norms regarding democracy, gender equality and the right to self-determination in choosing one’s partner on a scale of 1-100%, stating how large of a percentage of non-Western Immigrants and ascendants of immigrants they believed to meet the established criteria, the empirical part of this thesis rejects the theory that perceptions are determined by political beliefs, showcasing that, among other empirical findings, the Danes across all political beliefs believe that integration is significantly worse than it actually is.
Following Kristian Kriegbaum Jensen’s instigation to broaden the understanding of the structural preconditions to civic integration and by using the Critical Realism of Dave Elder-Vass, this thesis combines the use of quantative methods and the creation of a theoretical framework that builds on Slothuus & Leeper’s "Partisan conflict-predisposition model" of public opinion formation in an attempt to encapsulate how attitudes to immigration, dispostitions, the prevalent culture of politics and media and relevant background variables interact in creating exaggerated misconceptions on how badly the integration of non-Western immigrants and descendants of immigrants into the Danish majority society is going.