Factors Effecting American Perceptions of Syrian Refugees

Indianapolis, IN

Syrian refugees have become one of the greatest humanitarian issues throughout the world, as millions of Syrians have been forced out of their homeland and are struggling to find a place to live. Some of these people experienced internal displacement and are now living in other regions of Syria, but many fled the country and looked towards foreign actors as safe havens. These foreign countries, fearful of international terrorism and the refugees burden on society, have been less than accepting of the immigrants. Western countries, especially, have struggled to deal with the refugees, and public opinion is often divided on the refugee crisis. One of the countries debating this issue is the United States of America. What factors are causing the American public to be divided about the issue of Syrian refugees? Through the exploration of previous scholarly work, I have determined that there are three major schools of thought that experts believe influence American’s perception of immigrants and refugees: race, income, and partisanship. By outlining these three different schools of thought, I hope to uncover the strengths and weaknesses inherent in the arguments and apply the knowledge gained from this previous research to the current issue regarding Syrian refugees. Because the Syrian crisis is relatively new, there has been little research done about the issue, much less how Americans are responding to the crisis. Through the application of previous research, I hypothesize how the different factors are effecting American’s perceptions of Syrian refugees. In the next few sections of my paper, I lay out the design of my research and outline how I collected my data. In these sections, I describe the survey instrument used, measure and operationalize the variables I test, and describe the test that is used to measure the data. I use multiple regression test to examine my three different independent variables. The test run on the data will determine the outcome of my hypotheses. The final portion of this paper discusses some implications about my research while also talking about the short comings of this paper and different ideas for future research based on this data.