The Impact of Age, Gender and Education on the Attitude of Ethnic Groups toward Each Other In Golestan Province, Iran (2012)

Golestan Province has a population composed of three ethnic groups namely "Turkmen", "Sistani" and a group of people with various socio-historical differences which are conventionally called Fars. The main objective in this research was to assess the level of consensus among three ethnic groups and find out the effect of age, gender and education on the attitude of each ethnic group toward other ethnic groups. The required data was gathered through a questionnaire completed by the individuals in the samples from each ethnic group. Findings show the level of consensus to be the highest between Turkmen and Sistani ethnic groups. Higher education level is associated with lower acceptance of others by two ethnic groups of Turkmen and Fars and contrary is true for Sistani ethnic groups. Gender differences are unrelated to the type of attitude held by each ethnic group toward other ethnic groups. It seems that higher age is weakly associated with the increase in the acceptance of others.