Treatises and Documents, Journal of Ethnic Studies / Razprave in Gradivo, Revija za narodnostna vprašanja Feed

Threat Perception and Social Distance towards Foreign Workers in Croatia: A 2019–2024 Shift in the Attitudes of Law Students

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Recent migration trends in Croatia feature positive net migration alongside a deepening negative perception of foreigners. This paper aims to examine law students’ attitudes towards foreign workers over a five-year period, their key determinants, and their associations with social distance towards foreign workers. Survey conducted in 2019 on the attitudes of students at four law faculties in Croatia towards different categories of migrants was repeated in 2024. The results indicate a stronger perception of foreign workers in Croatia as a cultural and symbolic threat than as a real economic threat; however, at the latent level, these attitudes are combined into a single integrated economic–cultural dimension. These attitudes were confirmed as the strongest predictors of social distance towards foreign workers, which also increased significantly during the analysed period – from average acceptance of foreign workers as next-door neighbours in 2019 to average acceptance as workplace colleagues workplace in 2024. Regression analysis also confirmed a significant effect of political attitudes on social distance.

Roma Pupils’ Perceived Relationships with Non-Roma Peers and Experiences of Peer Violence

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

This article examines how Roma pupils in Slovenian primary schools perceive their relationships with non-Roma peers and how they experience peer violence. It underscores the significance of interpersonal relationships for pupils’ well-being and the necessity of creating a safe, supportive, and inclusive school environment. The results of an empirical qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with a sample of 20 pupils from Roma settlements in Slovenia indicate that pupils generally perceive their relationships at school as positive and friendly, yet they continue to face peer violence and discrimination based on ethnicity. Their responses to such incidents include retaliation, seeking help from teachers, or passively ignoring the events. These results highlight the importance of fostering interethnic relations, promoting inclusive practices, and ensuring a safe school environment, while also contributing to a deeper understanding of the specifics of Roma pupils’ inclusion in the Slovenian school system.

Language Strategies, Schemes and Standards in Wales

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

This paper reviews systemic changes in Welsh language legislation over the past thirty-three years, focusing on official strategies for language revitalisation. While Canada and Ireland recognize individual and community language rights, Wales primarily addresses organizational duties, lacking clear individual rights. The Welsh Language Board, established by the 1993 Welsh Language Act, mandated public bodies to create Welsh Language Schemes. Despite improvements, compliance and service quality varied, especially among UK Crown bodies. The absence of robust individual rights has spurred calls for greater protection of the Welsh language, leading to the establishment of the Welsh Language Commissioner in 2012, tasked with introducing Welsh Language Standards to improve public service delivery. Recent legislation, including the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Act 2025, aims to increase Welsh speakers to one million by 2050. Although the Commissioner is proactive, challenges remain in achieving consistency and addressing previous structural weaknesses. The study emphasizes the need for ongoing legislative reforms and a coherent strategy to fully integrate Welsh into public life and foster a bilingual society.

Slovenians as an “Imagined Community” in Sixteenth-Century Protestant Writings

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The paper discusses Slovenian collective ethnic identity in the 16th century through the lens of Benedict Anderson’s concept of imagined communities. It is based on texts by Slovenian Protestant writers (1550–1595) and on so called neutral sources. The topic is addressed in eight thematic sections: 1) the Slovenian ethnonym, 2) self-identification with the Slovenian ethnic community, 3) integral markers of the Slovenian ethnic space, 4) the concept of the “Church of God of the Slovenian Language”, 5) the myth of ethnic chosenness, 6) the beginnings of national discourse, 7) the history of the Slovenians, and 8) the topos of the widespread use of the Slovenian or Slavic language. The research shows that self-identification with the Slovenian ethnic community was present among the wider population, even though the ideas of Protestant writers were confined to the educated elite. It further demonstrates that, in the second half of the 16th century, the Slovenian ethnic community fulfilled Anderson’s criteria of an imagined community, except for sovereignty.

(Non-)Notification of Succession to the Austrian State Treaty and Slovenian (Foreign) Policy

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The article examines why the Republic of Slovenia, despite material succession, did not formally notify its succession to the FPRY/SFRY’s accession to the Austrian State Treaty (AST). Drawing on a doctrinal analysis of international and constitutional law, as well as a qualitative analysis of parliamentary documents and debates (2011–2026), the author reconstructs the positions of the Government, civil-society initiatives, and the normative consolidation of succession in the 2025 Declaration of the National Assembly. The article finds that succession was consistently defined as legally indisputable, while notification was characterised as a declaratory and politically discretionary act. The article concludes that non-notification reflects a strategy of political self-restraint, prioritising bilateral pragmatism over the formal affirmation of legal continuity.

Intelligent Recognition of Ethnic Costumes Using YOLOv11: A Deep Learning Framework for Cultural Heritage Preservation

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The rapid digitization of cultural heritage creates new opportunities to preserve the visual and symbolic richness of ethnic traditions. However, accurate recognition of ethnic costumes remains challenging due to complex textures, overlapping patterns, and high inter-group similarity. This study proposes an intelligent recognition framework based on the YOLOv11 architecture for the digital preservation of multi-ethnic attire in Lijiang, China. By integrating a C2PSA spatial attention mechanism with multi-scale feature fusion, the model enhances discrimination of fine-grained textile structures under complex visual conditions. A large-scale dataset containing 4,974 images from 55 ethnic branches was constructed for evaluation. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves an mAP@0.5 of 98.416% and a recall of 95.923%, significantly outperforming YOLOv5 and YOLOv4 (p < 0.001). With only 5.8 million parameters and 16.2 GFLOPs, the model enables efficient real-time deployment, contributing a robust AI-driven solution for cultural heritage informatics.

Minority Language Media and TikTok: Exploring Use by Broadcasters and News Outlets in Basque

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In the context of the rise of short-form audiovisual media content, this article examines how traditional legacy media outlets operating in a minority language are adapting to TikTok. While prior research has examined the use of Facebook and Twitter/X, the role of TikTok within minority language media ecosystems remains underexplored. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study examines 26 TikTok accounts belonging to television, radio, and newspaper outlets. The dataset, collected in 2025, combines quantitative engagement metrics with qualitative analysis of content purpose, format, language use, and interaction. The findings reveal uneven performance across outlet types: broadcaster sub-brands and entertainment-oriented accounts achieve higher engagement, while newspapers show more limited impact. Overall, performance is shaped by both platform adaptation strategies and structural constraints linked to outlet type and its position within the immediate media ecosystem.

The Conceptualization of Minorities in the Practice of UN Treaty Bodies – A Case Study from the Alpine-Adriatic-Pannonian Area

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

International law regularly operates with the term minorities and related concepts when recognizing group-specific rights, without setting out definitions of the protected groups. However, while the law itself is largely silent on the issue of conceptualization, the practice of monitoring organs can provide guidance in this regard. Therefore, this paper draws on the doctrinal and comparative legal analysis of the case-law of UN human rights treaty bodies. Specifically, concluding observations are analysed in the context of the Alpine-Adriatic-Pannonian area, including Slovenia and its neighbours as well as other states of the former Yugoslavia. The paper aims to show the emerging consensus within the approaches of the individual treaty bodies and to identify elements of the minority concept which appear systematically in the practice of all treaty bodies in the region under examination, thus contributing to the conceptualization of minorities in the framework of international human rights law.

The Participation Paradox: Immigrants’ Civic and Political Engagement and Majority Attitudes in Slovenia

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

This article examines the participation paradox in Slovenia through three dimensions: the legal-political framework, immigrants’ civic and political participation, and majority attitudes. While civic rights are guaranteed to all residents, political rights remain stratified by citizenship and residence status, with full participation tied to naturalization. Survey results (N = 1,303) show that immigrants without Slovenian citizenship report lower civic membership and political participation than Slovenian citizens, even when eligible, while naturalized immigrants display higher engagement. Majority respondents accept immigrants’ civic involvement but oppose their electoral rights. The participation paradox thus stems from institutional restrictions, behavioural differences, and public scepticism.

Between Return and Permanence: Circular Migration in Southeast Europe

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

This article examines migration patterns in Southeast Europe, with a particular focus on circular labour migrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina in Slovenia. Facing labour shortages across both low-skilled and high-skilled sectors, Slovenia has increasingly relied on migrants from the Balkans to fill these gaps. However, the persistent outflow of workers from Bosnia and Herzegovina has had detrimental effects on Bosnia’s economy and society, exacerbating brain drain and demographic shifts. To address these challenges in third countries, the European Union has been promoting a circular migration model over the past three decades. While this model theoretically offers benefits to both countries by reducing brain drain and meeting labour demands, its practical effectiveness remains uncertain. This article analyses the impact of circular migration policy in Slovenia by examining migration statistics and assessing whether circular migration functions as intended in practice.

Identity Construction and Belonging: A Study of Second-Generation Bosnian Immigrants

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The study examines identity formation and the sense of belonging among second-generation Bosnian immigrants in Serbia and Montenegro, children of refugees displaced by the Bosnian War. Despite a shared cultural heritage across the Balkans, these individuals often navigate historical animosities and nationalist tensions in a post-conflict society. A qualitative approach, grounded in Social Identity Theory and based on semi-structured interviews, identified three central themes: rejection of national and ethnic distinctions in favour of a broader Balkan identity, the essential role of family in shaping values, and artistic expression as a means of self-exploration. The findings suggest identity among secondgeneration immigrants is fluid and continuously shaped by personal interactions rather than inherited divisions. These findings contribute to the existing literature by offering insight into how cultural heritage, familial dynamics, and creative expression shaped participants’ identities.

The Role of Collective Identity and Its Relation to Language in Ethnolinguistic Vitality: A Study of Collateral Language Communities in Poland

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Ethnolinguistic vitality (ELV) studies have long explored the functioning of minority communities, emphasizing the role of language and collective identity as key unifying factors. Since 2021, an ELV study in Poland has focused on collateral language communities – autochthonous groups linked to specific territories, whose languages are closely related to the dominant national language and often misclassified as dialects. These communities are typically unrecognized, and their group distinctiveness is frequently questioned. To assess their internal cohesion, a latent variable – Collective Identity – was developed within the ELV framework. This allows for evaluating whether such communities, often viewed as regional rather than ethnic groups, exhibit shared features and a sense of collective belonging. The findings indicate that collateral language communities form distinctive entities, characterized by shared language and cultural values, thus challenging assumptions about their peripheral or non-ethnic status.

A Delicate Balancing Act: Making Decisions for Scottish Gaelic

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Research on language policy and planning (LPP) decision making for Gaelic in Scotland attempted to map out the major preoccupations and identify blindspots held by those overseeing policy construction and implementation. Interviews with elite players in LPP development elicited key qualitative data which was benchmarked against core issues identified in a survey of participants in a putative Scottish Gaelic socioeconomy and social economy. The research uncovered discrepancies between official aspiration and socioeconomic reality, between benefits for individuals and help for communities, or between specific job sectors and the wider economy. More concerning, it becomes apparent that elite players are unclear on language revitalisation goals. While they understand that more needs to be done for the home and community, they lack strategic direction as to how to achieve this.

Psychosocial Risks and Protective Factors of Roma and Non-Roma Communities Living in Poverty in Portugal

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Poverty threatens psychosocial health, especially when intersecting with minority identities such as ethnicity. Within the Roma community, discrimination, prejudice, and stigma create particularly adverse environments. This cross-sectional study compares psychosocial health between Roma and non-Roma individuals living in poverty. The sample includes 317 participants (202 non-Roma and 115 Roma), aged 18–71. Significant differences (p < 0.001) were found in psychological distress (non-Roma higher), self-stigma (Roma higher), social support (Roma higher), and resilience (Roma higher). Roma identity predicts lower distress. Discrimination impacts self-stigma, shaped by social prejudice. Higher resilience and social support in Roma communities act as protective factors. These findings highlight the need for public policies that address these populations’ needs and help reduce stigma and discrimination.

Slovenia and Austria at the Crossroads of Mutual Relations. Slovene-Austrian Relations as Hostage of the Troubled Legacy of the 19th and 20th Centuries

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austria and Slovenia are neighbours and friends, closely linked both geographically and historically. Over time, their peoples have developed various perceptions, stereotypes, and prejudices about each other. The rise of national movements and modern states has significantly shaped national historiographies, which have often drawn on past events in search of foundational ideas for the formation of their respective nation-states. This paper explores how this complex and sometimes troubled legacy has influenced cross-border relations.

Slovenes and Italians Living in the Karst Area of Italy: Stories, Conflicts, Ignorance and Perceptions

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The paper presents the research conducted within the project Ethnography of Silence(s), focusing on the Slovene/Yugoslav-Italian border region established after the Second World War. This politically charged period was marked by ideological tensions, state negotiations, and shifting boundaries that deeply affected local communities. The study examines how individuals from Slovene and Italian communities experienced, interpreted, and adapted to these imposed conditions of coexistence and division. Emphasis is placed on lived experiences shaped by migration, deprivation, and contestation. Employing oral history methodology, the research analyses personal narratives, emotions, and memories as key sources of ethnographic insight. By foregrounding silenced or marginalised voices, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of how political borders are internalised and negotiated through everyday life.

Language Dynamics in Society (LanDS): The LanDS Analytical Framework for Majority and Minority-Language Ethnolinguistic Vitality

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Language Dynamics in Society (LanDS) is an analytical framework to reappraise ethnolinguistic vitality (EV) which is key to societal processes affecting the stability of language groups. LanDS proposes an enhanced academic analysis of EV and Language Promotion and Protection. This EV approach addresses the dynamics of how social players participate in the processes which are beneficial or detrimental to EV. LanDS posits four analytical Developmental Quadrants: Language Transmission and Acquisition, Socialisation and Reinforced Acquisition, Civic Expansion, and Coherent Ethnicisation. Each Quadrant is affected by the four core concepts of Direction, Process, Participation, and Competition. Collective community continuity or instability are shaped by the language group’s participation in these key developmental stages.

Types of Social Orientations of Young People in the System of Interethnic Interaction in Multiethnic Cities (On the Example of Bishkek)

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The relevance of the study of types of social identity in Bishkek is conditioned by the need to eliminate social stereotypes regarding different ethnic groups and demonstrate possible productive behaviours to avoid interethnic conflicts. The purpose of this study was to investigate the productive and unproductive types of social orientations within the multiethnic city of Bishkek. The following methods were used: the method of analysing sociological information, statistical, comparative, analytical and synthetic methods. According to the 2022 Census, Bishkek is home to many nationalities, including Kyrgyz, Russians, Uzbeks, Tatars, Dungans, Kazakhs, Turks. The primary focus of this study is on the youth aged 18–29. This paper can be used to investigate the experience of interethnic interaction on the example of different countries of the world, to consider conflict-causing factors and stereotypes in multiethnic structures.

“In that moment, we felt close, as if the border had been torn down”: Contacts between Milojka Štrukelj Primary School and San Vendemiano, 1960s–1980s

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

This article explores the contacts between Milojka Štrukelj Primary School in Nova Gorica and the lower secondary school in San Vendemiano, framing them as a form of regional cooperation between Slovenia and Italy. The partnership began in the 1960s, amidst bloc divisions and an unresolved national border between Italy and Yugoslavia. At the time, the legacies of fascism and the Second World War still deeply resonated on both sides. The article focuses on two key aspects of this collaboration: school holiday camps and the cultural exchange in 1972. Supported by local, regional, and national political institutions, the schools aimed to foster cross-border connections among young people, grounded in mutual respect and the overcoming of prejudice. This ambitious initiative also functioned as a form of cultural diplomacy between the two countries. Drawing on archival documents and press coverage, the article highlights the key features and lasting impact of these contacts, which helped shape the experiences of several generations of Slovene and Italian children.

Who Prefers to Stay? Individual and Institutional Factors Supporting Immobility among Minority Hungarian Higher Education Students

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Based on the migration models proposed by J. Carling, de Haas, and K. Schewel, we examine the immobility aspirations of minority and majority Hungarian students in Central Europe. Our aim is to identify individual as well as institutional factors that we hypothesise support students in developing their immobility aspirations. We analyse empirical data collected through a survey in 2019 among students of Hungarian-language higher education institutions in Hungary, Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia, and Serbia (N = 2,210). The results of multivariate and logistic regression analyses show that the development of immobility aspirations is supported by socio-demographic factors and social networks, as well as by institutional and academic factors, such as training programmes preparing students for local professions, and a greater degree of trust in the higher education institution and role partners.