CULTURAL POSITION OF IMMIGRANTS IN SLOVENIA: FACTORS AND INDICATORS

ABSTRACT
In the contribution, the results of the Questionnaire on the situation of immigrants, their descendants and their cultures in Slovenia is resumed, which was carried out within the research project Literary and cultural image of immigrants in Slovenia (1. 7. 2004-30. 6. 2007) by eleven volunteers - students of the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana - in 26 Slovene towns with different concentration of the first generation of immigrants. Pointed out in the present article are those answers to the questionnaire that deal with the title theme of this contribution that is with factors, which influence on the cultural position of immigrants in Slovenia, and with indicators witnessing to that position.
The stereotypes on immigrants in Slovenia and on how they imperil ethnic Slovenes, their survival (immigrants supposedly take off jobs), security (immigrants are supposedly responsible for the majority of criminal offences in Slovenia), culture, language etc.; are indirectly indicators and directly factors of social-economic, political and cultural position of the immigrants; thus, the first part of the article deals with the group of factors. Following are summarized opinions of the interviewed on their equality in the field of politics, religious life and education. The next are two sections on frequently self-evident (as well language) subordination of the immigrants, and on what Slovenes think of their own ethnic intolerance. The following three sections present the central part of the article. The first is about language knowledge of the interviewed immigrants, their reading habits, and their practising of cultural traditions. The second deals with the possibilities for the development and assertion of immigrant cultural activities in the broader society, namely in the light of the questionnaire answers as well as from the aspect of cognisance of other researchers. The third section issues the question of actual possibilities of the materially weaker part of members of immigrant communities for any kind of participation in the field of culture.