Islam and its representation in the Italian culture

Abstract

Different groups of citizens from Latium region, distributed by gender and age, and belonging to the medium-high socio-economic-cultural class, were asked in 2002, 2004 and 2005 to express what was coming to their mind, their associations and fantasies about Islam and islamic populations. The data were processed with the Emotional Text Analysis. The results of these three research studies are presented, which show a progressive accentuation of the pejorative stereotypes towards the islamic populations.