Anti-refugee attitudes of social media participants and the goals of intercultural education

The purpose of this article is to present anti-refugee attitudes observed on the Internet which show the influence of virtual space on the formation of opinions on refugees. The data collected during the ethnographic research in the period 2015–2019 concern attitudes, behaviors and narratives negating the reception of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, as well as the grassroots criticism of Internet users against sheltering refugees in the Polish territories. Social media were shown as a tool for expressing public opposition to the prospect of accepting refugees into Poland. Among the data, there were contents that comprised an indirect or direct negation of the goals of intercultural education. An analysis was conducted of the content posted on the Facebook platform on the website “No to the Islamization of Europe”, the functioning of which focuses on informing and commenting on the events related to the “migration crisis”. The research material includes the data from 2018 – a period when the attention of the creators of this medium focused on the potentially negative consequences of accepting refugees into Europe. The conclusions of the research justify and explain the need for the goals of cultural education, which is shown here as a way to counteract stereotypes.