Greek university students’ attitudes towards refugees: The role of contact with refugees in a common context since the beginning of refugees’ arrival

Introduction: The massive migration flow that arrived into Europe since 2015 was a new challenge which gained prominent attention. Despite the vast literature on migration processes, research on refugees’ arrival in Greece is still limited. The aim of this study was to examine Greek university students’ attitudes towards refugees and to explore factors that are possibly related to the academic context where participants studied or to their contact with refugees.Method: A self-report questionnaire was administered to 437 Greek young adults with a mean age of 22.63 years (SD=4.72).Results: Factorial ANOVA showed a significant interaction effect among gender, year of study and academic discipline on attitudes towards refugees. A multiple linear regression analysis also showed that the interaction effect of seeing a refugee, meeting a refugee and discussing with a refugee explained a small but a significant proportion of variance in attitudes towards refugees.Discussion: Findings have important implications for the better integration of refugees in Greece.