Perceived Threat As a Risk Factor for Social Rejection of Muslims in Southern Spain: The Case of the Municipality of El Ejido.

Southern Spain has emerged as a crucial enclave for the study of attitudes towards immigration. Due to its geographical location, it is the gateway to Europe for immigrants from the African continent. Specifically, the municipality of El Ejido is one of the most significant socio-cultural laboratories in Europe with 88,752 inhabitants, of which 30,105 are of foreign origin, and with a world-pioneering production model of intensive agriculture, which depends on a work force mainly made up of immigrants from different ethnic backgrounds. Currently, 60% of the total number of foreigners residing in the municipality are of Moroccan nationality, which makes them the focus of the collective imagination of the economic immigrant. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate, using Threat Theory, how Moroccan immigrants are perceived, identifying the variables that can be considered predictors of social rejection, as well as the quantification of their strength as risk factors. For this purpose, a cross-sectional study was carried out with a sample of 450 individuals living in the city of El Ejido, divided into cohorts by district, age, and sex. The sociodemographic and perceived realistic threat variables which could influence the level of perceived symbolic threat were evaluated by the adjustment of ordinal logit models. The ratios (odds) for classification in a higher level of anxiety were interpreted in the variables that proved to be significant and could be considered risk factors for rejection of Muslims.