The Impacts of Ethnocentrism and Stereotype on Inter-Cultural Relations of Ethiopian Higher Education Student

This research is intended to understand the impacts of ethnocentrism and stereotypes on the ICRs among students of higher education. Qualitative research method was used in data collection and analyses. The instruments were observation, interview, and FGD. 43 research participants were purposefully selected. The findings reveal that ethnic, cultural and religious dislikes on campuses are manifested in acts ranging from hateful speeches to physical violence. Besides, both verbal disputes and physical confrontations are the results of wrong perception, misunderstanding on certain issues, criticism, misbehavior, defamation, inflammatory words, wrong attributions, indirect domination, undermining cultures of other, humor, disrespect, ideological differences, lack of unity among students etc. Ignorance of the others‟ cultures, religions and identities, ethnocentric attitudes, bias, supporting political parties along ethnic lines and exaggerated group differences are, thus, the major causes of ICRs problems among the students. On top of these, the disturbing counterattacks consisting of incidents of bigotry and intergroup strife are also prevalent. Hence, these affect the integrity and performance of the students that will affect the society at large.