Rita Bichi

The essay discusses the problem of operationally defining the concept of social distance. Specifically, on the basis of existing literature, attention is paid to the possibility of empirical data collection with regard to a peculiar dimension of social distance: subjects’ perception, i.e. the ways through which individuals recognize social distance in their social relations. The research process which is presented starts from an exploratory phase, where semi-structured interviews have been used. In a second phase, data collected have been transformed into a substantial number of categories that were later tested in order to make them part of a perceived social distance scale (PSDS).