Does the share of religious ingroup members affect how important religion is to adolescents? Applying Optimal Distinctiveness Theory to four European countries. Issue 17 (1st October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Leszczensky, Lars; Flache, Andreas; Sauter, Lisa
• Is Part Of: Journal of ethnic and migration studies. Volume 46:Issue 17(2020)
• Page Start: 3703
• Page End: 3721
• Publication Date: 2019-10-01
• Subjects: Religiosity -- classroom composition -- Optimal Distinctiveness Theory (ODT) -- group threat; Ethnic relations -- Periodicals; Race relations -- Periodicals; Emigration and immigration -- Periodicals; Assimilation (Sociology) -- Periodicals; 305.8005
• DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2019.1620419
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1369-183X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: European youth attend classrooms that are religiously diverse, with the importance of religion differing between ethno-religious groups. While religion no longer matters much to many native-origin Christian youth, it is important to many of their immigrant-origin Christian and, especially, Muslim peers. Considering religion as a source of adolescents' social identity, we examine how religious classroom composition relates to the importance adolescents attach to religion. Optimal Distinctiveness Theory suggests a curvilinear relation, because a group has to be large enough to satisfy the need of belonging but small enough to satisfy the need for differentiation. Using large-scale survey data for 15-year old adolescents from four European countries, we find that this inverted U-shaped relation holds for immigrant-origin Muslim but not for native- and immigrant-origin Christian youth. Instead, for Christian youth religion was more important in classrooms with higher shares of Muslim classmates, thus lending credence to arguments derived from threat theory.