The research question for this study is: how do religious and ethnic identities intersect for second-generation Americans? Is religious identification consistently coupled with strong ethnic identity among second-generation Americans, as posited by the current literature on is this issue, or are there other extant patterns that need to be further examined? I considered this question by comparing religious and non-religious second-generation Americans from Muslim-origin families from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. I interviewed 44 individuals across a range of religious and ethnic identification, and found six main patterns in how ethno-religious identities do and do not map on to one another. I titled these six patterns thusly: "Religion > Ethnicity; Higher Religion, Higher Ethnicity," "Religion > Ethnicity; Higher Religion, Lower Ethnicity," "Religion = Ethnicity," "Religion < Ethnicity," "Somewhat Ethnic, Somewhat Religious," and "Critics of Religion and Ethnicity."The case of second-generation Muslim Americans is particularly interesting, given that what may actually be occurring is the growing importance of a "pan-religious" identity, rather than the continued dominance of specific ethnic identities at the group level. Indeed, the primary function of the congregation vis-Ã -vis ethnicity may not be to maintain the ascendancy of a particular ethnic identity, as the sociology of religion literature claims; rather, for second-generation Muslims, religiosity may encourage a "pan-ethnicity" based on shared religious identity. This is borne out in the presence of two forms of the "Religion > Ethnicity" category, and the differentiation in how segmented assimilation occurs between the highly religious and the less religious.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/194730 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Sheikh, Christine |
| Contributors | Chaves, Mark A., Grant III, Don S., Chaves, Mark A., Grant III, Don S., Fernandez, Celestino |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Electronic Dissertation |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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