IDENTITÀ ETNICA E RELIGIOSITÀ NEI MINORI CON BACKGROUND MIGRATORIO

The ethnic element, including the religious component, plays a significant role in the identity formation of minors with a migrant background. Unfortunately, data on religiosity in second generations are very mixed. Studies of immigrants arriving in Europe tend to report a decline in religiosity between the first and second generations, although it must be stressed that most of this research has focused on Muslims. In the United States, however, research has shown a much more mixed picture. Since the more an ethnic group is discriminated against, the greater the investment in religiosity as a resilience-building resource, while conversely migrants who share the dominant religion of the destination country can more easily transform their religious practice to resemble the lower levels of religiosity in the autochthonous society, one can hypothesise a significant variability among second generations of different religious faiths, depending on their greater or lesser closeness to the religion of the natives.