Multiple identities and religious transmission: a study among Moroccan-Dutch Muslim adolescents and their parents.

This study investigates the relation between religious group identification and ethnic and national identity among Moroccan-Dutch Muslim adolescents (11-18 years) and their parents (n=369). Compared to their parents, adolescents showed higher national identification and lower religious and ethnic group identification. However, for adolescents and their parents, there were similar positive relations between Muslim and ethnic identifications, and both identifications were negatively related to Dutch identification. For early adolescents, parent's religious group identification was strongly related to their religious identification and ethnic and national identifications. These associations were not significant for middle adolescents. It is concluded that research on children from immigrant Muslim families should not only focus on ethnicity but on religious identity in particular.