Migrazione e religiosità. La trasmissione dei valori religiosi nelle famiglie immigrate

This chapter examines the transmission of religious values within immigrant families in Europe, focusing on how migration reshapes both the religious landscape of receiving societies and the religiosity of migrants themselves. As international migration increases religious diversity in historically mono-religious European countries, migrants—who often come from more religious societies than their host countries—frequently reassess their religious identity as a way of coping with marginality, insecurity, and the challenges of settling in highly secularized contexts. The text reviews the mixed evidence on religiosity among second-generation immigrants. While European studies (largely focused on Muslims) tend to show religious decline across generations, U.S. research presents a more varied picture, with some groups showing increased religious practice. The piece discusses two competing theoretical frameworks: the assimilation thesis, which predicts declining religiosity as integration progresses, and the concept of "reactive religiosity" or "reactive ethnicity," whereby religious identity intensifies as a defensive and solidarity-building response to discrimination and exclusion in the host society. The author notes that the degree of religious distance from the host society's dominant faith—rather than integration alone—appears to be a key factor shaping these divergent trajectories, with Muslim minorities in Europe showing particularly stable and elevated religious practice across generations.