Islam and the Transmission of Cultural Identity in Four European Countries

Abstract

Studies exploring the integration of European immigrants tend to highlight cultural gaps between Muslim children and their peers. While some scholars argue that parent-to-child transmission is a key mechanism underlying this pattern, others privilege extrafamilial explanations by pointing to differences in cultural values within Muslim households. In the present study, I argue that these mixed results stem from a tendency in the literature to analyze distinct components of personal culture in isolation from cognate dimensions. To address this shortcoming, I adopt a connectionist lens and track how networks of ethnic attachments, tolerance norms and gender norms are distributed among immigrants in four European countries and transmitted across generational lines. After fitting a series of latent class models and regressions, I arrive at the following conclusion: while Muslim youth stand out from their peers vis-à-vis their cultural profiles, there is no evidence to suggest that this pattern is driven by parent-to-child transmission.