2013, Diehl, Claudia, Koenig, Matthias

We analyse migration-related changes in religiosity among new Polish and Turkish migrants in Germany by using data from an international project on Socio-Cultural Integration Processes of New Immigrants in Europe (SCIP). The study confirms that after migration, both groups experience a decrease in religious practices that is more pronounced among Muslim Turks than among Catholic Poles and more pertinent for worship attendance than for prayer. Among new Polish immigrants, religious decrease is greater for individuals with stronger social ties to the secular German mainstream and there are no signs that religious practices are resumed after the disruptive first couple of months. For Turks, however, our study shows that initial religious decrease is followed by a process of religious reorganization, independent of social assimilation. We discuss the role that "bright" symbolic boundaries against Islam may play in explaining these group-specific patterns.

2009, Diehl, Claudia, Koenig, Matthias, Ruckdeschel, Kerstin

In European public debates, Islam is often described as an impediment to gender equality. By using data from surveys conducted in Germany, we analyse the role of high levels of individual religiosity in explaining Turks’and Germans’ approval of gender equality and the way Turkish and German couples share household tasks. Results suggest that, for both groups, individuals with strong religious commitments are less likely than secular individuals to hold egalitarian gender role attitudes. At the behavioural level, this correlation between religiosity and gender egalitarianism only holds true for Turkish respondents. Furthermore, strong religious commitments contribute to generational stability in attitudinal and behavioural gender-traditionalism among Turks. However, when explaining Germans’ more egalitarian gender-related attitudes and behaviours, religiosity turns out to be just one factor among others and not a particularly important one. Further research is needed to disentangle the different cultural and religious aspects of Muslim migrants’ attitudes and behaviours.