Abstract
While migration waves from Central and Eastern Europe signify an increasing number of second generations with a Christian–Catholic (CC) background, the almost exclusive debate on the migration of Muslims has allowed little investigation of the increase in migration of the Christian contingent and very few studies have been conducted from a youth perspective. The question of how faith, ethnicity, and religious socialisation relate to one another is highly pertinent in the Italian context where Catholicism continues to be the religion of reference for the majority of the population, in spite of increasing trends in secularisation in other European countries. The core goal of this chapter is to analyse how religious belonging is changing and what the challenges to this issue are within the ethnic community of Christian second generations. The chapter will present an initial attempt, by drawing on 30 qualitative interviews, to analyse how young Filipinos, Peruvians, and Romanians (aged 18–24 years) living in Italy manage their relationship with religion, by considering whether and how they continue to be linked with their religious ethnic communities.
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Notes
- 1.
Parts of this chapter draw on Ricucci 2016.
- 2.
According to Ruben Rumbaut’s definition (1997), generational belonging is determined by age and, in a broader sense, by the age at which minors arrive in the parents’ migration country. Thus, generation 1.5 indicates minors who were reunited with their parents when they were between 7 and 13 years old and generation 1.25 refers to minors who arrived when they were older. Two general definitions of ‘second generation’ are used in academic debates. The first—statistical-demographic—refers to those born to foreign parents in the host society. The second—socio-political—includes not only those mentioned in the first definition but also those who arrive when they are young enough to attend primary school; some definitions include children who are up to ten years old. The second definition is the one used as a point of reference by Italian studies and politics.
- 3.
This focus of attention was initially on beurs (children of immigrants from the Maghreb) in France during the 1980s (Wihtol de Wenden 2004). Until then, the research debate was mainly addressed to the condition of the first generation and the integration of the second generation in schools.
- 4.
- 5.
Apart from estimates of religious belonging, there are no specific data about either first generations or their children. This chapter does not consider young Muslims, but others to whom less attention has been paid: those from Catholic and Orthodox countries and family traditions.
- 6.
- 7.
In this chapter, I have referred only to 30 interviews with Filipinos, Peruvians, and Romanians (aged 18–24 years) living in Italy and belonging mainly to the 1.5 generation. To frame the inter-generational perspective better, I have also used 10 interviews with interviewees’ parents. All the names have been changed in order to ensure anonymity.
- 8.
A preliminary version of this section was published in Ricucci 2014.
- 9.
It means a country—in contrast with other European Catholic countries—where Catholicism continues to be strong and widespread among the population. Various data and indicators confirm the presence of a lived Catholic sub-culture permeating both public and private life (Eccles 2015).
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Ricucci, R. (2019). Religious Belonging in Family, School, and Ethnic Communities: Changes in Christian–Catholic Second Generations in Italy. In: Arweck, E., Shipley, H. (eds) Young People and the Diversity of (Non)Religious Identities in International Perspective. Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16166-8_3
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