Muslim Acculturation in a Catholic Country: Its Associations With Religious Identity, Beliefs, and Practices

The literature suggests that religion may play an important role in the acculturation process
of immigrants by contributing to the maintenance of the heritage culture and preventing
identification with the mainstream. With few exceptions, studies on this topic have focused on
religion as a whole by assessing specific aspects or dimensions (such as religious identification,
beliefs, and practices) and creating a composite measure without analyzing the contribution of
each dimension to the acculturation process. In this study, the relationships between specific
religious dimensions and acculturation were assessed with a sample of 282 Muslim immigrants
who were recruited in the northern part of Italy. Two regression models show that religious
identification drives the maintenance of Muslim culture but is unrelated to the acculturation to
Italian culture, whereas beliefs and practices do not contribute to heritage acculturation but are
negatively associated to acculturation to the host culture