The Mediating Role of Multiple Group Identities in the Relations between Religious Discrimination and Muslim‐American Adolescents’ Adjustment

Abstract

Despite increasing anti-Muslim sentiments, the implications of religious discrimination for Muslim-American adolescents' well-being remain understudied. Drawing on the rejection identification and disidentification models, we examined the mediating role of multiple group identities (i.e., religious and national) in the cross-sectional associations between individual-level religious discrimination and internalizing and externalizing problems among 13-to 18-year-old (M = 16.7 years, SD = 1.6) Muslim-American adolescents with immigrant backgrounds. Moreover, building on the attributional ambiguity perspective, we examined the moderating role of group-level religious discrimination in the form of Islamophobia. Religious identity did not mediate the relations between individual-level discrimination and internalizing and externalizing problems, and these relations did not depend on youths' perceptions of Islamophobia. However, individual-level discrimination was associated with American identity, depending on perceptions of Islamophobia. In turn, adolescents' Muslim and American identities were linked to less internalizing and externalizing problems. Implications of our findings for the development of programs and policies are discussed.

Identity Questioning: Antecedents and Consequences of Prejudice Attributions

“…Enactment likelihood may represent a higher‐level structural factor since it is contingent on government action. Some work suggests interpreting societal discrimination against one's group involves different processes than attributing individual experiences to prejudice (Balkaya, Cheah, & Tahseen, ).…”

To Be Both (and More): Immigration and Identity Multiplicity

“…The second section focuses on the implications of identity multiplicity for a broad range of outcomes. The first two contributions are concerned with adjustment or well‐being and address the role of multiple identification in terms of making individuals vulnerable to identity threats, particularly in the form of identity questioning (Albuja, Gaither, & Sanchez, ), but also for coping with perceived discrimination at the individual and group level (Balkaya, Cheah, & Tahseen, ). The third contribution focuses on academic achievement among immigrant‐origin pupils in secondary education and sheds light on the conditions under which embracing an integrated identity is beneficial for performance, and when this is costly (Baysu & Phalet, ).…”

“…The empirical contributions cover a broad range of immigrant‐receiving contexts and immigrant groups. Two of the empirical contributions draw on U.S.‐based samples of immigrants or their descendants (Albuja et al., ; Balkaya et al., ). Both are diverse in terms of their ethnic or racial composition, but the second focuses more narrowly on Muslim Americans as an important religious minority group in public debates about the compatibility of religious minority with Western national identities.…”

Why Immigrants’ Multiple Identities Matter: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice

“…Research on the meaning of national identity for immigrants also sheds light on the importance of the majority group and its relation towards immigration in general, and specific immigrant groups in particular, for an immigrant's sense of “being both.” Several contributions in this issue highlight how identity questioning by the majority, as well as discrimination and other identity threats at the individual and group level, can jeopardize immigrants’ well‐being and performance (Albuja et al., ; Balkaya et al., ; Baysu & Phalet, ). We should be careful, however, not to attribute contextual threats to dual identity one‐sidedly to the majority population and neglect the role of the immigrant community in facilitating or hampering migrants’ dual identities.…”

“…At the same time, immigrants and their descendants who hold dual identities face particular vulnerabilities. They are at greater risk of having their identities questioned or threatened by members of both their ethnic (or religious) and the national groups, with consequences for psychological well‐being (Albuja, Sanchez, & Gaither, ; Balkaya, Cheah, & Tahseen, ), academic performance (Baysu & Phalet, ; Baysu, Phalet, & Brown, ), and political engagement (Cárdenas, ). The same categories of identification that can make them a bridge between groups may also increase their strain.…”