How education moderates the effect of perceived discrimination on religious identification: Evidence from a survey experiment among Turkish immigrants in Germany

The religiosity and religious identity of Muslim minorities in the West is a pervasive topic in public discourse and academic research. Muslims experience significant discrimination and hostility based on their religious identity despite increasing educational integration and upward social mobility. How does the level of education moderate the effect of perceived discrimination on religious identification? Building on social identity theory and measuring both the strength and relative importance of religious identity, this paper reexamines the discrimination-ingroup identification link and examines heterogeneity within this community based on educational level. Drawing on an original survey of 1456 Turkish immigrants in Germany and combining a survey experiment and an observational study, this paper finds substantive heterogeneity: Higher-educated immigrants strengthen their attachment to their religious group when they perceive discrimination, whereas lower-educated immigrants tend to distance themselves from their religious identity. Additionally, while observational analyses support prior research showing that the average association between discrimination and ingroup identification is positive, the priming experiment does not provide evidence for a positive average causal effect. This study makes important empirical and theoretical contributions to research on religious identification and the integration paradox.