Religion, Solidarity, and Prejudice: Interreligious Attitudes Among Adolescents in Norway

Abstract

Religion has emerged as a potential barrier to integration in increasingly diverse European societies. While existing research on intergroup relations mostly focuses on majority members’ attitudes toward religious or ethnic minority groups, attitudes in minority populations have received less attention. This study uses data from the first wave of the Children of Immigrant Longitudinal Study in Norway to examine how religion relates to adolescents’ attitudes toward people of different faiths in a multireligious setting. Using multinomial logistic regression, the analysis reveals a dual relationship between religion and outgroup‑attitudes. On the one hand, there is evidence of general religious solidarity: religiously affiliated youth express more positive attitudes toward religious outgroups than the nonaffiliated. On the other hand, specific intergroup tensions emerge: Christian adolescents are more likely to hold negative attitudes toward Muslims (but not Jews or nonbelievers), while Muslims are more prone to view Jews negatively (but not Christians or nonbelievers). Moreover, school exposure to minority‑peers is linked to positive attitudes, while exposure to majority‑peers is not. Overall, the findings underscore the complex role of religion in integration processes, highlighting its potential to promote intergroup understanding and its capacity to reinforce social divisions, depending on the broader social and political context.