TRANSID · Identities in Transition: Understanding ethnicity and its intersection with gender, religious affiliation and socio-economic position in comparative perspective

This project investigates ethnic identity and its intersection with gender, religious affiliation and socio-economic position in comparative perspective. It will explore how the identity of members of minority ethnic groups is shaped and re-formed over generations, including being reformulated as religious identity. It will examine how identification is mediated by gender. The research will take a comparative approach investigating the role of national context in ethnic and religious identification. The programme of research will comprise the following interlocking and complementary components: 1. an investigation of the ways in which those of migrant background identify in terms of national identity and values, and the intersection between religious and ethnic identification: exploring variation in relation to socio-economic position; 2. a study of children of interethnic unions: their ethnicity and their socio-economic position relative to children from ethnically homogamous unions; 3. consideration of the ways in which ethnic and religious identification vary by gender, of the relevance of gender and gender roles in mediating ethnic and religious identification and of the ways in which this varies with background and socioeconomic context. This quantitative sociological project will be carried out using secondary analysis of survey data for a number of European countries and employing advanced statistical techniques. Its rationale and approach will be founded in sociological theories of identity, ethnicity and social stratification, but will draw on insights from economics and psychology.