Muslim American adolescents' explanations of changing religious practices: Cultural tools in cultural contexts

To examine the culturally embedded nature of religious practices, we conducted a mixed-methods study in which Muslim American adolescents described how and why their religious practices had changed in recent years (see Etengoff & Daiute, 2013, J. Adolesc. Res., 28, 690). Participants included 201 Muslim adolescents (ages 13-19) from predominantly immigrant families; all were contestants in a Muslim Inter-Scholastic Tournament regional competition. Participants completed surveys including an item regarding whether their religious practices had changed, and for those who answered affirmatively, open-ended questions about the change. Additional measures assessed ethnic identity and perceived discrimination. As hypothesized, the 60% of participants who reported a change in religious practices described this shift as a response to new contexts, people, and religious knowledge. Those who reported a change also reported higher levels of ethnic identity exploration and perceived discrimination. Overall, Muslim American adolescents' descriptions portrayed religious practices as developing through reciprocal interactions with culture. More generally, participants' descriptions point to the viability of a model in which religious practices change and in turn are changed by cultural contexts.