Growing Up Canadian: Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists by Peter Beyer and Rubina Ramji (review)

This book is a comparative study of religion among young adults of Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist immigrant families. Although the focus of the book is on Canada, it ends with a comparative chapter with the United States (US) and Western Europe. The research that the book is based is on is primarily interviews with over two hundred individuals, aged 18 to 26, and was cross-national and involved a series of different institutions that collaborated with each other. The book is the first in its field to focus on religious identity in Canada as opposed to ethnic identity, which has been the subject of a considerable body of literature. The authors make the argument that it is only now when second-generation migrants of Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist identification in Canada have reached adult status that a study of this type could actually be undertaken.

The book tends to focus on Toronto, especially the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), as this is one of the most prominent parts of Canada where there are large numbers of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists residing. This perhaps partly explains why Sikhs were not also included in the study, as along with Toronto, there is also a large Sikh community in Vancouver. The authors make a series of interesting observations, quite a few of which counter popular perceptions of religiosity, especially among young Muslims. First, they argue that extremism is not prevalent among this group. Second, the majority of the young Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists they interviewed said that their religion was important to them, but this religious faith took the form of a more personal relationship to God rather than following strict religious dogma.

In the comparative chapter with the US and Western Europe at the end of the book the authors quite rightly point out that the Canadian experience is very similar in a lot of ways with the US – with them both receiving considerable numbers of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. In contrast Western Europe primarily received Muslim migrants, mainly from North Africa. However, they do point out that the United Kingdom was the exception here with its large Sikh and Hindu population (as well as Muslim), but not Buddhist. The reason the authors did not compare the Canadian experience with the Australian and New Zealand was because the research on religious groups in those countries is at a very early stage and needs much more work before a fruitful comparison can be made with Canada.

I found this book interesting and it certainly makes an important contribution to the field. However, I would recommend it to specialists rather than general readers as it can be quite dense and technical at times, which considering the nature of the subject and the research undertaken is understandable.