© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007 DOI: International Journal of Children’s Rights 15 (2007) 1–17 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CHILDREN’S RIGHTS www.brill.nl/chil The Child’s Right to Religious Freedom and Formation of Identity Anat Scolnicov Fellow and Lecturer in Law, Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge A child’s identity is formed relative to, but separate from, his or her family. Identity has many facets, including those of gender, family membership, nationality, and moral outlook. Some aspects of identity are immutable, such as race, some are mutable, such as religious identity. Both mutable and immutable characteristics form identity, and the line between the two is not necessarily clear-cut. Race, of course, is predetermined and immutable, but the formation of an identity, in which belonging to a racial group bears or does not bear a significance, is not. Sex is biologically determined, but gen- der identity is formed through social learning. Furthermore, the line between mutable and immutable characteristics does not stay fixed. In the future, for instance, parents might be able to choose the genetic makeup of their child. The legitimacy of such a means of controlling a child’s iden- tity by the parents is very different from that of controlling education, religion, or national identity. Nevertheless, it can be seen as simply a more extreme case of con- trol of identity. This paper will examine the way in which family bonds influence the child’s reli- gious identity. Specifically, it will analyse the legal regulation of parents’ rights over the child’s religious identity, asking to what extent parents should be allowed to create the child’s identity, to what extent the state should control it, and how the law should regulate this process. I will argue that the law has fostered the ability of parents to control the formation of their children’s religious identity. However, a discussion of the subjacent principles involved is still missing. I test this argument by examining legal regulation in two circumstances of a break in continuity: adoption, and entering school. I analyse how the law protects, in these circumstances, family control over the formation of religious identity. In the case of adoption, I compare the legal regulation of formation or preservation of religious identity with regulation regarding formation of race identity. In the case CHILL_15_02_SCOLNICOV 2/23/07 5:10 PM Page 1