Social Identity Of Teenagers And Students

Abstract

The article presents the results of an empirical study of the content and structure of identity of teenagers and students. The analysis of self-descriptions showed the predominance of subjective categories over objective ones. The identity of high schoolers and students contains positive and negative descriptions with a predominance of positive ones. The content of social identity consists of categories of family, civil, territorial, national, religious, professional, age, gender identity, as well as groups of favorite hobbies. The structure of social identity of both teenagers and students is dominated by family and gender identity, as well as hobby groups (in high schoolers) and o the human being (in students). In the hierarchy of types of social identity among high schoolers and students, the most significant is the educational and professional identity, which corresponds to the leading educational and professional activity at this age. Analysis of the ratio of on-line and off-line identity groups showed the predominance of on-line groups among both: teenagers and students. A comparative analysis of the content of identity of high schoolers and students revealed similarities in the number of social and physical categories; the similarities in the nature of identity are in the presence of negative characteristics; in the structure of identity – the dominants of family identity. There are statistically significant differences in the number of subjective categories and the positive character of self-descriptions. Dynamic changes were revealed: students have more subjective categories and positive characteristics than high schoolers.