Dominant Identity Research Articles

Divergent Pathways in North–South Education Policy Development in Ireland in the 1920s: Exploring the Influence of the First Ministers for Education on Both Sides of the Border

ABSTRACT A long tradition of both State and religious interest and support characterised provision for education on the island of Ireland from the 1700s. Following the partition of Ireland in the 1920s, the newly created political entities of the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland forged separate and distinct education policy trajectories that largely reinforced and propagated the dominant identity in each jurisdiction. This article explores and assesses the contributions of the first Ministers for Education in the Irish Free State and in Northern Ireland in the 1920s, Eoin MacNeill and Lord Londonderry, respectively. A particular emphasis is placed on their influence, impact and legacy on primary education policy development and enactment. Ultimately it could be argued that both Ministers can be characterised to a certain extent as political failures in terms of introducing and embedding education policy that aligned with their personal or political ambition and ideology.

Positive Identity Construction in Diverse Organizations

Our desire to cultivate and sustain positive identities has a powerful influence on workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) dynamics. While sometimes the quest for positive identities promotes celebration of diversity and uniqueness, in many other circumstances our inherent motivation to strive toward building more positive identities can have unintended consequences for DEI in organizations. In this review, we organize research on positive identities at work to better understand the experiences of the diverse set of individuals that compose our work organizations today. We invite a critical examination of how individuals with underrepresented and dominant identities deal with identity demands in diverse workplaces in both helpful and harmful ways. We conclude with directions for future research on interventions that mitigate identity threat and promote inclusion.

Signaling safety and fostering fairness: Exploring the psychological processes underlying (in)congruent cues among Black women.

Exposure to an organizational diversity cue may help attract Black women to professional spaces. The cue transfer framework contends that because intergroup attitudes co-occur, both cues congruent or incongruent with one's minoritized identity signal an environment that welcomes all minoritized persons. Critically, the utility of such cues had yet to be explored among Black women. Integrating cue transfer with social identity complexity theory, across six studies (N = 2,167), we tested the novel prediction that Black women utilize a racial dominance identity structure and investigated the benefits of organizational diversity cues congruent and incongruent with Black women's identities. We also drew from stigma solidarity and examined whether perceiving an outgroup associated with an incongruent cue as experiencing similar bias (i.e., shared discrimination) facilitated cue efficacy. Ultimately, only racially congruent cues encouraged organizational safety (Studies 1, 2, and 6) and procedural fairness (Studies 2, 4, and 6), while cues aimed at lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or Latino individuals (Studies 1-4) were ineffective. Moreover, despite reporting greater shared discrimination with Latino than lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender persons (Study 4), shared discrimination was inconsequential for cue efficacy (Study 3). Black women's lay theories revealed that although they perceived negative intergroup attitudes as co-occurring, positive attitudes toward other minoritized groups were seen as unrelated to attitudes toward Black individuals (Studies 5a/5b). Finally, racially (but not gender) congruent cues mitigated organizational invisibility (Study 6). Collectively, the present investigation supports our assertion that Black women adopt a racial dominance lens and, more broadly, underscores the necessity of an intersectional framework when examining cue efficacy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A Place of Safety? Women, Crimmigration Control and a Stigmatised Identity

Asylum claimants’ experiences of crimmigration controls are shaped by gender, race, and class. This article seeks to show how intersecting identities of women seeking asylum interact with stigma. The article draws from research with 16 asylum seekers in the UK which incorporated narrative interviews, ethnography, and the use of text messaging as a diary method. The article finds that intersecting identities are impacted by crimmigration controls to develop a stigmatised identity. Despite attempts to hide their immigration status, the stigma associated with ‘being’ an asylum seeker was internalised and this became women’s dominant identity, resulting in a series of harms including social isolation.

Развлекательные и просветительские предпочтения молодежи как ресурс политической социализации

The presented research is built around the question of conditions for the effective use of images of mass culture as a resource for correcting the life strategies of young people. It is concluded that the images produced by mass culture are potentially able to significantly influence formation of life strategies of young people, only if there is a certain set of conditions. They should correspond to the structure of society and the relationships between its layers, which form ideas about prestige of the currently dominant identity and associated behaviors, correlate with the degree of stability of image of the “sacred past” of the community and the degree of authority of institutions that perform the function of monitoring compliance with established norms. Thus, in the case of the promotion of new life strategies that differ significantly from the prevailing model, their effective implementation requires such conditions as a large-scale recomposition of the social structure and the crisis of the dominant identity, contributing to the growth of polarization of opinions in society and a synchronous increase in attention to the avoided cultural frames. Combination of these conditions makes it possible to adjust the value-behavioral models of generations whose socialization process has not yet been completed.

Identity Trajectories of Faculty Members through Interdisciplinary STEAM Collaboration Paired with Public Communication

Faculty members in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are accustomed to presenting their research findings through journal publications, conference presentations, textbooks, and other academic mediums. However, the audience for these traditional forms of communication are other researchers, which raises concerns about how science research and knowledge are communicated to audiences who have less expertise on these topics. We sought to understand how faculty members develop their identities through collaborative professional development opportunities aimed at growing communication skills to communicate with audiences less familiar with research through interdisciplinary science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) activities. We conducted a qualitative, longitudinal study with sixteen STEAM faculty members to explore their identity trajectories as their interdisciplinary cohorts participated in various collaborations to engage with public audiences about their research. Through our analysis, we found that each faculty member’s dominant identity played a significant role in their identity trajectory through their professional development. We observed a significant growth in faculty members’ communication skills, such as learning new presentation techniques to engage others in their research areas of expertise and in their understanding of interdisciplinary STEAM collaboration. Our results provide insights into the identity trajectories of faculty members and how their identity development through these interdisciplinary STEAM collaborations will impact their formal education roles as researchers and teachers moving forward.

The role of operational code and the Cyprus negotiations: the case of Derviş Eroğlu as the Turkish Cypriot leader

ABSTRACT This study aims to contribute to the literature on the Cyprus negotiations at the individual level and to identify the political-psychological factors underlying the negotiations through operational code analysis. Moreover, it also aims to analyze the role of operational code in intercommunal negotiations at the macro-function level. Using the Verbs In Context System (VICS) method, a quantitative variant of the operational code approach, this study examines President Eroğlu’s verbs in his public statements between 2010 and 2015 when he was in office and measures his political beliefs in the context of the Cyprus negotiations. It then discusses the macro-functionality of his operational code, especially at the domestic level. The external dimension of the operational code of Eroğlu related to his beliefs about the other was identified as ‘conflicting,’ but the internal dimension related to his beliefs about himself as ‘somewhat cooperative.’ In terms of macro-functionality, it was reported that Eroğlu’s operational code was far from serving the federal vision in intercommunal talks. Besides, it was concluded that his overall operational code contributed to the reproduction of the status quo and related nationalist and ethicist dominant identities in both the north and south of Cyprus.

Windcatchers as a Green Ventilation Device: A Lost Tale From Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan

The rapid urbanization process is majorly associated with extreme climate change and many other urban issues that pose new challenges in terms of urban resilience. Bold climate action is one of the main principles addressed by UN-Habitat in Sustainable Development. This problem demands an immediate reduction in carbon footprints. One way of doing this is to revive the traditional climate-controlling techniques/natural ventilation methods in architecture. Windcatchers have been used as a passive technique for ventilation for many centuries. The windcatchers of Hyderabad (Mangh/Hawadani/Badgeers/Malqaf) were a dominant identity of vernacular architecture. This article aims to understand the traditional methods of dealing with climate-controlling techniques in architecture by (1) studying windcatchers in both vernacular and modern buildings in the context of Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan by (2) understanding the user’s perspective about windcatchers. A comparison of four buildings in Hyderabad, Pakistan, was performed. The findings of this study show that old Windcatchers in Hyderabad are in dilapidated condition and are found insignificant because they are not fulfilling the current needs of the users looking for modernized solutions. However, newly built windcatchers are well appreciated by users because of their well-functioning mechanism in relation to the local climate and current living requirements. The performance study of windcatchers conducted in this research represents an initial step towards developing a more extensive guide for utilizing windcatchers in passive cooling systems for buildings located in hot regions.

It all starts with a story: Questioning dominant entrepreneurial identities through collective narrative practices

Taking a multiple-practitioner perspective on entrepreneurial identity construction, we explore how identities can be co-constructed through social interactions. In the context of a social entrepreneurship course at a Belgian business school, we stress the role of collective narratives in breaking free of dominant frames of reference and shaping emancipatory ones. As the stories unfold, collective narratives provide opportunities to perform and negotiate dominant identities as discursive resources: to ‘thin’ certain parts and ‘thicken’ other preferred traits. Through collective narrative practices, practitioners can disrupt the dominant individual heroic entrepreneur myth and develop new entrepreneurial identities reflecting an understanding of entrepreneurship as collective action. Our original intervention method, scaffolding conversations, shows how narratives can be collected and analysed at the individual and group levels, providing members with opportunities to reflect on their shared experiences, struggles and hopes.

Que “Macho” é Esse?: “Anormalização”de Subjetividades em Videoclipes de Bregafunk

Abstract The entertainment industry is featured by discursive productions of ideological nature. Accordingly, different music genres work as identity vectors; thus, it is possible perceiving the representation of male individuals as the dominant gender in some of them. Bregafunk music stands out among these genres, since its music videos highlight straight and virile men, by showing women, LGBTQIAPN+ individuals and fat bodies in a stigmatized way. Based on the Foucauldian theory, the current study addresses the subjectivity “abnormalization” process carried out by another socially dominant subjectivity as way to defend and maintain its position. In order to do so, the current research presents the following investigative question: how do bregafunk music video productions represent alterities to male subjectivity? In total, 777 bregafunk music videos posted on YouTube between September 2012 and September 2020 were herein investigated, based on the foucauldian discourse analysis, in order to answer this question. Results have evidenced the dominant discourse of “male bregafunk music artists”, which is anchored in a strategy focused on perpetuating stereotypes and chauvinism. Thus, it was possible concluding that this subjectivity is a variation of the alpha male, who resorts to his cultural repertoire and social context to consolidate himself as the dominant identity by subjugating other identities through a double move comprising self-affirmation and denial of others. In addition, it was possible inferring that targeting women, LGBTQIAPN+ and fat individuals may be a defense strategy to address the growing political space gained by these identities in recent decades.

Consolidation of the Russian society under contemporary challenges: Social-historical and value contexts

Civil identity is one of the key resources for uniting Russian society. It is based on the historical self-awareness, common historical memory, joint commemoration of significant historical events and achievements of the state and society. Civil identity of the Russian nation is concentrated around the Soviet legacy: Russian reality is filled with Soviet reminiscences and markers of historical memory, many of which act as ‘links’ for the differentiated social space. However, the Soviet period is becoming increasingly distant, full of myths and simplified interpretations. Therefore, the increased attention to the interpretation of ambiguous events of the Soviet history may cause a critical revision of the Soviet value paradigm in relation to the historical heritage and the policy of memory and become a catalyst for centrifugal sentiments, creating threats to the state security and integrity. The efficiency of state institutions and prospects of civil society structures depend on the dominant identity markers in the mass consciousness and on the most important reference groups for self-identification. Thus, the study of the historical consciousness and memory of Russians as the basic principles of national consensus and the analysis of the features of the post-crisis historical worldview of different groups in the Russian society are of particular relevance. Based on the monitoring research data from the IS FCTAS RAS surveys (conducted in 2020-2023 on the representative all-Russian regionalized quota sample; N = 2000) and an integrated approach, the authors assess the historical and value consciousness of Russians under contemporary challenges: interest in history and historical facts, perception of historical periods and leading historical figures; attitude to national history, formation of the all-Russian identity and the role of family memory in this process; a ‘new vision’ of Russia and its future, a trend to rethink the idea of change and the path of national development, understood in the mass consciousness through the original model of the world order and civilizational sovereignty; ideas about key social groups that contribute to or hinder national development, and about the tasks to be solved on the path to creating future Russia. The main conclusions of the research are presented in the article in the form of postulates.

The phenomenon of identity and the problem of the Other in postcolonial studies

The author of this article analyzes the problem of relationship with the Other, generated by the crisis of identity. The theories of decolonialism and postcolonialism are served as the methodological basis of this study. It is concluded that identity politics is fueled by hidden or repressed group identities seeking public recognition. This is dangerous in escalating violence as identity politics capitalizes on cultural myth and postcolonial trauma. The author of this article argues that overcoming the postcolonial complex is possible by making national identity the dominant identity while maintaining sovereignty and horizontality in the relationship with the former metropolis.

Black frontline workers navigating everyday workplace tensions through professionalism

Abstract Professionalism has been widely criticized for its biased standards modeled around dominant identities while excluding minoritized groups. Nevertheless, it remains a powerful social discourse, adopted widely by workers and organizations, and frontline workers—who became particularly salient during the COVID-19 pandemic—are no different, even as they are mainly Black and Brown. Our exploratory study, based on in-depth interviews with 15 Black frontline workers, examines how they use discourses of professionalism to navigate everyday tensions stemming from both their minoritized racial identity and the precarious nature of frontline work. Participants described three intersecting communicative practices—bottling their emotions, striving for (elusive) excellence, and navigating (in)visibility. Our research thus addresses the communicative practice of professionalism among an important yet undeserved category of workers, showing how it is both hegemonic and exclusionary, but may nevertheless be subverted strategically by precarious workers.

Decisiveness in Domestic Public Policies

Abstract Constructivists in the field of International Relations assume that states not only seek to ensure their physical security but also try to secure their identities by maintaining durable behavioral patterns in their relations with other actors. The dominant identity of the Israeli state is associated with policies characterized by resoluteness and decisiveness. This article argues that this state identity also manifests itself in the domestic sphere and presents case studies of two such manifestations. The first pertains to the development of Israeli offshore gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean while the second deals with the country's COVID-19 pandemic containment strategy. The two cases are similar in the decisive and extraordinary character of the measures that the government attempted to use. At the same time, in the first case study this attempt was mostly unsuccessful and only in the second case the decisive stance was effectively implemented.

A crisis of ontological security in foreign policy: Iran and international sanctions in the post–JCPOA era

Since the Islamic revolution, Iran has experienced deep identity changes in its foreign policy. The Islamic Republic redefined the way to interact with the world based on the Shi’ite ideas and the historical memory of Iranians. With the growing tensions between Iran and the West, conflicts can be seen between Iran’s defined identity and its foreign policy actions, to the extent that in cases such as Iran’s policy towards Russia and the path of Iran–China relations, the principles of Iran’s identity have been ignored. This article considers why there is a conflict between the positions and actions of Iran and the identity that this country represents, focusing on the period after the withdrawal of the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Using the descriptive-explanatory method, this article tests the hypothesis that although the intensification of sanctions has strengthened the narrative of anti-Westernism in Iran, the transformation of anti-Westernism into a dominant identity discourse has caused other layers of identity to be marginalised and even ignored in some cases. This situation has created a disconnection between Iran’s actions and its biographical narrative.

Design of external shading devices in Mansehra, Pakistan and their role in climate change

With the rising global temperatures, developing countries are one of the most adversely affected countries by climate change. Furthermore, changes in lifestyle and unsustainable ways of development have resulted in a shift away from passive strategies in the construction industry, which contribute to excessive energy consumption. This demands immediate action to use passive strategies and one of the most widely used passive strategies is shading devices, which can significantly lower the indoor temperature and give the structure the most efficient energy performance. Shading devices were a dominant identity of traditional architecture in Pakistan; however, it has been evident during the past decade the use of such devices has become obsolete due to modernized solutions. This study aims to examine the performance and effectiveness of shading devices in terms of heat gain and daylight levels in residential areas. A comparative case study methodology has been used. The fixed overhanging shading devices of six residential units in Mansehra City, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan, have been used. Sun angles are calculated through the SketchUp tool Curic Sun to analyze and determine the performance of overhanging in both summers and winters. This article reveals south shading devices as an essential part of houses built before 2,000 in Mansehra City. Though, houses built after 2,000 do not consider using south shading devices to maximize energy use. This study emphasizes considering the type, design, and use of shading devices according to the building’s orientation to improve building performance and energy efficiency.

DisOrientations: Thinking through Lines of Desire in the Visual Artwork of Jordache A. Ellapen

This article examines the artwork series Queering the Archive: Brown Bodies in Ecstasy (2011–2016) by South African Indian film studies scholar Jordache A. Ellapen. Ellapen’s work stages intimate photographic portrayals of queer bodies-of-colour, overlaid on family album photographs and Indenture and apartheid documents categorising bodies, along with images of objects and landscapes. This visual cartography speaks of bodies at the intersection of race-gender-sexuality-class-nationalism-(religio-)ethnicities and the complicated subjectivities it renders. The work looks at Sara Ahmed’s notion of orientation and José Estaban Muñoz’s concept of “disidentification” to follow the lines of Ellapen’s work and the ways its stagings make one aware of one’s own disOrientations, as well as how it disidentifies with the naturalised performativities of dominant identity constructions. The article proposes that allowing oneself to follow such lines of desire permits one to find proximity to identities that are positioned as Othered and rather reflect the complex formations of the everyday.

Du translingue comme post-monolinguisme. Subvertir le maternali(ngui)sme dominant pour légitimer la minorité spanglish

About Translingual as Post-Monolingualism. Subverting the Dominating Mothertongue to Legitimize the Spanglish Minority
 The puertorican cultural identity was forged between American colonialism and the previous secular Spanish rule, but now Puerto Rico is a free state associated to the United States. The circular migratory flows between the two territories allowed the consolidation of a consistent Hispanic community in the surroundings of New York, the newyorican one, living at the crossroad between two ethnic groups, two languages. Thus, the prolonged contact of English and Spanish led to the development of a new linguistic code: Spanglish. This transcends the phenomena of bilingualism, diglossia and code-switching, placing the speakers in a linguistic continuum and eluding the notions of mother tongue and foreign language, dominant and minor language. Starting from the subversion of the concept of mother tongue, this essay explores the discursive and linguistic strategies by which the Puerto Rican writer Giannina Braschi in her "Yo-Yo Boing"! legitimates Spanglish. If mother tongue shapes the ontological identity from birth, language fluid contributes to the deconstruction of language as identity belonging. Language is a liquid object: polyphonic, dialogic and conative because it addresses to recipient, its arbitrariness makes it polyhedral and it is a representation of the multiple facets of identity. Our research, dealing with the geopolitical frictional context of the borderland between United States and Latin America, problematizes the location of a non-canonised literature employing linguistic hybridity as a marker of dominant identity. In fact, in-between linguistic politics is not bilingual, but translingual; it posits a post-national and post-conflictual ideology and transculture's linguistic porosity makes monolingualism obsolete, affirming translingualism as post-monolingualism. Post-monolingual being is the one who has freed himself from dependence on the "langue" making the "parole" the means of expression of his logos. Hybridity allows to make the dominant the dominated, that is why Giannina Braschi writes in her foreign language and not in her mother tongue, she writes in minor language in order to promote it, dominant language becomes the dominated one.

Inclusivity in transitioning to medical school.

Inclusivity in transitioning to medical school.

Narrative and Subversion: A Reading of Chris Abani's The Virgin of Flames

This paper examines the subversive nature of Chris Abani’s narrative in the novel The Virgin of Flames. The process of storytelling is often narrative constructions of identity that involves tensions and contradictions in its attempt to represent the subject in relation to the larger human society. Narrativizing produces gaps, fissures, and boundary trouble and the subject’s position is never fixed or stable. The act of narrativizing is a process of identity construction because there is no single unified self that is capable of representing past experiences in its totality. This paper attempts a close reading of the selected text and locates the multiple ways in which Abani’s narrative subverts dominant identities concerning gender, race, sexuality, and religion. In the light of relevant critical theories, it explores the myriad ways in which the narrative in The Virgin of Flames subverts and delegitimizes societal norms and dominant narratives without resorting to blatant didacticism.