Process Of Identity Construction Research Articles

Hombres jóvenes del poniente de Ciudad Juárez: construyendo identidades en contextos de violencia

The purpose of the present study was to analyze the process of identity construction in six young men from the west of Ciudad Juárez, in northern Mexico. Qualitative research was carried out using participant observation and semi-structured interviewing as the main co-construction technique, focusing on everyday life and significant affective experiences in their life trajectories. Fieldwork was carried out between 2016 and 2017. The analysis of the data shows that violence, often fatal and predominantly represented by drug trafficking groups, is the main driver in participants’ affective and everyday lives. It was also found that young people respond to violence pragmatically by constructing identities that allow them to safeguard their integrity and remain part of the social context.

Territoriality and Coexistence of the Tz’utujil People of Santa María Visitación, Guatemala

Heterogeneous cultures, which coexist in common spaces, generate social conflict. It is necessary to investigate from a deeper knowledge of the contextual reality, which are the mechanisms that allow to overcome these conflicts, and provoke processes of coexistence. This research seeks to deepen the analysis of the territorial conflicts of the Tz’utujil people of Santa Maria Visitacion, Guatemala from the conception of land and territory to the creation of the Property Title. The methodology is presented from a qualitative perspective through fieldwork and use of primary sources review, interviews, participant observation, and life stories. The conclusions show a new conception of territoriality through a way of thinking that encompasses a different spatial interpretation that favors the processes of identity construction and conflict resolution through intercultural coexistence strategies.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION OF FAST FASHION ON IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION ON INSTAGRAM

ABSTRACT Purpose: The objective of this investigation is to analyze the influence of the conspicuous consumption of fast fashion products on Instagram on the identity construction process of female fashion consumers. Originality/value: Filling a gap in the literature relating to conspicuous consumption and identity construction, this investigation analyzes the consumption dynamics, investigating relevant phenomena on a current and relevant online social network: Instagram; and explaining, in an analysis by categories, the continued dissatisfaction of consumers with the goods that drive and determine the dynamics of fast fashion consumption. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology was qualitative, triangulating data from participant observation, interviews, and online focus groups. Eleven women were interviewed, and three focus group sessions were conducted, with a total of sixteen participants. The data were analyzed through content analysis with categories before and subcategories that emerged afterwards. Findings: The findings show the conspicuous consumption of fast fashion products on Instagram as creators of sense, self-concept, and self-image, following and demonstrating the lifestyle of consumers. The satisfaction resulting from people’s approval, the goods used for compliance in social groups, and the continued dissatisfaction with their possession are observed, which drives fast fashion consumption. The constructed identities are presented as contextual, fluid, and fragmented.

PROFESSORES AINDA QUE ENFERMEIROS: PROCESSO IDENTITÁRIO DE DOCENTES DE ENFERMAGEM

Objetivo: compreender as concepções e identificações acerca das atividades docente e formação para a docência como parte do processo identitário de professores de enfermagem. Método: estudo descritivo analítico, qualitativo. Participaram 18 professores enfermeiros de duas universidades (uma pública e outra privada) da região sul do Brasil. A coleta de dados ocorreu entre os meses de julho e setembro de 2015, por meio de entrevista com roteiro semiestruturado. Para tratamento dos dados foi utilizada a codificação aberta e axial conforme proposta por Strauss e Corbin, com o auxílio do software Atlas ti® 7. Resultados: emergiram as seguintes categorias: Ser enfermeira ou estar professora, Escolhas profissionais e Formação para a docência: entre a formação pedagógica e o experimento cotidiano. Conclusão: professores de enfermagem permanecem quase sempre se identificando com a profissão de origem, mediante ausência de formação para a docência, com entendimentos distantes dos pressupostos da pedagogia universitária, o que é definidor de seus processos identitários.

Becoming a leader: catalysts and barriers to leader identity construction

ABSTRACT In response to increased calls for research that can provide greater understanding of the relational and contextual issues surrounding leader identity construction processes, this qualitative study aims to provide insights into the subjective experience of constructing a leader identity within the context of organizations. Drawing on data from 50 semi-structured interviews, this paper focuses on significant sub-themes, which were grouped into two categories, namely identity catalysts (e.g. issues that participants identified as positively aiding in their leader identity construction process) and identity barriers (e.g. issues that participants identified as negatively impacting their leader identity construction process). These catalysts and barriers will be elaborated upon and their relationship to leader identity explained. This paper provides new insights into the leader identity construction process by using Leadership Identity Construction Theory as a lens for interpretation, and offers notable implications for theory, research and practice.

Critical incidents in pre-service EFL teachers’ identity construction process

ABSTRACT Knowledge and human identity are socially constructed phenomena. Like other aspects of human identity, teacher identity is shaped through social influences. Some of the social influences that contribute to teacher identity development happen through critical incidents that teachers or teacher candidates experience. The current study, adopting a critical incident analysis perspective, attempts to ascertain the nature of the critical incidents that 49 pre-service teachers of EFL have experienced throughout their English learning process. It also tries to uncover the effects of these critical incidents on their English learning and teacher identity. The data for the research was collected using a Critical Incident Form developed by the researchers and focus group interviews. The findings indicated that pre-service ELT teachers’ early learning experiences included certain critical incidents. An inductive quantitative analysis of these incidents revealed that they can be categorized into three themes: people, context, and outcome. Exploring the nature of critical incidents and their role in the construction of English language teacher identity will hopefully be a benefit to teachers and teacher educators.

"Teaching is like taking a trip": Two Cases of Pre-service Teachers' Early Construction of Professional Identity with Disparate Outcomes

The purpose of this study was to explore two sophomore pre-service teachers’ processes of professional orientation in the same teacher education program in the US with emphasis on their identity construction. The pre-services teachers were asked to reflect on their “identity” and articulate “who they are” as becoming teachers in semi-structured interviews and narrative writing about their metaphors for teaching. Using a narrative inquiry approach, their identity construction process was first examined in light of their life experiences prior to entering the teacher education program, including childhood experiences, early teacher role models, previous teaching experiences, and important people or experiences that affected their choice of a teaching career. Initial findings reveal that the same pre-service teacher education program had a different impact on each student teacher. Their previous life experiences, their early beliefs about teaching, their initial motivations, and their experiences in their teacher education program all influenced their adaptation to the teaching profession.

Language choice and identity construction of Azerbaijani bilinguals in family and friendship domains

ABSTRACT This study investigates Azerbaijani bilinguals’ language choice and identity construction processes in family and friendship domains. Individual interviews were conducted with 19 (11 male, 8 female) participants. The emerged themes were classified under three categories, i.e. age, gender and language ideologies. The findings revealed that language attitudes and ideologies are the main reason for Azerbaijani bilinguals’ language choice in family and friendship domains. Farsi as the national language and the only language of education is considered important symbolic power compared to Azerbaijani Turkish language. The findings of the study also showed that age and gender in family domain and gender in friendship domain are influential factors in Azerbaijani bilinguals’ language choice. Azerbaijani bilingual females use Azerbaijani Turkish to speak to their older family members while they choose Farsi to speak to other family members. Azerbaijani bilingual males choose Azerbaijani Turkish to speak to their older family members, their brothers and their male friends but they speak in Farsi to their female family members and female friends as well as their children. The findings and implications are discussed in detail.

Towards a pedagogy of deviance

Abstract This article engages the narratives of three Toronto hip-hop artists to explore the pedagogical possibilities revealed through the processes of performance identity construction. By immersing themselves in hip-hop communities, artists learn ways of knowing and negotiating their place at the interstices of the normative frameworks that underlie their unique combinations of cultural contexts. Artists’ stories reveal how they bring themselves into being through movement and sound. These narrations of identity become indicative of an artist’s style through performative iterations embedded with the opportunity for enacting difference. For hip-hop artists, deviating from performative expectations is not a mere possibility, but formative intention in the tradition of the African American practice of Signifyin(g), as delineated by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Conversations with hip-hop artists invite reflection on what we could accomplish through a music education pedagogy that cultivates creative deviancy that reveals, breaks open and overturns limiting conventions.

Professional Identity Conflict and (Re)Construction among English Teachers in Iran

ABSTRACT This paper examines how English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in Iran manage the identity conflicts that arise within their language teaching contexts. The position of English in Iran is manifestly, ideologically, and politically shaped, yet little is known about the process of EFL teacher identity construction and management in this context. To address this gap, two EFL teachers’ narrative reflections on identity were elicited via online social media groups. Data were analyzed using a three-level positioning approach. Findings illustrate how EFL teachers’ self-images are derived from dynamic interactions within both the immediate and broader contexts of language education policies in Iran, and how these identities are subject to change. Analysis indicates that EFL teachers confront conflicts across their personal beliefs and external expectations. Implications for practice and research are discussed in light of the need for ongoing professional development in politically charged contexts.

Transgender identity: a relational and contextualized construction (San Luis, Argentina, 2013-2015)

This paper starts from a research about transgender people's gender identity's construction process, carried out during 2013 and 2015 in San Luis province, Argentina. My aim is to prove that others' recognition, and the ways we understand gender, feminity and masculinity in Western Culture, contribute to shape transgender people's gender identity's construction process. I use a qualitative strategy based on data inductive work, similar to Grounded Theory's proposal. I conclude that transgender people's gender identity is built in a permanent negotiation about others’ recognition, framed in prevailing gender cultural patterns.

Asian American teachers in U.S. classrooms: identity performances and pedagogical practices

ABSTRACT Teachers’ social identities are an integral part of their professional identities. The present study explores Asian American teachers’ performances of racial/ethnic identities and pedagogical practices in the classroom. The author uses a performance framework to understand how Asian American teachers both reify and resist stereotypes through the process of identity construction vis-à-vis particular racial encounters in the classroom. Analysis of semi-structured interviews with 25 Asian American teachers from across the United States suggests that Asian American teachers perform identities through three pedagogical practices: (1) by downplaying identities; (2) as cultural role-models; and (3) as resistors of stereotypes. These findings reveal that Asian American teachers play an important role in facilitating cross-cultural classroom interactions, affirming racial/ethnic identities for Asian American students, providing non-stereotypical discourses through which students can understand Asian Americans, and creating inclusive learning spaces for students of all backgrounds.

Developing a professional leadership identity during organisational change in professional youth football

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to investigate the construction of a professional leadership identity of an outsider appointed to implement organisational change within the academy of a professional football club. Data were collected through field notes, informal observations and meetings, formal academy team meetings, in-depth interviews with three co-workers and four semi-structured in-depth participant interviews, which were subjected to an iterative analysis. Findings highlighted how the appraisal of others and their appraisal of the participant were affected by employment vulnerability, and that ‘identity work’ when leading organisational change was intertwined with micro-political literacy and micro-political action. This study furthers understanding of the development of a leadership identity as a fluid and fragmented struggle, by demonstrating that the process of identity construction is emotional work and is entwined in a complex interplay of micro-political literacy and action, and employment vulnerability.

Names and Identities in Courtroom Narratives

This study seeks to examine how the use of names serves to accomplish the process of identity construction in institutional discourse. Drawing upon six opening addresses from three high-profile trials, the study analyzes the forms, functions, and frequency of names that lawyers use to refer to defendants and victims in their narratives. The quantitative and qualitative analysis reveals that the prosecution and the defense differ starkly in how they use names to construct the identities of the characters. Such systematic differences contribute to ascribing polarized identities to the characters, which in effect negotiates reality by (de)legitimizing guilt and responsibility claims and mediating jurors’ perceptions.

Movimiento Moderno en Camaguey, Cuba: confort ambiental y bienestar social desde edificios de apartamentos

As mudanças produzidas pela arquitetura do século XX propõem um novo modo de vida, a partir da nova organização espacial e dos avanços tecnológicos, isso permitiu uma adequada relação interior externa. Essas mudanças tiveram repercussão na América Latina com base na combinação de características herdadas e inovadoras. A nova arquitetura, no caso cubano, foi aberta na cidade tradicional através de um processo de adaptação, transformação e reinterpretação do passado; como uma seqüência lógica do processo de identidade da construção da identidade. O centro histórico de Camaguey não estava isento desse fenômeno, identificando um número considerável de prédios de apartamentos correspondentes à arquitetura do Movimento Moderno. Esses itens foram inseridos em um contexto geográfico específico do Caribe insular e foram adaptados às condições da região, o que possibilitou um equilíbrio entre o bem-estar social e o reflexo da identidade baseada na adaptação ao contexto.

Exploring academic identities of EFL novice writers

In academic writing, undergraduate EFL learners are not required only to apply correct L2 writing system, but more profoundly, construct and convey ideas in ways recognised in their discipline as they continuously create and recreate identities as members of their academic community. Such a process of identity construction shapes EFL novice writers’ characteristics and nurture their growth as writers in the academic environment. This study, thus, aims to explore the portrayal of academic identities of undergraduate EFL novice writers. Eight Indonesian undergraduate students of an English Department in a private Indonesian university participated in this study. The data collected included an autobiography journal, a semi-structured interview and two essay assignments. The data were analysed qualitatively by employing Ivanič’s (1998) concept of writer identity, consisting of autobiographical self, discoursal self and authorial self, and Hyland’s (2010) metadiscourse model. The findings reveal that despite numerous writing repertoires applied to display aspects of autobiographical, discoursal and authorial selves in the learners’ academic writing, the portrayal of academic identities in the writing is overall weak due to the struggles that the learners faced in adjusting and engaging themselves in the academic community of their discipline. Some recommendations in relation to L2 academic writing practice for EFL undergraduate students include facilitating students to have more exposure and access into L2 academic writing culture and academic community of their discipline.

“We Were Not at School Today”: First-Person Pronouns and Discursive Construction of Identities by Emerging Middle-Class Chinese Parents

Abstract In the process of China’s dynamic social changes over the past decades, the young-parent identity construction of an emerging middle class and the resulting changes of social-cultural values in this context have attracted the attention of academic research in recent years. With the focus on the discursive construction of parent identity, this study examines the utilization of first-person pronouns in three different interactional contexts, namely, parent-teacher interaction, parent-parent interaction, and parent-child interaction. The study further explores the patterns of alignment between the parents and their children, parents and teachers of their children, and peer parents during the process of identity construction, followed by a discussion of the implication that young, emerging middle-class Chinese parents fundamentally shape themselves as “concerned” and “involved” parents and the change of values between collectivity and agency. The study not only demonstrates the dynamic and pluralistic nature of parent identity but also deepens our understanding of the indexical roles of first-person pronouns in the discursive construction of emerging middle-class Chinese parent identity and its relationship with the recent social-cultural changes in the Chinese context.

Identity Construction in Mathematics Learning: A Phenomenological Study of Girl Students

This phenomenological study examined how girl students struggle in constructing their identity in mathematics learning. The concept given by Cobb and Hodge (2003) was used as a theoretical basis to explain the identity construction of girls. In addition, the process of identity construction is critically examined through a feminist perspective. Three girl students studying mathematics in Master’s level were involved in in-depth interview. The data collected through interview were first transcribed, which was followed by thematic network analysis to make meaning from the information. The key finding was that students faced difficulties and struggle due to patriarchal system of society, false beliefs about mathematics and mathematics learning, and traditional and meritocratic system of teaching learning system.

‘You are in Taiwan, Speak Chinese’: Identity, language ideology, and sociolinguistic scales in online interaction

This study investigates how local identities of Taiwan are discursively constructed and how language ideologies concerning Chinese and English are manifested in the process in online discussion. We examine dynamics of identity work by drawing from metapragmatic discourse on social media regarding a verbal confrontation in Taiwan. A local Taiwanese driver with limited English competence was verbally attacked in English by an American-born-Taiwanese passenger. This passenger’s nationality, ethnicity, and controversial linguistic performance lead to heated identity debates online. We look into the role language plays in these online debates and explore how social media serve as an important site for ideological contestation and identity construction. Specifically, we discuss (1) how viewers discursively construct this American-born-Taiwanese as an outgroup member through pronouns and identity labels, such as Taiwanese and ABC, (2) how his (presumed) competence in English or Chinese plays a critical role in deauthenticating him either as a ‘real’ Taiwanese or as a ‘real’ American, and (3) how various language ideologies are manifested through the aforementioned process of identity construction.

Behind the screen of Facebook: Identity construction in the rehearsal stage of online interaction

Social media platforms such as Facebook have been understood to present new possibilities for interaction. Yet, there have been concerns surrounding the reducing quality of our interaction and conversation. Such debates, however, have not considered the pre-post dimension of online environments: that is, the preparatory work that occurs to online posts before they are shared with their audience. Based on real-time recordings of Facebook Messenger interactions, this article asks what the pre-post perspective tells us about the quality of our interactions online. The analysis is theoretically informed by Goffman and methodologically by conversation analysis and addresses this question with a specific focus on processes of identity construction and face. In presenting innovative screen capture data, this article argues against claims that our interaction online is declining in quality instead showing the ways users perfect their online posts by elaborating a new stage of online communication: the ‘rehearsal’ stage.