Social Group Identity Research Articles

Intergroup dialogue: A justice‐centered pedagogy to address gender inequity in STEM

AbstractGender inequities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields persist and calls have been made for continued efforts to challenge systemic sexism in STEM. In response to these calls, we examined the experiences of undergraduate and graduate STEM students who participated in an intergroup dialogue (IGD) focused on gender and sexism in STEM. We conceptualize IGD as a form of “justice‐centered” STEM pedagogy, designed to bring together individuals from different social identity groups with a history of tension between them (in this case, women and men in STEM) for sustained, face‐to‐face communication. The goals of the dialogue included (1) building relationships and understanding across genders, (2) developing a critical awareness of male privilege and systemic oppression (i.e., sexism), and (3) promoting capacities to work toward gender equity in STEM. The dialogue followed a modified version of an empirically validated model of IGD. Eight students participated in the IGD and post‐IGD interviews. Through grounded theory analyses of these interviews, four themes emerged including Barriers to Dialogue, Facilitative Factors, Cognitive and Attitudinal Outcomes, and Behavioral Outcomes. Ultimately, we engaged in theoretical integration around a core theme of perspective‐taking to characterize these young scientists' experiences in IGD. We explore the implications for STEM education and research and practice of IGD and conclude that IGD on gender, sexism, and intersecting forms of privilege and oppression in STEM has the potential to challenge inequitable cultures.

#PassTheMicYouth Multimedia Program: Setting the Stage to Amplify Youth Voices

The #PassTheMicYouth multimedia program is a youth-centered, youth-led podcast and blog that amplifies the voices and lived experiences of young people across social identity groups. Grounded in a positive youth development framework and informed by a critical pedagogical tradition, #PassTheMicYouth shines a spotlight on sociopolitical issues important to young people and provides a platform that supports creativity and candor. Archived podcast episodes and blog posts are accompanied by lesson plans Extension professionals and other educators can use to promote dialogue and critical reflection among youth and adult audiences. This article introduces the #PassTheMicYouth program and examines potential applications for youth-serving professionals.

Deepening and Widening Social Identity Analysis in Economics

Abstract: This paper is a contribution to the Erasmus Journal of Economics and Philosophy symposium on Dasgupta and Goyal’s “Narrow Identities†(2019) that models how individuals develop social identities. They do not distinguish categorical and relational social identities, model only social group social identities, minimize intersectionality (having multiple social group identities), and ignore inter-relational, social role social identities. In a club theory-like analysis, they portray the world as locked into polarized social group rivalries, where democracy matters little compared to social group loyalty. A problem with explaining social identity only in terms of social group identity is that the ‘identify with’ basis of social group loyalty undermines saying people are distinct individuals. Dasgupta and Goyal use the standard circular preferences conception of what makes people distinct individuals, so they cannot say individuals do not disappear into social groups. However, a relational social roles-based social identity analysis offers a way of explaining how people can be distinct individuals and have social identities, particularly where social group identities are connected to social role identities. This analysis is outlined using a distinction between relatively closed and relatively open behavioral domains.

Public History: New Discovery or Forgotten Past? (Passing Remarks on Ukrainian History)

To answer the question of what public history is, it is worth turning to its origins. The emergence of academic history in the 19th century was associated with its separation from other fields of knowledge. At that time, it was believed that without a professional historical education, it would be impossible to become a learned and intelligent person and to narrate the past objectively and truthfully. Otherwise, these stories would resemble nothing but myths and fairy tales. During Soviet times, history gradually became a scientific discipline as well as an ideological doctrine, as its primary task during the rapid cascade of changes in various political regimes was to educate ideologically savvy professionals for state-building. Historical science was formed during the creation of nation-states and affirmed the national identity of various social and ethnic groups that formed one nation. World War II forced historians to rethink the meaning of life, its fragility, and vulnerability. At the same time, the deep political, economic, and social world crisis of the 1970s – another global upheaval – drew the attention of historical science to the person. Oral history, new social history, public history, etc. sprang into existence. Attention was also paid to certain social groups – women, religious communities, working and student youth, etc. Gradually, public history has become a factor contributing to the democratisation of historical science. Thus, the article describes the peculiarities of the development of public history and its forward movement in the world. The author concludes that public history will not only provide a modern idea of what historical knowledge is but will also help to find out how it works now in our context, how it is used for the benefit of various individual and collective social actors, and, ultimately, will provide guidance for discerning the basis of Ukrainian disputes over historical issues. Keywords: official history, public history, emergence, development, crisis of the 1970s.

Psychological Antecedents and Opportunities for Correcting Negative Attitudes towards COVID-19 Prevention Measures.

The article examines the psychological antecedents and opportunities for correcting attitudes associated with the person’s rejection of COVID-19 prevention measures. The psychological factors that favor the appearance of such attitudes in a person are discussed. Three groups of these antecedents are distinguished, differing in terms of their place in the structure of the psyche and the degree of their stability during a person’s life: stable, relatively stable, dynamic. The group of stable psychological antecedents includes personality traits, cognitive/thinking style, personal values; into the group of relatively stable – worldview beliefs, science-related knowledge, peculiarities of the social self and group identity; into the group of dynamic ones – the psychological state, attitudes, and beliefs regarding the situation of the pandemic.Two main strategies for counteracting negative attitudes and beliefs a re highlighted: preventive (implemented even before the emergence of undesirable attitudes and the appearance of misinformation provoking their occurrence), reactive (carried out after the formation of negative attitudes and beliefs). Various options for implementing a preventive strategy are considered: limiting the spread of misinformation about COVID-19, preventing its refutation, and developing people’s skills to detect misinformation.The factors of the effectiveness of the reactive counteraction strategy are analyzed: the type of tactics used to correct negative attitudes, the characteristics of the source of misinformation about COVID-19, the structure of the refuting message, the frequency of repetition of misinformation, the time elapsed between its appearance and rebutting it, the degree and direction of the recipient’s cognitive activity, his/her views and beliefs.

Оправдание системы, групповая идентификация и политическое поведение: протесты в Хабаровском крае

Objective. The aim of the present research is to investigate the relationship between justification of the social system and group identification, on the one hand, and the readiness for non-institutionalized political behavior, on the other. Background. There are two psychological approaches to the study of the factors of non-institutionalized political behavior: the first one is based on social identity theory, and the second one — on system justification theory. In most cases, research uses either one or the other approach. In this study, we will examine how these approaches are related to each other. Study design. We hypothesized that group identification and system justification are linked to the readiness for non-institutionalized political action, but this relationship is mediated by perceived injustice and collective political efficacy. These hypotheses were tested in a study conducted during the protests in Khabarovsk Krai in the summer and autumn of 2020. The study was conducted with a survey method. To test the hypotheses mediation analysis was used. Participants. 432 people living in Khabarovsk Krai: 53% of men and 47% of women; the age ranged from 18 to 63 years (MToloka=28.89, SDnetworks=9.48; MToloka=36.71, SDnetworks=11.47). Measurements. The respondents filled out questionnaires measuring justification of the system existing in contemporary Russia, identification with the residents of Khabarovsk Krai, perceived injustice of the arrest of Governor Sergei Furgal, collective efficacy of the residents of this region, and the readiness to take actions aimed at changing the current situation. Results. The results showed that system justification was negatively, and Khabarovsk identification was positively associated with the perceived injustice of the governor’s arrest and the collective efficacy of Khabarovsk residents. Perceived injustice and collective efficacy, in turn, were positively associated with the readiness to engage in all forms of non-institutionalized political behavior aimed at changing the current situation. At the same time, perceived injustice and collective efficacy mediated the links between system justification and Khabarovsk identification with the readiness to act. Conclusions. The social identity approach and the system justification approach independently explain people’s readiness to engage in non-institutionalized political behavior aimed at changing the status quo. In particular, group identification and system justification act in the opposite ways: the former strengthens political activity, while the latter weakens it.

AGROECOLOGY AS A BASIS FOR LANDSCAPE CONSERVATION / AGROECOLOGIA COMO BASE PARA A CONSERVAÇÃO DAS PAISAGENS

The landscape expresses the diversity of means that life has and the views that society has on this diversity. If, on the one hand, the landscape is a factor of identity of social groups according to nature and the places they frequent or inhabit, on the other hand it is a means of entering into a social debate on the role of public authorities in the organization of urban and rural space. In this sense, the study of landscape can take different approaches, but when we think of rural landscapes, the concept of cultural landscape is the one that best relates. Landscapes are works of the human being or of nature that illustrate the evolution of society and human occupations over time, under the influence of restriction and / or reform by the natural environment and the effects of successive social, educational and cultural frames, internal or external to this landscape.The landscapes can be recognized as social spaces, being conserved by families, in their most relevant characteristics, as a community heritage. The landscape is, therefore, a key concept in the approach of researches related to territorial configuration, establishment of networks and spatial scales, perception, intervention and / or landscape management. And many communities that adopt a strategy of multiple uses, through an integrated system of productive practices, which are expressed in space as a diversified landscape, present several advantages from an ecological point of view. This work aims to present a necessary dialogue about agricultural production systems and their impact on landscapes, and consequently on the cultural heritage of communities. In this sense, we bring the proposal of Agroecology as a basis for sustainable agricultural systems that maintain agrobiodiversity and carry out a variety of renewable processes and ecological services in agroecosystems, preserving culture and respecting the knowledge of communities. Thus ensuring the health of consumers and the environment as a whole.

The Identity of Social Groups

I apply the theory of embodiment to various questions concerning the identity of social groups.

More than just another bib: group dynamics in an elite Nordic ski team

ABSTRACT The social environment within individual sport teams can have a significant influence on the success, development, and well-being of athletes. We explored elite individual sport athletes’ group experiences through the lens of social identity theorising. Participants were six members (4 male, 2 female, Mage = 21.5 years) of a National Development Nordic Ski team. At two time points in the competitive season, we used Social Identity Mapping (Bentley et al., 2020) in combination with semi-structured interviews to explore athletes’ experiences as a member of the ski team. Social Identity Mapping provided a visual representation of each participant’s social identities and was used to facilitate athletes’ views of their group experiences in the semi-structured interviews. Interview data were thematically analysed to explicate participants’ perceptions of social identity and cohesion, and their perceived relevance to success and development in elite individual sport. Major themes included social group memberships and identities, the presence of subgroups, the ebb and flow of cohesion and conflict, and teammate and coach influence on the group. On this basis, we argue that social identity mapping can be a valuable resource for athletes and coaches seeking to create a positive and cohesive team environment within an elite individual sport team.

Network analysis of attitudes towards immigrants in Asia

This study models cross-national attitudes towards immigrants in East and Southeast Asia as a signed and weighted bipartite network of countries and evaluative reactions to a variety of political issues, or determinants. This network is then projected into two one-mode networks, one of countries and one of determinants, and community detection methods are applied. The paper aims to fill two deficiencies in the current research on attitudes towards immigrants: 1) the lack of cross-national studies in Asia, a region where migration is growing, and 2) the tendency of researchers to treat determinants as uncorrelated, despite the interdependent nature of evaluative reactions. The results show that the nine countries in the sample are a cohesive clique, showing greater similarities than differences in the determinants of their attitudes. A blockmodeling approach was employed to identify eight determinants in attitudes towards immigrants, namely views on independence and social dependencies, group identities, absolute or relative moral orientation, attitudes towards democracy, science and technology, prejudice and stigma, and two determinants related to religion. However, the findings of this survey yielded some surprising results when compared with the literature review. First, education was not found to be a significant determinants of attitudes towards immigrants, despite its strong and consistent predictive power in European models. Second, prejudice appears to be mediated in part by religion, especially in religious identification and belief in God. Group identity and prejudice also appear to be related, though only weakly. Finally, anxiety appears in clusters related to social norms, suggesting that fears regarding immigrants relates closely to expectations of others’ behavior.

A Networked Infrastructure of Cultural Equity? Social Identities in the Missions of Local Arts Agencies

Increasing attention to cultural equity in the arts focuses on the power of the arts to address social inequity. Many also recognize that arts organizations must attend to these issues in their organizational practices in order to promote equity and disrupt historic power structures. Local Arts Agencies’ (LAAs) structural position as key regranters of federal and local funds makes them a key site of inquiry into the sector’s approach to cultural equity. This research asks: How is attention to individual social identity dimensions of cultural equity patterned in mission statements of LAAs? Of the 55 LAAs analyzed, 26 have a mission statement that includes attention to cultural equity, and of these, 17 list specific social identity groups to which they attend. Empirically, the article presents network visualizations and tabled co-occurrences of social identities toward the goal of understanding the clustering of social identity in the missions of LAAs. This study contributes to understanding how LAAs are considering identity-specific dimensions of equity in the missions of their organizations, trends in the patterning of these priorities, and identify the structural underpinnings of cultural equity in institutional priorities among LAAs in the United States.

Voter Preferences Reflect a Competition Between Policy and Identity.

Canonical rational choice models of voter preferences assume that voters select candidates whose policy positions most closely match their own. Yet, much of the electorate often appears to prioritize identity variables (e.g., social categories, group membership) over policy considerations. Here, we report an empirical test of policy-identity interactions using surveys of likely voters conducted in the 24 hours before the 2016 United States presidential election and the 2018 United States senatorial elections. Each respondent indicated not only their policy preferences but also key social group identities and how those identities would be reinforced by voting. We observed striking evidence for a competition between policy and social group identification: For voters who exhibited the maximal effects of identity, policy positions were essentially irrelevant to their candidate preferences. These results account for dissociations between voters’ stated policy preferences and their voting behavior, while linking empirical observations of political behavior to new models derived from psychology and neuroscience.

Gauging Class and Caste differences in Mortality: The Indian Experience.

This study is an exposition of class-caste based differences in mortality experience based on an indicator called household prevalence of death. It involves 75,432 death cases collected in National Family Health Survey-4, analysed using Relative Deprivation Index (RDI). We found, the prevalence of death found to be 11.8% in India, which varies across states and social and economic groups. The RDI values depict that the poorer households along with social group identities like schedule tribe and schedule caste households displayed a uniform disadvantage as regarding mortality across many states. The analysis offers evidence on differential experience of mortality across socio-economic identities. The evidence suggests poorer states having a marked disadvantage along with social and economic classes.

“Disabled or Not, People Just Want to Feel Welcome”: Stories of Belonging from College Students with Intellectual Disability

As part of a larger storytelling project with college students belonging to minoritized social groups, nine young adults from an inclusive college program for students with intellectual disability (ID) participated in narrative interviews. All were invited to tell stories about campus incidents of microaggression and microaffirmation related to their disability. They also were invited to tell stories about other social identities they claimed. Stories were analyzed thematically and for correspondence with findings from previous studies involving other social identity groups. Students told a variety of stories about interpersonal incidents on campus that made them feel respected or disrespected. They also shared stories of institutional encounters that influenced their sense of acceptance at the university. Although they told more stories about microaffirmations, they were not immune to microaggressions. However, many of the students’ microaffirmation stories placed importance on not being perceived as different rather than a clear affirmation of disability identity. Students’ stories have implications for fostering a campus climate where students with ID are respected and included and where ableism is addressed in substantial ways.

Social Influence and Group Identity.

This chapter reviews research on the group identity explanation of social influence, grounded in self-categorization theory, and contrasts it with other group-based explanations, including normative influence, interdependence, and social network approaches, as well as approaches to persuasion and influence that background group (identity) processes. Although the review primarily discusses recent research, its focus also invites reappraisal of some classic research in order to address basic questions about the scope and power of the group identity explanation. The self-categorization explanation of influence grounded in group norms, moderated by group identification, is compared and contrasted to other normative explanations of influence, notably the concept of injunctive norms and the relation to moral conviction. A range of moderating factors relating to individual variation, features of the intragroup and intergroup context, and important contextual variables (i.e., anonymity versus visibility, isolation versus copresence) that are particularly relevant to online influence in the new media are also reviewed.

Ethnic/Racial Terminology as a Form of Representation: A Critical Review of the Lexicon of Collective and Specific Terms in Use in Britain

All ethnic/racial terminology may be seen as a form of representation, whereby meanings are generated by a range of social categorizers in settings of popular culture, political discourse, and statistical governmentality. This paper investigates these representations through a critical review of the lexicon of collective and specific ethnic/racial terms in use in Britain. Relevant studies and documents were identified through structured searches on databases of peer-reviewed literature and the websites of government census agencies. The full-text corpus of the UK Parliament was used to delineate the genealogies or etymologies of this terminology. The derivation of specific ethnic/racial terms through census processes tends to conform with the theoretical model of mutual entailment of social categories and group identities. This relationship breaks down in the case of the broad and somewhat abstract categories of race/ethnicity originating in the modern bureaucratic processes of government and advocacy by anti-racist organizations, opening up a space for representations that are characterized by their exteriority. Commonly used acronyms are little understood in the wider society, are confusing, and of limited acceptability to those they describe, while other collective terms are offensive and ethnocentric. Accurate description is recommended to delineate ethnic minority populations in terms of their constituent groups.

How to Manage Stereotypes in Diverse Teams: Examining the Self- regulation Mechanism and its Effectiveness

People face a challenge on diverse teams about dealing with the stereotypes of their social identity groups. However, it is less known regarding how people manage the stereotypes of their social category to construct positive social identities. By integrating the literature on stereotype and the social self-regulation theory in relational demography research, we identify a dual-path self- regulation process—self-monitoring on competence and self-monitoring on warmth—and propose a joint effect among demographic dissimilarity, demographic categories, and perceived status permeability to explain when and who are likely to engage in such behaviors. We also examine the effectiveness of these stereotype managing behaviors by proposing its effects on individual respect. The results from a sample of 1,211 kindergarten teachers in 173 groups from 57 kindergartens supported that, perceived education dissimilarity elicited more self-monitoring on competence for those with lower education degree who perceived the big chance to move up the organizational hierarchy. And self-motoring for competence paid off by contributing to individual respect especially for those with a higher education degree. We discuss the implications of this study for relational demography research.

The function of vertical and horizontal space to social group identity

ABSTRACT Where an object or person is located in space can communicate important attributes, such as power, agency, or status. We theorized that people may use location to convey messages about social groups. In four studies, we examined whether women and men express ingroup bias or stereotypical bias in their placement of and memory for gendered objects. In Study 1, participants placed objects symbolizing their ingroup higher but not further left than objects symbolizing their outgroup. Vertical ingroup-bias emerged consistently in spatial placement (Studies 2 and 4) but not spatial memory (Studies 3 and 4). We discuss the influence of gender identity, the role of automaticity, and the value of vertical versus horizontal spatial location in communicating group bias.

\u201cMixed\u201d subjective class identity: a new interpretation of Chinese class identity

This article investigates factors influencing the subjective class identity of Chinese people and the bias of this identity using data from the Chinese General Social Survey in 2010 and 2013. In contrast with previous studies that have only focused on the social status of the respondents, this paper introduces the concept of “mixed” class identity and finds that (1) the social statuses of a person’s spouse and parents can also affect subjective class identity and its bias, in addition to the social status of the respondents themselves; (2) the social status of parents has a stronger effect on children who are younger and who co-reside with parents, and the effect of a spouse’s social status is stronger for married women than for married men; and (3) the influence of parents and a spouse’s social statuses on individuals’ class identity has been growing over time. This paper notes that to understand the subjective class identity of the Chinese and its change over time, sociologists should focus on family as the basic unit of analysis, fully consider the heterogeneity effect of different factors affecting the class identity of different social groups and situate the analysis within the context of China’s unique modernization process.

The Communicative Ethics of Racial Identity in Dialogue

Abstract This article explores the role of narratives about racial identity in constituting ethical performances in dialogue. Specifically, a dialogic communication ethics is described and placed in the context of intergroup dialogue (IGD) and communication approaches to dialogue. Then the focus turns to how these ethical frames and models for conducting dialogue functioned in a large-scale campus dialogue on race and whiteness. The article addresses the ways identities were constructed and deployed in the dialogues by examining how dialogue topics are framed and discussed by facilitators and participants. This discussion of intention and outcome raises theoretical and practical questions in order to facilitate further conversations about identity and ethics in a controversially “Post-racial” era. Finally, the article looks at how communication ethics and dialogue might work to address the discursive power of social group identities in pedagogical discussions of civility, inclusion, merit or a “good” life.