Multiple Social Identities Research Articles

Extending the Ally Model of Social Justice to Social Work Pedagogy

Social work students, regardless of their multiple social identities in oppressed and oppressor groups, are called upon to take action against social injustice. This conceptual article introduces the Ally Model of social justice and its alignment with social work values and goals and recommends it to social work educators as a pedagogical tool to use when teaching about oppression, differentness, and privilege. It presents the literature on the model and its characteristics through the social work lens of awareness/knowledge, attitudes/beliefs/feelings, and actions/skills. It also provides limitations of the model and observations of students’ responses, based on their identities, that may act as barriers when learning about oppression and privilege. Finally, recommendations for the implementation of the model across the curriculum are offered.

Autoethnography as documentary in Iranian films and videos

In this essay I explore the place of autoethnography in recent Iranian films and videos. Anthropologists who have in past decades insisted on personal voices as ethnography, have coined the word ‘autoethnography’ as a category that engenders writing on self and society. This genre refers to a range of writing strategies from autobiography to self-reflexive stories. Authors often situate the self within society through self-narrative in socio-political contexts. Authors of autoethnography often conduct their practice across multiple social and cultural identities, exploring their different identities creatively through experimentation with technology, and through playing with different mediation styles. In what ways do these autoethnographic explorations offer a new opening for self expression and cultural critique? To what extent do they act as forms of either mediation or representation and to what extent is it a form of ‘reality’ staging? Extending the notion of autoethnography to films and videos of Iranian artists and cultural producers puts into sharp relief how autoethnography, as a genre of exploring one’s own culture, not only tells a personal story, but explores the ambiguity of story-telling and the difficulty of giving voice to one’s self and others. It frequently involves mixing genres, is often an act of political resistance (as in underground production), and is often about creating distinction in the face of social and political despair.

Employing Multilevel Intersectionality in Educational Research

The theoretical framework of intersectionality shows much promise in exploring how multiple social identities and their relationships with interlocking systems of power influence educational equity, particularly for historically underserved groups in education. Yet, social scientists have critiqued this framework for not adequately specifying how these dimensions shape life opportunities. This essay draws on the work of sociologist Floya Anthias to advance a conceptual model of intersectionality for educational research. This model addresses how different levels of analysis, types of practices, and relationships between social categories separately or together affect educational opportunities. To illustrate the model’s utility in research, policy, and practice, I apply this model to understand contextual influences on Latino im/migrant students’ college access.

The Influence of Trustees' Social Identity Complexity on Their Trustworthiness

Trustees' trustworthiness is a precondition of other people trusting in them, which may be influenced by trustees' social identity complexity. Previous literature has revealed the impact of single social identity on trustworthiness; however, few studies have examined how the multiple social identities of a trustee affect his or her trustworthiness rated by others. The structure of multiple social identities can be measured in terms of social identity complexity, a concept proposed by Roccas and Brewer in 2002, which refers to the way in which individuals subjectively represent the relationships among their multiple ingroup memberships. Concretely, individuals with low social identity complexity see their ingroups as highly overlapping and convergent, whereas those with high social identity complexity see their different ingroups as distinct and cross-cutting membership groups. Roccas and their colleagues merely concerned how individuals perceive their own social identities, but neglected how they represent other people's social identities. Moreover, social identity complexity not only reflects humans' mental representation of their own or others social identities, but also represents one's factual quantity of social identities. In our opinion, the quantity of social identities can be defined as an index of objective social identity complexity, which role has never been paid attention to. The present study expanded Roccas and Brewer's ideas of social identity complexity and examined how trustees' objective social identity complexity(single social identity vs. multiple social identities) affected people's judgment towards trustees' trustworthiness. In Study 1, we tested the main influence of trustees' social identity complexity on their trustworthiness. The experiment was carried out in sleepers of a train traveling from Beijing to Yantai city. Sixty train passengers were enrolled and randomly assigned into two conditions to read a news report about a Volkswagen car(a middle-class brand) crash respectively: one group read the report depicting the driver's single social identity(low complexity), whereas, the other group read the report depicting the driver's multiple social identities(high complexity). After reading, they rated the driver's trustworthiness and social distance between themselves and the driver(trustee). The results showed that trustees' high social identity complexity effectively reduced socialdistance, and led participants give a higher remark on trustees' trustworthiness. That is to say, social distance mediated the impact of trustees' social identity complexity on their trustworthiness. In Study 2, we examined the moderating effect of trustees' group category on the impact of social identity complexity and social distance on their trustworthiness. One hundred and twenty college students were randomly assigned into one of four conditions in a 2(trustees' social identity complexity: high vs. low) × 2(trustees' group category: ingroup vs. outgroup) full-factorial design. The experiment materials in this study were same to Study 1, except that we used two distinct car brands(ALTO vs. BMW) to manipulate trustees' group category(ingroup vs. outgroup). More specifically, ALTO as an under-class brand, its driver would be perceived by college students as an ingroup member; whereas, BMW as a top-class brand, its driver would be an outgroup member. The results confirmed the findings of Study 1 that trustees' social identity complexity had a positive effect on their trustworthiness and the relationship between the two variables was mediated by social distance. Moreover, the main effect of social identity complexity and the mediating effect of social distance were moderated by the group membership of trustees, and the two effects merely occurred for outgroup trustees rather than ingroup trustees. The present study provided new findings about the correlates of trustees' trustworthiness, more importantly, which enriched the theory of social identity complexity and previous research. Besides the theoretical contributions, the present study also had great practical implications for making people's judgment objective and promoting the positive intergroup relationships.

Identity Integration and Indecisiveness

We all belong to and identify with many social groups, but individual differences exist in how we manage the relationships between our multiple social identities. This paper examines the relationship between individual differences in identity integration (II) – perceptions of one’s multiple social identities as compatible versus in conflict – and indecisiveness. Study 1 found that those with low II (or those who generally perceive their identities to be in conflict) were more indecisive, even while controlling for trait-level anxiety. Study 2 replicated the finding across trait-like, behavioral, and affective measures of indecisiveness, and across different decision-making tasks. Studies 3a and 3b demonstrated that II between specific identities (II between different cultural identities among biculturals; II between work and family identities among working professionals with families) predicts indecisiveness only in tasks relevant to those identities. Study 4 extended these findings to employees of a multinational organization, showing that II predicts indecisiveness at work. These results show that identity management strategies predict decision-making processes for tasks that are relevant to one’s social identities.

Examining the Workplace Experiences of Sport Employees Who Are LGBT: A Social Categorization Theory Perspective

The purpose of this qualitative analysis was to explore the work experiences of sport employees who are LGBT, and examine how these individuals negotiate their multiple social identities in a sport context. Considering the growing interest in sport, and sport management in particular, it is important for scholars to gain of better understanding of why people choose to work in the sport industry, and understand how employee identity may influence career decisions and subsequent work experiences. Thus, the researchers only interviewed employees who did not fulfill coaching or player roles, as these individuals could potentially work in other industries. Analysis of the data revealed how working in a sport context may present sexual minorities with certain advantages, such as an opportunity to enhance self-esteem and gain social acceptance. When confronted with unjust treatment because of their sexual orientation, employees used coworker social support and social mobility techniques to cope with these negative situations. Although the employees did not always view their sexual orientation as salient to their identity, they had all disclosed their sexual orientation, to varying degrees, to others in the workplace. Finally, though the participants did not engage in social change activities, some of their supportive coworkers attempted to proactively create a more inclusive work environment. Implications of these findings are discussed and practical suggestions are provided.

Collective Action Participation: Effects of Multiple Social Identities on Group-Based Emotions and Efficacy Paths

Collective Action Participation: Effects of Multiple Social Identities on Group-Based Emotions and Efficacy Paths

The Positive Following Bias of Information Source and Its Impact on Decision-maker’s Prediction Performance

Social identity, group-based emotions and efficacy are three major social psychological factors that affect people’s participation in a collective action. Previous researches, focusing largely on the disadvantaged groups, examined a single factor at a time and/or explored the relationships among these factors in the offline collective action. Recent studies, however, extended levels and types of factor in their models and attended to the online collective action. The current study attempted to integrate the above three major factors by exploring the moderating effects of multiple social identities in the relationships among group-based emotions, efficacy and participation of different kinds of collective action. Three studies were conducted using different methods. In Study 1, 240 undergraduate students from auniversity in Tianjin City took part in a questionnaire survey on the Diaoyu Island Event. Study 2 was a questionnaire survey on the Libya Event. and 480 undergraduate students from 6 different universities in Tianjin City were recruited to complete it. Both surveys included demographics in the first part, followed by a questionnaire on different social identities, group-based emotions and efficacies. Study 3 was an experiment 135 female undergraduates were randomly assigned to three different conditions, female identity primed group, school identity primed group and the control group. Participants then completed a questionnaire on their attitudes toward potential gender discriminations faced by job applicants. Data was collected and analyzed using SPSS 13.0 and Lisrel 8.70. Results indicated that group anger had a significant positive effect on offline collective action participation; and efficacy had a significant positive effect on both offline and online collective action participation. The above effects were further moderated by different social identities. Specifically, identification with a large social category of event affected behavior tendency by moderating emotional path (and rational path some times), and identification with the organization of collective action affected behavior tendency by moderating rational path only. Findings suggested that people were rather rational in their participants of the online collective actions.

Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America

This essay reviews Patel’s (2012) case for the hope that lies in American religious pluralism. Patel draws upon various faith traditions, multiple social identities, and several current events to construct a convincing argument for pluralism as a responsibility rather than a birthright. Positioning “America,” the United States, as the main character, Patel’s work is useful for students, scholars, and practitioners who strive to discuss and demonstrate characteristics of thoughtful interfaith leadership and cooperation.

Economics of Identity and Economics of the Firm: Why and How Their Three Central Questions Overlap

This paper shows how the literature on identity can enhance the so-far underdeveloped appreciation of social context in the theory of the firm. While taking context into account, I explain why the literatures overlap in significant ways and I propose an analytical map which relies on and matches the three central questions of both literatures. The three central questions on identity – identification, individuation and multiple social identities – are coupled respectively with the three central questions on the firm – the nature of the firm, internal organization and firm boundaries. This identity-based extension of the economics of the firm contributes to the organization of the literature by extending the analysis of identity to questions that go beyond the primary question of identification. In doing so, it identifies two key research agendas: the role of internal organization in enabling individuation and the role of firm boundaries in enabling collective intentions.

Social Identity and College Student Experiences in the United States: Introduction to the Issue

The experiences of Latino/as in higher education are more complex and nuanced than can be understood by overgeneralizing about all students of a particular race. As the introduction to a special issue on Latino/as who attend US institutions of higher education, we argue that multiple social identities in conjunction with race frame student experiences. Complicating the notion of a singular student experience, we encourage scholars to explore how different subpopulations of Latino/as experience higher education.

Fostering counter-narratives of race, language, and identity in an urban English classroom

This study examines the counter-narratives that were co-constructed during a curricular unit on language, race, and identity in an urban high school English classroom. We examine both the pedagogical and conversational moves that a White teacher, Mrs. Allen, used to foster such counter-narratives and the content of her African American students’ counter-narratives. We draw on critical and interactional perspectives on classroom discourse to understand the type of lessons and knowledge that the students and Mrs. Allen co-constructed and the ways in which students’ counter-narratives complicated essentialized perceptions of race, language, and identity and referenced locally-constructed social categories and geographic spaces. We argue that the students disputed dominant “master narratives” (Stanley, 2007, p. 14) of race and language through referencing multiple social identities and instances of racism that shaped, and were shaped by, their experiences with language. This article demonstrates how English Language Arts instruction can foster counter-narratives that challenge racist assumptions about language and essentialized perceptions of students’ racial identities.

Economics of identity and economics of the firm: why and how their three central questions overlap

AbstractThis paper shows how the literature on identity can enhance the so-far underdeveloped appreciation of social context in the theory of the firm. While taking context into account, I explain why the literatures overlap in significant ways and I propose an analytical map which relies on and matches the three central questions of both literatures. The three central questions on identity – identification, individuation and multiple social identities – are coupled respectively with the three central questions on the firm – the nature of the firm, internal organization and firm boundaries. This identity-based extension of the economics of the firm contributes to the organization of the literature by extending the analysis of identity to questions that go beyond the primary question of identification. In doing so, it identifies two key research agendas: the role of internal organization in enabling individuation and the role of firm boundaries in enabling collective intentions.

Co‐innovation through multiple social identity processes

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between “social identities” and “innovation as a collective act”, specifically how multiple social identity processes construct, reconstruct and revise organisational identity, and create positive commitment and motivation for collaborative innovation (co‐innovation).Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopted an inductive theory building from cases (particularly, theory building from a singular case) methodology. As the purpose of the research is to develop theory and not to test it, theoretical sampling was used. The particular case was specifically chosen because the business – a successful co‐operative for over 30 years – enables the investigation of organisational identity construction and development on different levels including intra‐ and inter‐organisational interactions.FindingsWhile still leaving scope for the readers to make interpretations and conclusions from the case themselves, the study suggests some general conclusions drawn from the interrelationship of key concepts in the case, and from the subsequent model of evolving multiple social identity processes for co‐innovation that emerged. These conclusions may not only broaden “the social identity approach to organisations” and “organisational innovation”, but also link their underlying theories.Research limitations/implicationsThe case explains the phenomena in a particular social system, namely a co‐operative business with a common purpose. The co‐operative model can be associated with organisations with poor democratic governance and accountability. The ultimate success of the case depended on the ability of the organisation and its members to construct and maintain a common organisational identity of innovation and to innovate collectively.Originality/valueThis paper extends “the social identity approach to organisations” and “organisational innovation” by developing a model, inductively sourced from a “real‐life” case, for explaining the construction, reconstruction or revision of social identities that result from the reciprocal relationship between co‐innovating organisations. The proposed model suggests an evolutionary (rather than a revolutionary) framework for the presentation of co‐innovation as a product of social identity construction.

(Re-) Framing Authenticity: Considering Multiple Social Identities Using Autoethnographic and Intersectional Approaches

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsSusan R. JonesSusan R. Jones is Associate Professor in the School of Educational Policy and Leadership at The Ohio State University.Yoolee Choe KimKristan Cilente Skendall and Yoolee Choe Kim are doctoral candidates in the Counseling and Personnel Services Department at the University of Maryland-College Park.Kristan Cilente SkendallKristan Cilente Skendall and Yoolee Choe Kim are doctoral candidates in the Counseling and Personnel Services Department at the University of Maryland-College Park.

Language learners’ identities in EFL settings: resistance and power through discourse

This research project aims at identifying and analyzing different identities students construct as learners of a foreign language wheninteracting within an EFL classroom, and how this identity construction might have possible effects on students’ language learning process.This study, which was carried out with undergraduate students from a private university in Bogotá, was the product of permanent observationto the development of students language learning process (specially speaking skill) and how the implicit or explicit student-teacher interactionmight constitute an important element to this development, relies under the principles of CCDA (Critical Classroom Discourse Analysis). Theidea of implementing this research methodology has to do with the need of looking beyond fixed categorizations and rather listen to howlearners negotiate different identities as they employ diverse cultural and linguistic resources to construct knowledge in classrooms. Throughoutthe process of data collection, with transcripts of oral interactions undertaken in the classroom and interviews to students as main sources ofanalysis, a new perspective of pupils as social actors who hold multiple social identities was discovered. The results show that issues such asthe use of L1 in the EFL classroom, the teacher‘s conception of language learning and teaching and the silent fight for power among teacherand students constitute important elements in the struggle of students when constructing their social and individual identities as learners withina given classroom community.

Metaphors of Identity and Professional Practice

Historically, professional identity was viewed as a singular construct, and the boundary-spanning dynamics of subidentities remained unexamined. More recently, identity scholars have paved the way to consider the multiple personal and social identities that comprise an individual’s professional identity. These dynamics are exemplified by the unique challenges that scholar–practitioners regularly encounter. To deepen understanding of variations in how scholar–practitioners enact their professional identity, we interviewed young scholar–practitioners who completed their doctorates in the past 7 years, as well as seasoned scholar–practitioners with at least 20 years of experience. We elicited metaphors from the interviewees to explore the complexities of their professional identity and subidentities and the challenges that scholar–practitioners face at different stages of career development. We offer implications for the future socialization of scholar–practitioners and others in boundary-spanning roles.

Constructivist and Intersectional Interpretations of a Lesbian College Student's Multiple Social Identities

Constructivist and Intersectional Interpretations of a Lesbian College Student's Multiple Social Identities

The Effect of the Evaluator Group on the Self-Stereotyping of the Southeast-Asian Immigrants in the Context of Multiple Social Identities

본 연구에서는 다중사회정체성 맥락에서 정체성의 특출성과 평가자 집단 유형이 동남아이주민들의 자기고정관념화에 미치는 영향과 과정을 알아보고자 하였다. 이를 위해 동남아이주민 실험 참여자들에게 한국 혹은 고국에서의 생활에 대해 간략히 서술하도록 하여 정체성(한국인 대 동남아인)의 특출성을 조작한 뒤, 평가자 집단 유형(한국인 평가자 대 동족의 평가자)이 제시된 취업장면 시나리오를 읽고 암묵적·명시적 자기 유능성을 평가하도록 하였다. 그 결과, 예상대로 동남아인 정체성이 특출해진 참여자들은 면접장면에서 평가자가 동족일 때보다 한국인 평가자일 때 자기 유능성(자기 면접점수/ 자기 유능성)을 더 낮게 평가하였다. 반면 한국인 정체성이 특출해진 참여자들은 평가자 집단 유형에 따른 자기 유능성 평가에서 차이가 나타나지 않았다. 또한 이러한 정체성의 특출성과 평가자 집단 유형에 따른 자기고정관념화는 명시적 측정에서 뿐만 아니라 암묵적으로도 나타났다. 마지막으로, 중다회귀분석 결과, 평가자가 한국인일 때 동남아인 정체성이 특출해진 참여자의 자기 면접점수 예측에 영향을 미치는 요인으로 동남아이주민의 유능성에 대한 지각된 한국인들의 고정관념이 유일한 설명변인으로 나타났다. 이는 동남아이주민들의 자기고정관념화가 동남아이주민의 유능성에 대한 지각된 한국인들의 고정관념의 영향을 받을 것이라는 예상을 일부 지지하는 결과로 볼 수 있다. 본 연구에서는 이러한 결과들에 대한 이론적‧실제적 의미를 논의하였다.

(Re-) Framing Authenticity: Considering Multiple Social Identities Using Autoethnographic and Intersectional Approaches

(2012). (Re-) Framing Authenticity: Considering Multiple Social Identities Using Autoethnographic and Intersectional Approaches. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 83, No. 5, pp. 698-724.