Identity Projects Research Articles

Arizona Mormon Youths’ Religious Socialization and 2020 Voting Choices

In Arizona, Mormonism has a historical presence as a conservative and globalized faith. Though the Mormon Church officially maintains political neutrality, it also encourages civic engagement. Through an analysis of interview data collected from 38 Mormon youth as part of the Arizona Youth Identity Project, this paper explores the enactment of political agency in reaction to complex socialization processes. Mormon youths’ voting choices in the 2020 election season were shaped by religious socialization and Mormonism as an “ethnoreligious” identity. While religious upbringing was important in political decision-making, our study found that most youth were politically unaffiliated and voted across party lines instead. Further, we analyze how intersectional identities such as gender, race, and sexual orientation contributed to this generation’s political values and voting outcomes, even creating external tensions with peers and older Mormon leadership. As Arizona Mormon youth participated in a historic election season, this study highlights the nuances of religious socialization and voting choices.

Unpacking Young Adults’ Voting Preferences: The Role of Neighborhood Trust

Compared to previous generations, young adults today report lower levels of trust in government, law enforcement, and their communities. This study investigates neighborhood factors influencing social trust among Arizona young adults during the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. Through an analysis of online survey data for a sample of young adults ( N = 1,376) who participated in the Arizona Youth Identity Project, we explore how neighborhood diversity, population density, racial identity, and political affiliation are associated with social trust and voting preferences. We find that Arizona young adults’ trust in police and their neighbors varies by neighborhood diversity and racial identity, with residents of mostly White neighborhoods reporting higher levels of trust. Additionally, support for Trump is highest among young adults who expressed high trust in local police. This study underscores and begins to unpack the interplay between race, space, and trust in shaping political identities and preferences.

Irish diaspora policy and soft power projection

ABSTRACT Diasporic engagement has not been a common aspect of Irish national projection but Ireland’s recent policy platforms have sought to activate diasporic sentiment in the service of soft power. A broader and more diverse construction of diaspora is put forward and a more nuanced Government of Ireland reach-out is directed at a wider range of global markets’ than has heretofore been the case. This reformulation of global Irish identity and diversified spatial projection of Irish interest points to an assertive spatialization of Irish themes in the global sphere as Ireland seeks to harness its diaspora in pursuit of soft power.

“I’m Going to Vote for the First Time in My Life this Year”: Native American Political Engagement in the Trump Era

During the 2020 election, Arizona voted Democratic for the first time in decades and contributed to Joe Biden’s presidential win. Native Americans, predominantly young adults, turned out in record numbers and were credited as one of the key demographic groups that “flipped” Arizona blue. What drove young Native voters to engage during this election cycle? Using data from the Arizona Youth Identity Project, a multi-wave mixed-methods study, we analyzed interviews with 38 self-identified Native American participants ages 18–29 to understand the factors motivating their political engagement in the 2020 Presidential election. Findings reveal that young Native adults in Arizona were motivated by (1) targeted political organizing, outreach, and advocacy efforts, (2) increased positive attitudes toward voting, and (3) a desire for political and social change. These findings enhance our collective understanding of the motivations behind Native American voter engagement.

Gender, Race, and Entrepreneurship: A Randomized Field Experiment on Venture Capitalists and Angels

We study gender and race in high-impact entrepreneurship using a tightly controlled randomized field experiment. We sent out 80,000 pitch emails introducing promising but fictitious start-ups to 28,000 venture capitalists and angels. Each email was sent by a fictitious entrepreneur with randomly assigned gender and race. Female entrepreneurs received 9% more interested replies than males pitching identical projects and Asians received 6% more than Whites. Our results suggest that investors do not discriminate against female or Asian entrepreneurs when evaluating unsolicited pitch emails and that future research on investor biases should focus on networks and in-person interactions. This paper was accepted by Tomasz Piskorski, finance. Funding: The grant is Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Development [Grant 430-2019-00306] “Gender and racial discrimination in venture capital” through the University of British Columbia. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.4990 .

Young Adults in Turbulent Times: Findings from the Arizona Youth Identity Project

This special issue examines young adults’ beliefs, identities, and political priorities during a tumultuous political era. Each article uses different subsamples of the qualitative and quantitative data collected by the Arizona Youth Identity Project (AZYIP), an ongoing mixed-methods study since the 2020 presidential election. This introductory essay describes the broader goals of the project and AZYIP study design and highlights key themes that emerge across the studies in the special issue, including Arizona young adults’ critical awareness of social issues, commitment to active citizenship, and desire for systemic change.

“Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys:” Views of Monogamy and Non-Monogamy Among Arizona Youth

Norms and ideals of romantic relationships, from dating through to marriage, have undergone significant shifts in recent decades. Views of roles and expectations within relationships may have evolved toward less conventional forms of romantic unions, opening up the possibility of non-monogamous relationships. Despite these potential shifts, the U.S. context maintains a culture of mononormativity, where monogamy is considered the ideal, and for some the only, form of relationship. Drawing on 92 interviews with young Arizonans aged 21 to 32 from the Arizona Youth Identity Project, we explore views of and desire for monogamy in romantic relationships. We focus on two questions: (1) Do young adults uphold mononormative views? and (2) How are these views distinguished between personal preferences versus broader social expectations? We find that some young people uphold mononormativity for themselves and as a social institution, viewing non-monogamy as harmful or unnatural. Many others, however, see monogamy as their personal preference but accept non-monogamy for others, often without reservations. A small number of young adults express personal openness toward non-monogamy or explicit refusal of monogamy in their own lives. Collectively, these findings show that while there remains an enduring preference for monogamy in young people’s personal relationships, there is substantial acceptance and support for non-monogamy for others, suggesting that the hold of mononormativity may be loosened for young adults.

The lezurrection: lesbian identity in queer times

“Post-lesbian” discourse has posited that the increasing popularity of queer identity has challenged the endurance of lesbian identity. Using 16 in-depth interviews collected between 2019 and 2020 with people who identify as lesbian and queer, I offer empirical examples of why lesbian identity endures and the utility of the identity’s specificity. While several recent publications have also demonstrated the durability of lesbian identity, this study offers a unique portrait of this identity project in its portrayal of why some moved away from lesbian identity and why they have returned to it. I argue that there is a cultural opening for reinvigorated understandings of lesbian identity, and that it is crucial to understand this opening in order to resist the declaration that lesbian identity is in decline. To do so we must grapple with lesbian critiques of queerness, as well as the continued political relevance of lesbian. The shifts in personal identities of participants is emblematic of shifting community understandings of these identity terms over time, indicating a generational shift in perception of identities.

Is the Identity Project College-Ready? A Feasibility Pilot Study of an Ethnic-Racial Identity Development Intervention with U.S. College Students

ABSTRACT Ethnic-racial identity (ERI) development promotes psychosocial and academic adjustment during adolescence and early adulthood. However, preventive intervention research into ERI promotion among young adults is limited. The current feasibility pilot study analyzed qualitative data (i.e. interviews, surveys, field notes) to explore the supports and impediments to implementing the Identity Project (IP), an ERI promotive curriculum developed for high-school aged adolescents, with college-going young adults at one U.S. university. Participants (N = 48; M age = 19.52, SD = 1.56; 86.36% female or non-binary) were randomly assigned to participate in the IP curriculum or to only complete surveys; all participants were invited to participate in interviews. Axial coding and thematic analysis revealed that: (a) young adult developmental needs and the ubiquitous salience of ERI in college promoted demand for structured interventions like the IP; (b) college cultural norms and values (e.g., emphasis on instrumental educational aims and ERI not being universal) limited access to the resources necessary for the IP intervention to be practical in college; and (c) implementing the IP as an extracurricular activity is not feasible and should instead be done as a campus requirement. Implications for future IP studies and college-based ERI interventions are discussed.

From Avoidance to Competence? How the Identity Project Inspires Teachers to Engage with Ethnicity and Culture with Their Students

ABSTRACT Multicultural education highlights the need to promote students’ diverse identities, recognizing their ethnic-cultural backgrounds as resources in their teaching. However, most teachers perceive they lack competence and learning material to this end. Research suggests the Identity Project may be an appropriate tool to resolve some of these challenges. We explore both teachers’ and students’ narratives about teaching issues of ethnicity and culture in multicultural classrooms centering on potential changes from before to after teachers delivered the IP. We conducted one focus group interview with seven teachers before they were trained and implemented the IP in their classrooms, and individual interviews with them after they had completed the intervention. Data from three focus groups with 16 students from the same schools, and individual interviews with 16 other students that received the intervention are included to add perspective to the teachers’ narratives. A reflexive thematic analysis resulted in four themes: From avoidance to embracing the diversity topics, from not addressing to affirming student identities, teachers pushing for inclusion (or exclusion), using cultural background as a learning/teaching tool. Our findings imply that the IP can be a tool for multicultural education that enhances teachers’ competence in supporting students’ identity development.

Ab-normalising projects of third culture kid identity: Troubling the god trick

Ab-normalising projects of third culture kid identity: Troubling the god trick

Applicability of Financial Inclusion Theories and Rural Development Theories in the Implementation of the Parish Development Model (PDM) in Uganda

This article provides guidance on how to implement the Parish Development Model, which was launched in February 2022 as the government's multi-sectorial strategy to achieve socioeconomic transformation by converting 39% of Ugandan households from the subsistence economy to the money economy. Uganda, often known as the Pearl of Africa, has seen national development plans incorporate Vision 2040 goals, and it is now undertaking its third National Development Plan. To complete the 2040 vision cycle, three further identical projects must be done. President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni highlighted Financial Inclusion as one of the 17 implementation strategies, since Uganda's monetary poverty rate (the proportion of the population earning less than US$1.04 per day) has increased over the preceding nine years, from 19.7% in 2012/13 to 21.4% in 2016/17. Despite an average annual economic growth rate of 4.7%, the number of underprivileged individuals rose to 8.7 million in 2019/20 from 6.6 million in 2012/13. As a consequence, the Parish Development Model was implemented in rural regions to eliminate poverty. Financial inclusion and rural development principles can help to assist this economic growth plan. As a result, this study investigates how these principles have acted as guides for effective parish development model implementation, as well as recommendations to ensure that they are consistent with rural people's long-term aspirations. Keywords: Financial inclusion and Rural Development theories, Parish Development Model

Gastroimaginaries: a framework for conceptualizing narratives of food and place in the American South

ABSTRACT This article develops the concept of gastroimaginaries – narratives that use food as a rhetorical device to define and encapsulate what are believed to be the essential characteristics of a people, place, and time. The article adapts the concept of social imaginaries – defined by Taylor (2023) as “the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others … ” – to underscore the significance of food-related narratives for shaping, reinforcing, and potentially contesting regional identity and place-making projects, and for signaling membership within a particular group or imagined community. I apply the gastroimaginary framework to an analysis of food media representations of the American South, arguing that dominant gastroimaginary frames – which emphasize potent but generally uncritical ideas like hospitality and nostalgia – generally elide the realities of food system labor and environmental and other externalities; alternative or subversive gastroimaginaries, however, can both attend to these past and present realities while imagining more radical futures.

Lines, cuts and engrams: comparing contemporary partition narratives from (Northern) Ireland and Upper Silesia

ABSTRACT This essay offers a comparative perspective on several narrative representations of two partitions that were established in Europe in the 1920s. Partitions of Ireland and of Upper Silesia had markedly different consequences and political vicissitudes but there are also significant parallels when it comes to selected bordering practices as well as patterns and modes of remembering partition that have been exploited in contemporary writings from either region/country. The principal focus of the essay is on how partition narratives and other representations of bordering have reflected and perpetuated tropes and images connected with social and political divisions in either society. Of particular significance is the persistence of geopolitical lines that may have disappeared from maps and territories and yet they have continued to inspire contemporary identity projects that are informed by stories and memories of the past in borderland areas. The two borders – and their narrative representations – are discussed with reference to Anna Bernard’s concept of ‘partition literature’, Tim Ingold’s ‘ghostly lines’ as well as Astrid Erll’s notion of ‘travelling memory’ and its effects on the nexus of territory and identity in recent writings from Northern Ireland and Upper Silesia.

Evaluating a School-Based Intervention on Adolescents’ Ethnic-racial Identity in Sweden

Finding developmentally appropriate ways to support youth in understanding their own ethnic-racial identity is needed, particularly in contexts like Sweden where such support is not the norm. This preregistered longitudinal study examined whether an 8-week school-based intervention, the Identity Project, impacted youth ethnic-racial identity exploration (participation and search), resolution, private regard, and centrality. Participants were 509 adolescents in the 10th grade (Mage = 16.28, SD = 0.80; 65% self-identified girls; 52% minoritized ethnic background), who were randomized into an intervention or wait-list control group and assessed at baseline and three times post-intervention. The findings indicated an initial and simultaneous effect of the intervention only for exploration participation and resolution but did not show the expected chain of effects with earlier exploration predicting later resolution. Growth models indicated a greater increase in exploration participation over time for the intervention group than the control group. The findings indicate a mixed picture about the effectiveness of the intervention, with effects primarily narrowly targeted to exploration participation, but nevertheless highlight the potential for supporting Swedish youth in engaging with their ethnic-racial identities.

Fostering Culturally Responsive Teaching Through the Identity Project Intervention: A Qualitative Quasi-Experiment with Pre-Service Teachers

ABSTRACT The framework of culturally responsive teaching (CRT) provides a promising pathway for preparing teachers for culturally diverse schools. Important elements of culturally responsive teaching are critical reflection, valuing cultural diversity, and efficacy in teaching in a diverse classroom. The present study explores whether the Identity Project (Umaña-Taylor & Douglass, 2017), an eight-week classroom-based intervention, changes pre-service teachers’ (1) critical reflection, (2) diversity beliefs, and CRT efficacy. Using a qualitative, quasi-experimental design, we conducted semi-structured interviews (M t = 75 min.) with eight pre-service teachers (three identified as female, five identified as male), in Eastern Germany at two time points: before and after an eight-week teaching experience at school. During the teaching experience, four participants in the intervention group (M age = 22.3) facilitated the Identity Project, while the remaining four participants (control group, M age = 25.5) taught regular lessons as part of the compulsory internship in their teacher-training degree at university. One out of eight participants is of immigrant descent. Using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006), findings suggest that implementing the Identity Project intervention promotes pre-service teachers’ quality of critical reflection, contributes to valuing cultural diversity beliefs, and promotes CRT efficacy. The findings help to identify approaches for reflexive critical education in a migration-diverse society.

Communication and visual identity through system design:

The curricular unit of Project of the 3rd year of the Degree in Design and Graphic Production aims to apply the knowledge and methodologies acquired. The students are expected to de- velop a visual identity project for a cultural space surrounding the school called TOBIS. The identity of this multi-purpose space, equipped to host various events in areas such as cinema, theatre, music and exhibitions and others, must be based on a comprehensive communication project. Through a case study, we propose to analyse how the students understand and apply the systems design method in solving this challenge.

Цифровая идентичность и гуманистическая модель цифровой образовательной среды

The article is devoted to the problems of subjective and personal self-determination of students in the situation of contact with the infocommunication environment, in particular, to the analysis of “digital identity”, symbolizing the emergence of a new modality of individual identification in virtual space. The methodological basis of the study was philosophical, axiological and systemic approaches. In addition, the possibilities of the method of existential analytics are used, which make it possible to explore not only ontological, but also the value-semantic contexts of the formation of personal identity, allowing us to consider the essence of “I” in the unique unity of its personal qualities, as well as content analysis as the optimal diagnostic tool network identity. The article conceptualizes the concept of “digital identity”. It is shown that the representation of the life of young people in a virtual environment, as one of the forms of successful socialization, as well as the possibility of constructing a virtual personality and its self-presentation in the external environment with the help of ideal self-images, determine the projective nature of digital identity, which is, ultimately, a set of projections of real identity, translated using digital technologies into a sign-symbolic context. Based on examples of the reverse influence of online identity on the real one, a conclusion is made about the emergence of a tendency to blur the lines between them, marking the beginning of the process of merging digital and real identities. The result of the study is a humanistic model of the digital educational environment (DEL), which sets the main variable vectors for its development and implementation, taking into account the creative potential of a particular teacher, the conditions of the educational organization, the socio-pedagogical and socio-psychological specifics of students.

Professional Development for Providing Time and Opportunities for Change in U.S. Teachers’ Ethnic-Racial Identity

ABSTRACT The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe teachers’ perceptions of changes in their ethnic-racial identity after completing professional development designed to support facilitation of a school-based ethnic-racial identity student curriculum – the Identity Project. We analyzed interview data from 11 U.S. high school educators (four Teachers of Color; seven White Teachers) who completed 32 training hours and post-program individual interviews to reflect on the impact of the program on their ethnic-racial identity. Based on reflexive thematic analysis, we found that the program influenced teachers’ ethnic-racial identity by offering them time and opportunities for change through guided self-reflection. This included participating in all aspects of the Identity Project that is designed for students and learning from and sharing with colleagues. The program (a) served as a reminder reinforcing prior learning about one’s ethnic-racial identity, (b) leveraged unique benefits of reflecting in community about issues of ethnicity, race, and identity, and (c) activated curiosity to learn more about one’s ethnic-racial identity and its connections with supporting students. Nevertheless, there was teacher-specific variation in these findings that illustrated nuanced experiences. Our findings illuminate paths forward for fostering teachers’ ongoing ethnic-racial identity development in the service of promoting students’ learning and well-being.

Adolescent Cultural Identity Development in Context: The Dynamic Interplay of the Identity Project With Classroom Cultural Diversity Climate in Italy and Germany

While both the classroom cultural diversity climate and curriculum-based interventions can promote cultural identity development, they have not been studied together. Drawing on theories of ethnic-racial identity development, the current study aimed to understand the dynamic interplay of a curriculum-based intervention (the Identity Project) with the classroom cultural diversity climate (heritage culture and intercultural learning, critical consciousness socialization and equal treatment) on cultural identity exploration and resolution. Our sample included 906 mid-adolescents in Italy (32.36% immigrant descent, Mage (SD) = 15.12 (0.68) years, 51.73% female), and 504 early adolescents in Germany (53.86% immigrant descent, Mage (SD) = 12.82 (0.89) years, 42.37% female). Bayesian multivariate linear models show that the Identity Project and a stronger critical consciousness climate in the classroom before the intervention promoted cultural identity exploration at post-test in both countries. However, effects of the intervention and facets of the diversity climate on subsequent resolution were only observed in Italy. There was some evidence that the intervention could alter the classroom cultural diversity climate in Germany, while the intervention could compensate for a less positive diversity climate in the slightly older sample in Italy. Thus, it seems promising to systematically build in opportunities to engage with students’ diverse heritage cultures and identities when developing new curricula, as well as to train teachers to implement such curricula.