Identity Development (identity + development)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Distribution within Psychology


Selected Abstracts


The Importance of Role Models and Demographic Context for Senior Women's Work Identity Development

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT REVIEWS, Issue 3 2010
Ruth H.V. Sealy
The lack of senior female role models continues to be cited as a key barrier to women's career success. Yet there is little academic research into the gendered aspects of role modelling in organizations, or the utility of role models at a senior level. The paper starts with a review of papers examining the construction of role models in organizational settings. This leads to the inclusion of two related areas , organizational demographics as the contextual factor affecting the availability of role models and how they are perceived, and work identity formation as a possible key explanatory factor behind the link between the lack of senior female role models and the lack of career progression to top organizational levels. The literature looking at social theories of identity formation is then considered from a gender perspective. The key gaps identified are that while the behavioural value of role models has been well documented, a better understanding is needed of how gender and organizational demography influence the role modelling process. Importantly, the symbolic value and possibly other values of female role models in the identity construction of senior women require further in-depth investigation. Finally, this review calls for a more integrated approach to the study of role models and work identity formation, pulling together literatures on organizational demography, the cognitive construal of role models and their importance for successful work identity formation in senior women. [source]


The Status Model of Racial Identity Development in African American Adolescents: Evidence of Structure, Trajectories, and Well-Being

CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2006
Eleanor K. Seaton
Although the identity formation model is widely used to assess adolescent ethnic identity development, the model propositions have rarely been tested. The existence of the identity statuses (diffuse, foreclosed, moratorium, achieved), the proposed developmental trajectories, and whether youth in the achieved status report higher levels of psychological well-being were examined among a longitudinal sample of 224 African American adolescents, aged 11,17. Cluster analyses were used to create 4 identity statuses consistent with the theoretical model at both time points. The findings indicate that some adolescents progressed, while others regressed or remained constant across time periods. Lastly, the results generally support the assumption that individuals in the achieved status had the highest levels of psychological well-being at both time periods. [source]


From Good Student to Outcast: The Emergence of a Classroom Identity

ETHOS, Issue 2 2004
Stanton Wortham
The process of social identification draws on heterogeneous resources from several levels of explanation. This article illustrates how, by describing the identity development of one student across an academic year in a ninth-grade classroom. Analyses of transcribed classroom conversations show teachers and students drawing on multiple resources as this student goes from being identified as one of many good students to being identified as a disruptive outcast. This case provides a counterexample to simple theories of identity development that do not recognize the multiple, heterogeneous resources involved in social identification. [source]


The personality-identity interplay in emerging adult women: convergent findings from complementary analyses

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 3 2006
Koen Luyckx
Abstract The present study examined whether identity development occurs in tandem with personality development in emerging adulthood. Three-wave longitudinal data on a sample of 351 female college students were used to answer questions about stability and change, direction of effects, and interrelated developmental trajectories. Four identity dimensions (i.e. commitment making, exploration in breadth, identification with commitment, and exploration in depth) and the Big Five were assessed. Identity and personality were found to be meaningfully related at the level of both the time-specific adjacent measures and the underlying developmental trajectories with various degrees of convergence. Cross-lagged analyses substantiated reciprocal influences and Latent Growth Curve Modelling substantiated common developmental pathways that partially mirrored the concurrent relations. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


The impact of exchange programs on the integration of the hostgroup into the self-concept

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2010
Kai Sassenberg
Two studies analyzed the impact of international exchange programs on students' identity development. More precisely, the authors predict that exchange students integrate the host society (hostgroup) into their self-concept during an exchange year. Study 1 found a stronger social identification with the hostgroup and higher commitment for former exchange students than for future exchange students. Study 2 replicated the difference between former and future exchange students and found in addition that both former and future exchange students had a stronger identification and commitment in comparison to a control group that did neither take part in nor apply for an exchange program. Moreover, in this study the inclusion of the hostgroup into the self-concept was assessed via a response time paradigm. The results indicate that former and future exchange students have a stronger association between the self and the hostgroup than the control sample, but no difference between former and future exchange students was found. The results provide evidence for the impact of interest in and actual intensive intergroup contact on students' self-concept. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


An exploration of mothers' and fathers' views of their identities in chronic-kidney-disease management: parents as students?

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL NURSING, Issue 23 2008
Veronica Swallow
Aim., To explore parents' views of their identities as they learn to manage their child's chronic kidney disease. Background., Parents are expected to participate in management and usually learn necessary skills from the multidisciplinary team. Research highlights the importance of professionals defining parents' management roles in chronic disease; but little is known about parents' views on their own identities as the complex and dynamic process of teaching and learning unfolds around their child's condition. According to positioning theory, identity development is a dynamic and fluid process that occurs during interaction, with each person positioning themselves while simultaneously positioning the other person, yet this concept has not been considered in relation to parents' contributions to disease management. Design., A longitudinal, grounded theory study conducted in a UK Children's Kidney Unit. Method., This paper focuses on one aspect of a larger study exploring family learning in disease management. Six mothers and two fathers of six children with a recently diagnosed chronic kidney disease participated in a total of 21 semi-structured interviews during the 18 months after referral to the unit. Interviews included discussion about the parts they played in relation to professionals during the management process. Findings were interpreted within a framework of positioning theory. Results., Parents participated in teaching/learning/assessment that was both planned (involving allocated clinical lessons and tasks) and spontaneous (in response to current situations), to facilitate their participation. They positioned multidisciplinary team members as teachers as well as professionals, simultaneously positioning themselves as students as well as parents. Conclusion., Parents' clinical duties and obligations are not an automatic part of parenting but become part of the broader process of sharing disease management, this can lead to them assuming the additional identity of a ,student'. Relevance to clinical practice., Involving parents in ongoing discussions about their positions in management may help promote their active and informed participation. [source]


Autopoietic Law and the ,Epistemic Trap': A Case Study of Adoption and Contact

JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 3 2004
Carole Smith
This paper examines autopoietic theory with reference to functionally differentiated social sub-systems, particularly law, science, and politics. It sets out to ,test' the practical relevance of autopoietic theory in relation to ongoing debates about post-adoption contact and personal identity issues. Law has resisted social scientific pressure to regulate post-adoption contact in the context of a social policy approach, which emphasizes the relationship between identity development and genealogical continuity. I argue that law's response to this pressure relates to the particular nature of adoption as this is expressed through legislation and case law. Law's refusal to intervene in post-adoption contact reflects its self-referential operations and its attempts to avoid epistemic entrapment by a social scientific discourse. Applying autopoietic theory to law's practical operations in adoption clarifies its explanatory value, provides a conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between law, politics, and social science and indicates areas that require theoretical refinement. [source]


Building teacher identity with urban youth: Voices of beginning middle school science teachers in an alternative certification program

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 10 2004
Amira Proweller
Teacher identity development and change is shaped by the interrelationship between personal biography and experience and professional knowledge linked to the teaching environment, students, subject matter, and culture of the school. Working from this framework, this study examines how beginning teacher interns who are part of an alternative route to teacher certification construct a professional identity as science educators in response to the needs and interests of urban youth. From the teacher interns, we learn that crafting a professional identity as a middle-level science teacher involves creating a culture around science instruction driven by imagining "what can be," essentially a vision for a quality and inclusive science curriculum implicating science content, teaching methods, and relationships with their students. The study has important implications for the preparation of a stronger and more diverse teaching force able to provide effective and inclusive science education for all youth. It also suggests the need for greater attention to personal and professional experience and perceptions as critical to the development of a meaningful teacher practice in science. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 1044,1062, 2004 [source]


Discursive identity: Assimilation into the culture of science and its implications for minority students

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 8 2004
Bryan A. Brown
This study examined how, in some instances, participation in the cultural practices of high school science classrooms created intrapersonal conflict for ethnic minority students. Discourse analysis of videotaped science classroom activities, lectures, and laboratories was the primary methodology employed for analyzing students' discursive identity development. This analysis demonstrated differential appropriation of science discourse as four significant domains of discursive identities emerged: Opposition status, Maintenance status, Incorporation status, and Proficiency status. Students characterized as Opposition Status avoided use of science discourse. Students who exhibited Maintenance Status illustrated a commitment to maintaining their normative discourse behavior, despite a demonstrated ability to appropriate science discourse. Students characterized as Incorporation Status made active attempts to incorporate science discourse into their normative speech patterns, while Proficiency Status students demonstrated a fluency in applying scientific discursive. Implications for science education emerging from the study include the illumination of the need to make the use of specific scientific discourse an explicit component of classroom curriculum. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 810,834, 2004 [source]


Identity Agents: Parents as Active and Reflective Participants in Their Children's Identity Formation

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON ADOLESCENCE, Issue 3 2008
Elli P. Schachter
The paper introduces the concept of identity agents. This concept refers to those individuals who actively interact with children and youth with the intention of participating in their identity formation, and who reflectively mediate larger social influences on identity formation. This contrasts with the focus of mainstream research in the identity field that tends to portray adolescents as the sole reflective agents involved in mature identity development. The paper presents a theoretical analysis presenting the importance of the concept for the formulation of a comprehensive contextual theory of identity formation. The particulars of this concept are illustrated through the presentation of a qualitative report of religious parents actively encouraging their children's processes of identification, co-participating in their children's identity's formation, and reflectively deliberating their parental roles and goals in regards to this process. [source]


Racing to Theory or Retheorizing Race?

JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ISSUES, Issue 1 2009
Understanding the Struggle to Build a Multiracial Identity Theory
Empirical research on the growing multiracial population in the United States has focused largely on the documentation of racial identification, analysis of psychological adjustment, and understanding the broader political consequences of mixed-race identification. Efforts toward theory construction on multiracial identity development, however, have been largely disconnected from empirical data, mired in disciplinary debates, and bound by historically specific assumptions about race and racial group membership. This study provides a critical overview of multiracial identity development theories, examines the links between theory and research, explores the challenges to multiracial identity theory construction, and proposes considerations for future directions in theorizing racial identity development among the mixed-race population. [source]


To be or not to be: An exploration of ethnic identity development in context

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD & ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT, Issue 120 2008
Niobe Way
This qualitative study focused on the intersection of personal and ethnic identities among forty African American, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Chinese American high school students. The patterns in content indicated that for the Puerto Ricans, the intersection of their personal and social identities was a series of accommodations to a positive peer climate and a resistance to being Dominican. For the other ethnic groups, the intersection of their personal and social identities consisted of a process of resistance and accommodation to negative stereotypes projected on them by their peers and, for African Americans, themselves. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


Rites of Passage in Emerging Adulthood: Perspectives of Young Mormons

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD & ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT, Issue 100 2003
Larry J. Nelson
This study explores the role that culture, particularly religious rites of passage, may play in emerging adulthood by examining the demographics, criteria for adulthood, identity development, and risk behavior of Mormon emerging adults. [source]


Prepared for challenges: The importance of a professional and institutional ethical identity

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES, Issue 148 2009
Sharon K. Anderson
Anderson, Harbour, and Davies (2007) have proposed a framework of professional identity development for community college leaders. We further this discussion by introducing the idea of "institutional ethical identity" and offer suggestions for how leaders and constituents can work together to build a shared ethical identity on the community college campus. [source]


Working with Jewish undergraduates

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR STUDENT SERVICES, Issue 125 2009
Warren J. Blumenfeld
This chapter discusses issues surrounding Americans who identify with Judaism and Jewish student identity development, presents challenges Jewish students face on American college campuses, and offers strategies for faculty and administrators to use when working with Jewish undergraduates. [source]


Research on biracial and multiracial identity development: Overview and synthesis

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR STUDENT SERVICES, Issue 123 2008
Kristen A. RennArticle first published online: 19 SEP 200
This chapter presents an overview of theories that have been used to describe identity development of biracial and multiracial college students. [source]


Networking to develop a professional identity: A look at the first-semester experience of doctoral students in business

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR TEACHING & LEARNING, Issue 113 2008
Vicki L. Sweitzer
Bringing together mentoring, social networks, and professional identity theories, this chapter explores how messages received from network partners influenced the professional identity development of business doctoral students in their first semester of study. [source]


Other voices, other rooms: differentiating social identity development in organisational and Pro-Am virtual teams

NEW TECHNOLOGY, WORK AND EMPLOYMENT, Issue 2 2010
Jerry Hallier
This paper advocates a social identity approach as a way to overcome the normative limitations of existing virtual team identity research. We also explore how social identity understandings of virtual team identity could benefit from incorporating comparisons between organisational and professional amateur virtual teams; and a focus on technologically mediated dialogues. [source]


Adolescent Homosexuality and Culturally Competent Nursing

NURSING FORUM, Issue 3 2000
Leslie G. Dootson
Nursing is striving for cultural competency. Cultural competency includes the ability to deliver care to disenfranchised and marginalized people. The adolescent gay, lesbian, or bisexual person is at risk for violence, disease, harassment, and problems with identity development. Ethnic/minority youth who are also gay, lesbian, and bisexual suffer from prejudice and disenfranchisement within their ethnic community as well as in the dominant white culture. Healthcare workers exhibit homophobia and heterosexism in the delivery of care to patients. Nursing needs to evaluate its own values and prejudices and incorporate sexual orientation into culturally valid tools of assessment to provide competent care. [source]


Ready or Not ,? Teen Sexuality and the Troubling Discourse of Readiness

ANTHROPOLOGY & EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2006
Catherine Ashcraft
In this article, I explore how talk about being "ready" or "not ready" for sex shapes teen and adult understandings of sexuality. I argue that this "discourse of readiness" poses serious threats to teens' identity development, sexual decision making, and educators efforts to help them through these processes. To illustrate, I draw from my nine-month ethnography, examining how participants used readiness discourses to make sense of their sexualities. I suggest implications for educators, policy makers, and researchers in anthropology and education. [source]


Attachment, ego,identity development and exploratory interest in university students

ASIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2002
Warren A. Reich
We investigated the relationships between attachment security, ego,identity development and exploratory interest in 161 university students who completed categorical and dimensional scales of attachment style, an ego,identity development scale based on Erikson's theory, and an exploratory interest scale. Factor analysis yielded three interpretable dimensions of exploratory interest: intellect, escape and activity. High ego development was associated with attachment security. Exploratory interest was weakly associated with attachment security, but more strongly associated with high ego,identity development. Further analyses revealed that ego,identity development predicts escape only for those with a negative model of self (i.e. preoccupied and fearful attachment styles), an ego,identity development predicts activity only for those with a positive model of self (i.e. secure and dismissing attachment styles). [source]


Brown Girls, White Worlds: Adolescence and the Making of Racialized Selves,

CANADIAN REVIEW OF SOCIOLOGY/REVUE CANADIENNE DE SOCIOLOGIE, Issue 2 2006
MYTHILI RAJIVA
Jusquà récemment, les recherches sur les femmes venant de l'Asie du Sud portaient presque entièrement sur les immigrantes de première génération; cependant, les chercheurs commencent à explorer les différences qui existent entre les immigrantes de premiére et celles de deuxiéme génération. Ce qui reste peu clair, c'est comment l'âge, en tant que relation de puissance, se manifeste dans le contexte d'une diaspora. Par exemple, quel est l'apport de l'expérience occidentale de l'adolescence dans le processus identitaire ? l'auteure s'appuie sur le concept de Twine appeléévénement frontalier, qui s'adresse spéci-fiquement à l'expérience de racialisation de l'adolescente. Elle se penche également sur la culture des pairs et enfin sur les families et les com-munautés particulières pour évaluer comment celles-ci réussissent à convaincre les jeunes filles de deuxième génération de leur exclusion permanente de la normalité. Until recently, research on South Asian women has focussed almost exclusively on the immigrant experience; however, scholars have now begun to explore the differences between immigrant and second-generation identities. What remains unclear is how age, as a relation of power, asserts itself in diasporic contexts. For instance, how is modern Western adolescence a key period of racialized identity development? Building on Twine's concept of the "boundary event," I analyse second-generation South Asian girls' stories of difference making during adolescence, examining the work done by peer culture, friends and even family/community to remind girls of their racial and cultural difference. [source]


The reasons why young children are placed for adoption: findings from a recently placed sample and a discussion of implications for subsequent identity development

CHILD & FAMILY SOCIAL WORK, Issue 4 2000
E. Neil
It is widely accepted that the processing of identity issues can be problematic for some adopted children. Needing to know why placement for adoption was necessary is often central to adopted people's identity concerns. Adoption practices have altered and children are now placed for adoption for different reasons and from different backgrounds than were children in the past. This study aims to present an up to date picture of the reasons why children are placed for adoption. Using information from questionnaires completed by social workers, the circumstances of a sample of 168 young (mean age at placement = 18 months), recently adopted children are examined. Children fall into three groups according to the reason for their adoption: relinquished infants (14%), those whose parents had requested adoption in complex circumstances (24%), and those children required to be adopted by social services and the courts (62%). Child and birthparent characteristics and openness arrangements are examined and are found to differ significantly between the three groups, indicating that children will have different types of information to appraise and differing capacities to make sense of their personal histories. Because of the multiplicity of difficulties in children's backgrounds, it is concluded that resolving identity issues is likely to be challenging for many children, and professionals will need to take this into account when working with adopters and birth relatives. [source]


Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in Child Development: Contemporary Research and Future Directions

CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2006
Stephen M. Quintana
The editors of this special issue reflect on the current status and future directions of research on race, ethnicity, and culture in child development. Research in the special issue disentangles race, ethnicity, culture, and immigrant status, and identifies mediators of sociocultural variables on developmental outcomes. The special issue includes important research on normal development in context for ethnic and racial minority children, addresses racial and ethnic identity development, and considers intergroup processes. The methodological innovations as well as challenges of current research are highlighted. It is recommended that future research adhere to principles of cultural validity described in the text. [source]


The Status Model of Racial Identity Development in African American Adolescents: Evidence of Structure, Trajectories, and Well-Being

CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2006
Eleanor K. Seaton
Although the identity formation model is widely used to assess adolescent ethnic identity development, the model propositions have rarely been tested. The existence of the identity statuses (diffuse, foreclosed, moratorium, achieved), the proposed developmental trajectories, and whether youth in the achieved status report higher levels of psychological well-being were examined among a longitudinal sample of 224 African American adolescents, aged 11,17. Cluster analyses were used to create 4 identity statuses consistent with the theoretical model at both time points. The findings indicate that some adolescents progressed, while others regressed or remained constant across time periods. Lastly, the results generally support the assumption that individuals in the achieved status had the highest levels of psychological well-being at both time periods. [source]


Ego Development and Ethnic Identity Formation in Rural American Indian Adolescents

CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2005
Denise L. Newman
Ethnic identity development was assessed in the context of ego development in 12- to 15-year-old students from a Southeastern American Indian community. Self-protective was the modal level and was characterized by awareness of ethnic group membership but little exploration or self-reflection. Impulsive adolescents had the least developed ethnic identities and highest levels of interpersonal vulnerability. Conformist adolescents expressed positive feelings about ethnic group affiliation, described relationships as harmonious, but demonstrated moderate social anxiety. Postconformist adolescents had the highest levels of agency, social competence, and identity achievement, but also had high levels of psychological distress and family conflict. Adolescent identity strivings may be understood in context with the level and timing of psychosocial maturity, for which ego development appears a useful marker. [source]