CULTURAL IDENTITY
is the identity or feeling of belonging to a group. It is part of a person's self-conception and self-perception and is related
to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any kind of social group that has its own
distinct culture.
Nationality: Your nationality determines your cultural identity because you usually assimilate to the culture of
the country that you live in.
Ethnicity: Your ethnicity is what race and culture you are. It is very important to your cultural identity, because
you usually have the culture of your ethnicity. Your ethnicity also sometimes determine how you look, though
not always, because most ethnicities have universal looks:
Religion: Your religion is the god that you worship and follow. It helps your cultural identity, and help determine
what values you have as a person. Religions have also helped to shape culture, as Christianity has influenced
culture greatly in Europe and in the Americas, as Islam has in the Middle East.
Social Class: Your social class is how much money you have, and how it benefits your life in society.
Generation: Your generation is all the people that are alive and living at the same time as you are. The
general gap for a generation is 30 years, at which time the previous generation has grown up, become adults
and begun to have children of their own.
Locality: Your locality is the settlement in which you live, and how populated the area is. There are 3 types of
settlements: villages, towns and cities.
In this way, cultural identity is both characteristic of the individual but also of the culturally identical group of members
sharing the same cultural identity.
Culture is all the things that make up a certain way of life or living. That includes all the beliefs and values, language,
customs, style of dress, food, song, and stories that belong to a group of people. A person's cultural identity comes from
the way they take certain aspects of each of the cultures they belong to and use them to shape and define who they are.
Some young people might find it hard to make sense of their cultural identity.
If a young person doesn’t really know where they fit in, see if you can help them find a space where they belong. Support
them to feel comfortable in their own skin and proud of their heritage and cultural identity.
Young people are often looking for their place in the world and might feel a little bit lost at times. They might feel like an
outsider or feel pressure to prove the stereotypes about their cultural group wrong. Keep an eye out for them:
o Rejecting their culture – not wanting to get involved, go to church with their family or identify with their
background
o Being bullied, ignored or ridiculed at school for being different
o frustrated, depressed or anxious
o self-esteem - feeling worthless or like they don't belong
SOCIAL IDENTITY
is one's sense of self as a member of a social group (or groups). Sociologists use the concept of social identity to explain
how people understand who they are and why they do what they do.
According to social identity theory, people classify themselves and others as belonging to specific groups. People regard
groups more like themselves more positively, identifying themselves as members of such groups in contrast to others.
For example, preferring certain values, one might identify oneself as a conservative as opposed to a liberal.
Henri Tajfel's greatest contribution to psychology was social identity theory. Social identity is a person’s sense of who
they are based on their group membership(s).
Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team etc.) which people belonged to were an
important source of pride and self-esteem. Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social
world.
In order to increase our self-image we enhance the status of the group to which we belong.
This is known as in-group (us) and out-group (them). Social identity theory states that the in-group will discriminate
against the out-group to enhance their self-image.
The central hypothesis of social identity theory is that group members of an in-group will seek to find negative aspects of
an out-group, thus enhancing their self-image.
Henri Tajfel proposed that stereotyping (i.e. putting people into groups and categories) is based on a normal cognitive
process: the tendency to group things together. In doing so we tend to exaggerate:
1. the differences between groups
2. the similarities of things in the same group.
We categorize people in the same way. We see the group to which we belong (the in-group) as being different from the
others (the out-group), and members of the same group as being more similar than they are. Social categorization is one
explanation for prejudice attitudes (i.e. “them” and “us” mentality) which leads to in-groups and out-groups.
Examples of In-groups – Out-groups
o Northern Ireland: Catholics – Protestants
o Rwanda: Hutus and Tutsis
o Yugoslavia: the Bosnians and Serbs
o Germany: Jews and the Nazis
o Politics: Labor and the Conservatives
o Football: Liverpool and Man Utd
o Gender: Males and Females
o Social Class: Middle and Working Classes
IDENTITY POLITICS/ POLITICAL IDENTITY
is when people of a particular race, ethnicity, gender, or religion form alliances and organize politically to defend their
group’s interests. The feminist movement, the civil rights movement, and the gay liberation movement are all examples
of this kind of political organizing.
Identity politics seems to be experiencing a flow in recent times, which has led some people to criticize this approach to
politics, calling it divisive (disruptive). Critics of identity politics claim that it only deepens the divides that exist between
different groups in society—black versus white, straight versus gay, Jew versus Arab, Sunni versus Shia, Protestant
versus Catholic, and so on.
instead of focusing on our differences, the critics say, we should recognize our common humanity.
Sadly, over two decades later, we keep seeing more stories like that, which highlight the depths of institutionalized
racism in several countries
The mere wish that we could all just get along can do nothing to combat sexism, homophobia, or white supremacy. In
an unjust world, where certain segments of society are oppressed by others, simply trying to transcend our identities is
not the answer.
there is a worry that the obsession with identity politics could turn out to be a recipe for endless struggle and division.
There is also the philosophical worry that identity politics relies on a suspect idea, namely, that there is something called
a “shared identity” amongst people in a particular group. It appeals to a kind of essentialism, and ignores heterogeneity
within the group.