...relationships: with friends, neighbours, workmates and, above all, with our families”. Author and social commentator Hugh Mackay states, “we are defined more by our interdependence than our independence”. Also, “we are individuals with a strong sense of our independent personal identity and we are members of families, groups and communities with an equally strong sense of social identity, fed by our intense desire to belong.” Likewise, Dr Michael Schluter, an important social thinker and founder of Britain’s Relationships Foundation draws attention to the fundamental importance of relationships in our lives and its role in securing our wellbeing. As Ross Gittins also asks, “take away all our relationships and who would have much reason to keep living?” Because we are social animals, we gravitate towards groups that become instrumental in shaping our views and values, our attitudes and behaviour. Frequently, we find ourselves conforming to the dominant views and values of the group to such an extent that we may risk losing our individuality. At such times, it may be necessary to challenge the group’s expectations or assert our individuality. Family relationships are obviously central to an individual’s identity. Parents provide guidance, shape expectations, and nurture talents. In the absence of strong parental role models and family and kinship relationships,...
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...Sociology Identity A picture is worth a thousand words. Tainted with time and worn down from years of being tossed around in boxes. Smudged with the identities of those who shall remain unnamed. A survivor of floods and even a fire. The picture with the burned edges and the smell of unfinished flames is the portrayal of my identity. A portrait of me as a young kid with three of my closest Caucasian friends. Something is different. I stand out like a needle in a hay stack. My identity is illustrated through my dark skin in comparison to others in the picture. The aspect of my identity that is far from inconspicuous. My racial identity. Three white boys with their pale faces and contented smiles as they stand in an uninspected formation. Their shirts red, white, and blue. And me with my mocha brown skin, bright yellow crew neck and my best hand-me- downs in the near background. My whole life I attended a predominantly white school. For majority of my time there I was one of few black faces. As a child I didn't focus on factors such as race or skin color. Everyone was the same to me except for the occasional girl who had cooties in which in that case I stood my ground. As years past I begin to notice the difference between my peers and myself. Which now looking back at this barely intact photograph is very evident. The idea of being different had a major impact on my identity. I began to withdraw from my surroundings, I became shy and distant from my peers. On a meso-level...
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...Romaine Smith Susan Doody ENG 111 02/14/13 Outline The positive impact music has on one’s identity In his musical lyrics, Bob Marley, a singer, songwriter and musician, motivates people across the world with his positive and encouraging music. In his biggest hi “One Love, One Heart, Let’s Get Together and Feel Alright,” created an atmosphere of love and exhilaration 2among people of different backgrounds and culture. After his death, Marley was venerated by people all over the world for his outstanding work and role model to the society. An icon had died. The positive influence of a song can reflect one’s character in different ways. One’s culture, attitude and appearance create an identity that can leave a positive impact on society. The cultural identity is those attributes, behavior patterns, lifestyles, and social structures that distinguish a person from another. Culture is learned and passed through generations and includes the believes and value system of a society. If we can examine the role of culture in a group formation, for example. If participants are told they share musical taste with an individual, they are more likely to appraise them positively and want to become their friend….. All these components of culture have an effect on one’s character. Music can have both positive and negative influences on one’s attitude. For example, a child that tends to listen more positive and...
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...The identities of an individual are communicated every day in several different ways. To begin explaining how identity plays a role within intercultural communication looking to your own social categories can help better demonstrate the different dimensions behind a person’s identity, and as an example I will explore my own ascribed and avowed identity. Then, I will discuss the role that I am most aware of during a normal day, and how it influences my perceptions. Following, we look at the aspects of my identity that are encouraged and discouraged by others. Also, language plays a major role in intercultural communication, and this will be demonstrated through my own use of language and its relationship to identity. When looking at our own identity, it is easy to feel the need to describe your personality traits and how that plays into the idea of who you are to yourself and the rest of the World. When looking into our social categories, it helps target the true meaning of identities and pinpoint different aspects of what makes you what you see yourself as, or your avowed identity, and what others around you see you as, known as your ascribed identity. My gender identity is female for both my ascribed and avowed identity. For my sexuality identity both my ascribed and avowed identity is heterosexual. For my religion, I have an ascribed identity of being Methodist, and the avowed identity of being spiritual, but questioning. My ascribed and avowed physical ability is able bodied...
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...This article was written by Beverly Daniel Tatum and is titled “The Complexity of Identity”. This article was written for the purpose of trying to get the reader to understand what we are dealing in the world today in terms of one’s identity. The article goes into detail on the meaning of identity, and what it means to a person. Identity is very important because it is who you are and why you are the way you are. There is also a lot of time invested in identity because it could take a person a lifetime to realize his identity and how to cope with it. The article states that identity is very complex and it is shaped by different dynamics. As I said finding one’s self and their identity takes time and this is done by continued reflection and observation. Identity can also be a defect to you because someone might judge you because of race, age, sexuality etc. An example of finding one’s self would be the story of Rachel Dolezal who is an American civil rights activist and who was a former teacher of Africana Studies. Rachel identifies herself as black, but allegations came up this summer when her white parents said that she was fake, and she is disguising herself as a black woman she's really not. Although Rachel denied this and said that her father is black, her parents showed the media a picture of a young blond-haired blue-eyed Rachel and also showed a copy of Rachel's birth certificate. This is what happens when someone is still figuring themselves out. Now I don’t know...
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...Mircea Alexandra Diana French-English The 3rd year Issues of Identity in 19th century American Literature The issue of identity was first approached and applied in the American literature in the 19th century. It consists in constructing and coming to grips with the authors’ identity. They were trying to describe and to analyze the hidden problems, sufferings and realm of the soul and, of course, of the unconscious. The popular question which started to be used by that time was “Who am I?”, but it gradually passed to the collective “Who we are?” We should know that, since the American tradition didn’t have any obvious roots, they borrowed very much from the immigrants and, in time, the wilderness of the ancient world has gone. Since the American writers didn’t have any settled tradition, they started to explore within the human soul and mind, which came to invent new style. While the English writers explore the raising of a poor man on the economic and social scale, the American ones reveal the absence of the tradition. This is the case of writers like Richard Wright, or Sarah O. Jewett who deeply analyzed the characters’ reaction in a critical period of their life. For instance, in “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”, Wright presents the coming to age of a young black boy. As we all know, Wright is a black writer, so we could say that this coming of age of this particular black boy...
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...Personal Identity In the story “Song for my Father” written by Eric Liu, Liu recalls his awkwardness from the people around him because of his hair and skin tone. He finds it hard to fit in because he is different from those around him. His father, an Air Force pilot, immigrated to the United States with his family. Liu was young then and as he adjusts in a different country, he grows apart from his native born land as well. He calls himself “1.5 lingual” because he cannot speak his native Chinese language fluently and have also forgotten how to write in Chinese. As a grown man, he now struggles to face reality and is confined from embracing his own identity. From reading the story, I learned about his struggles and the discrimination he faces. But I also realized that Eric Liu is not different from me and from my culture. We also faced the same discrimination and prejudice from different groups of people. However, his struggle and his purpose is different from mine. I want to be known for who I really am and where I come from, but in his case, he wants to completely forget about his past. His fragmented knowledge about his father, his father’s past has left him a feeling of being incomplete which makes him ungrounded. In this case, he lacks the knowledge of his collective (personal and family) history which makes him lack the anchor for a sense of self and a bridge of intimacy and connection to people. My story is different from Eric Liu because if he feels ashamed...
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...Self Identity Culture describes the way a certain people lives. It conveys information about how people make their houses, dress, communicate, eat, learn, work, find justice, entertained and find companionship. On the other hand, identity describes things that make a certain individual unique from all other people. They are the characters that are different only to you. Self-analysis is the process of examining and studying emotions, personality and the behavior of a specific individual. It seeks to understand the conscious and subconscious mind of an individual. With everybody born unique, people are born into families that were born into other families. Culture of an individual or a family is influenced by the parents’ background, language is spoken and the area one live in. Having been born and brought up in a family greatly impacted the cultural identity. Religion and traditions have helped in formulating my belief and behavior. My family has always been active in the church and been close to the preachers both in church and school have shaped my way of thinking in a morally upright manner. I have attended Sunday morning’s church since I was a small kid and up to date I still have the habit. I have been taught to be hardworking in everything that I do. Simply, “Hard work Pays”. In a family of five siblings, my parents have ensured that everybody has achieved college education. They have taught us that education opens up many doors that would alternatively not be open...
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...Stealing the identity of another is not an honest act. However, the Internet allows many opportunities for exploration of identity and has displayed personal social exploration to fulfill their curiosity. According to Lemke (1998), young people develop a sense of full presence online, living in them semiotically as they make cultural and personal sense of their participation. The shaping of an identity plays a vital role in the online world especially in having sustained online presence within any particular online-group. Turkle (1995) believes identity tinkering online opens the potential for young people to take risks and to explore all aspects of one's identity. The anonymity that the medium provides have a powerful, disinhibiting impact on behavior and it allows young people an unique opportunity for self-expression. Turkle (1995) argues that the participation in online identity play is similar to participation in pyschodrama. This ties in with the idea of the game as a means though which experience is formulated (Erikson, 1968). According to Turkle, the identity game helps to bring about psychological maturity. It is achieved by being able to develop different facets of the identity and experiencing variable progress between different identities. According to Steven G. (1998) , young people can and do take on second identities to protect their offline from their online identity. Steven (1998) believes young people allow themselves to behave in ways different from...
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...online world, and identity-related crime is a growing problem related to this. This new category of crime is not restricted to high-profile instances of identity ‘theft’ or identity fraud; it is wide-ranging and complex, ranging from identity deletion to unlawful identity creation and identity ‘theft’. Commonly accepted definitions are lacking, thus blurring available statistics, and policies to combat this new crime are piecemeal at best. In order to assess the real nature and magnitude of identity-related crime, and to be able to discuss how it can be combated, identity-related crime should be understood in all its aspects. As a first key step, this article introduces a typology of identity-related crime, consisting of conceptual, technical, and legal categories. The conceptual categories are unlawful forms of identity deletion, identity restoration, and identity change; the latter category is subdivided in unlawful forms of identity takeover (‘identity theft’), identity delegation, identity exchange, and identity creation. The technical categories consist of 17 points of attack on identification. The legal categories distinguishes between identity-specific legal provisions, such as the US crime of identity theft, and identity-neutral legal provisions mainly used in Europe, subdivided in criminal, civil, and administrative provisions. This typology can be used as a comprehensive framework for future research, countermeasures, and policies related to identity-related crime. ...
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...idiom which shows the relationship of the apple and trees. It figuratively represents the fact that children are subjected to acting or being just like their parents when they get older. This social construct is called identity. According to Fearon James D.’s article,“What is Identity (as we now use the work)?” An identity represents social groups which can shape guidelines to determine membership and personality traits or structures (2). Social identity is based on a group of relationships, suchas sexual category, race and culture, or other social classes. Identity might bring positive feedback to one that one can recognize that who are they, what are their weakness and strength, and...
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...Entangled Identities: Ritual Performance of Alevis in an Urban Area Over the past two decades, there has been considerable debate on the identity of Alevi and representations of their ritual performances in their worship places located in urban areas. All debates illustrate that they have been relinquishing their strong and traditional identities like other traditional cultures would seem around the world. Their traditional culture has been getting lost due to economic and life challenges emerged not only individually or collectively but also globally. It is important to highlight that the change of the traditional cultures of Alevis first appeared when they migrated from rural to urban areas. Most of the Alevis couldn`t carry on their identity...
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...1. James Marcia believed that adolescents had to go through or experience “dual criteria” before they are able to form a mature identity. He believed that in order to form a mature identity one has to face crises and make commitments. According to Marcia, crisis is a period when adolescents are engaging with different meaningful alternatives and then commitment is that personal commitment they make with what they choose. All in all, in order to form a mature identity one has to face many crisis and make many commitments and this all happens through four statuses which are identity diffused, foreclosure, moratorium, and lastly identity achieved. Identity diffused status is when one hasn’t faced or experienced a crisis nor made any commitments yet. Adolescents in this status haven’t made any commitment to things such as “occupation, a religion, a political philosophy, sex roles, or personal standards of behavior” (pg 158). If you ask someone in this stage “where do you want to live or better yet what do you want to be when you grow up?” they will probably say something like oh I haven’t really thought about it. With time some of these adolescents will start to face some of these crisis and start to confront such issues. But there are also some who continue to express no interest in commitment and this can link to low self-confidence and self-esteem and even avoid such topics by divulging themselves into alcohol and drugs. The next status is known as foreclosure. This is when...
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...Who are you, How do you perceive yourself, and how does others perceive you, are questions people often ask themselves, and games people often play to discover their qualities and leadership skills. Identity is very important. It is a person’s self-definition. It is a person’s own morals, ethics, values, standards, commitment, and way of living. It is the bridge of life- past, present, and future. Identity is a concept researched by many. According to Erik H. Erikson every individual goes through eight stages before accomplishing a healthy resolution of identity. Each stages has various challenges referred to as crisis. The success of each depends on the success of the other. The challenge commence with trust. Trust is an important quality...
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...us grow up with a fundamental task to search for the answer to the question: “Who am I?” In the teenage years, however, young people are the most aware of their personal identity. This is a crucial time for early adolescents, as they will be experiencing many changes throughout the journey of determining who they are and creating their own sense of self. Identity achievement comes from many years of exploring different roles and personalities. (Santrock 2011 p. 141) Adolescents can change their attitudes and personalities almost daily. When a person is transferring from childhood to adolescence, it is very likely that they will face many challenges and run into a lot of conflicts. Teenage years are, I believe, some of the hardest times of a person’s life. There are many factors involved, which can have a great impact on identity formation. Parents are important figures in the adolescent’s development of identity (Cooper 2011). Although parental influence might not be as strong during the teenage years, it plays a significant role on shaping a person’s characteristic, providing them with a firm life script throughout their childhood. As a mother of two teenagers and of course being a teenager once myself, I absolutely believe a parents can be very influential in the development of an adolescent’s identity. To have supportive, loving parents to help guide you through all the chaos that being a teen brings, to me, is invaluable. My mom was none of that, and I can see how it negatively...
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