Identity and intersectionality

Transcript

SoheeA first-generation college student fills out a campus survey. It asks her to check one box for the identity most important to her. She's Black, she's Latina, she's a woman, she's a lesbian, she grew up working class. She stares at the boxes for a long time.

RyanBecause none of them, alone, is the answer.

SoheeWelcome to EPPP Prep, the podcast. I'm Sohee.

RyanI'm Ryan. Today, identity and intersectionality. How a sense of self develops, how ethnoracial and sexual identities develop, and why researchers say identities can't simply be added up or ranked.

SoheeLet's begin with a definition. The OpenStax lifespan development textbook says identity, also called ego identity, is a person's complete sense of who they are, including traits, capabilities, interests, values and social roles.

RyanBuilding identity is lifelong, but it's critical in adolescence. Erikson's fifth stage, identity versus role confusion, typically runs from twelve to eighteen. Teens try out roles and personas. Failing to develop an identity leads to role confusion, which can leave people feeling fragmented or lost.

SoheeJames Marcia built on Erikson by asking two questions. Is there evidence of identity exploration? And is the person currently committed to an identity? The yes-or-no answers give four statuses.

RyanIdentity achievement: explored, then committed. Moratorium: actively exploring, not yet committed. Foreclosure: committed without exploring. And diffusion: neither exploring nor committing, which most closely aligns with Erikson's role confusion.

SoheePause and think. A sixteen-year-old announces he'll be a dentist, like both his parents. He's never looked into other careers and can't really say why he wants it. Which status?

RyanForeclosure. A commitment without exploration. And the textbook notes foreclosure can give a young teen a starting point. The key is to eventually explore.

SoheeAnd identity isn't finished at eighteen. The textbook describes cycles in early adulthood of moratorium, then achievement, then moratorium again, as new roles like leaving home, finding love or starting a career disrupt identity.

RyanNow ethnic and racial identity. The textbook reports that developing a positive ethnic or racial identity in teens leads to higher self-esteem, better mental health and greater resilience against discrimination. It's been shown to serve as a safeguard against discrimination.

SoheeAnd families play a big role. The OpenStax psychology textbook describes racial socialization for teenagers who are members of ethnic minority groups: teaching them the positive aspects of their in-group, usually by caregivers. In a study by Neblett and colleagues, those messages played a role in how students felt about their in-group.

RyanThere's a systems theory for this too. Margaret Beale Spencer's Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory, or PVEST, was developed to explain the behaviors of ethnic minority youth. It merges Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems with phenomenology, meaning how a person makes meaning of their experiences.

SoheeSo two young people in the same school can have different experiences there, and assign them different meanings. The textbook's example is that Black boys and Black girls have different experiences in educational settings, so the meanings they assign differ too.

RyanLet's walk through the models the lifespan textbook describes. First, William Cross's model of Black identity development, with stages in sequence, though people can move back and forth.

SoheePre-encounter: before adolescence, children internalize messages from the dominant culture that view the majority positively and the minority negatively, and may distance themselves from Black culture.

RyanEncounter: often a negative trigger, like outright discrimination, which pushes the young person to reconcile their identity with what they thought they knew.

SoheeImmersion-emersion: turning toward their own group, incorporating visible parts of their heritage, and finding support from other Black community members. The textbook calls it a fortifying step, where cultural armor is added.

RyanAnd internalization: incorporating their heritage's ideas into their self-view, feeling more comfortable connecting with allies from the dominant culture. And they may then seek positive action and justice.

SoheePause and think. A Black college sophomore is treated unfairly by campus security. Over the next months she joins the Black Student Union, reads deeply in Black history and changes her hairstyle to celebrate her heritage. Which stage is she entering?

RyanImmersion-emersion, right after an encounter experience. Internalization would come later, with a secure identity and comfort building alliances.

SoheeJean Kim described Asian American identity formation along a continuum. Children often enter a White identification stage in school, then an awakening to social and political consciousness, then redirection, searching for knowledge about their heritage, and finally incorporation, a positive and comfortable Asian American identity.

RyanAnd Carlos Poston's model of biracial identity begins with feeling a need to choose one ethnic group over the other. Later there may be guilt about embracing only one part, which leads to reexamination. Identity formation is complete when the person integrates both, or more, into a coherent whole.

SoheeThe textbook also describes code-switching, changing perspective and behavior to match the current cultural environment, like shifting speech or downplaying cultural identity to avoid stereotypes. It can be a benefit, but it can also be exhausting.

RyanFor sexual identity, early research outlined stages. Cass's model of coming out, from 1979, has six stages. It begins with identity confusion and a search for information, moves through tolerance and acceptance, and ends in pride and integrating sexual identity into the self-concept.

SoheeThe textbook is careful to say the model is not a blueprint for everyone. And subsequent research suggests milestones instead of a fixed process: becoming aware of same-sex attraction, self-identifying, coming out to others, and so on.

RyanOne more framework for ethnoracial identity, from Robert Sellers. Three aspects that can change over time. Salience, the relevance of the identity in a given situation. Centrality, its importance to your overall sense of self. And regard, how positively or negatively you feel about it.

SoheeNow, intersectionality. The lifespan textbook credits Kimberlé Crenshaw with coining the term, as a framework for understanding how people simultaneously experience multiple aspects of their identity and their associated privileges or discrimination.

RyanAnd an open-access article by Lisa Bowleg in the American Journal of Public Health gives a precise definition. Intersectionality is a theoretical framework for understanding how multiple social identities, such as race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and disability, intersect at the micro level of individual experience to reflect interlocking systems of privilege and oppression at the macro, social-structural level.

SoheeBowleg says intersectionality is rooted in Black feminist scholarship. She points to Sojourner Truth's Ain't I a Woman speech in 1851 as one of the earliest recorded examples of this perspective.

RyanBowleg lists three core tenets. First, social identities aren't independent and one-dimensional, but multiple and intersecting. Second, people from multiple historically oppressed and marginalized groups are the starting point. Third, identities at the micro level intersect with structural factors like poverty, racism and sexism to produce disparities.

SoheeAnd here's the key exam idea. Intersectionality is not simple addition. Race plus gender doesn't equal the experience. Bowleg writes that social categories are not additive and therefore can't be ranked.

RyanShe also names the ampersand problem. A phrase like women and minorities implies the two groups are mutually exclusive, which erases racial and ethnic minority women.

SoheeAnd the intersectionality paradox. Bowleg uses it to describe adverse health outcomes where a high-status identity, like middle-class socioeconomic status, intersects with race and gender for Black middle-class women and men. She notes that historically, the infant mortality rate of highly educated Black women in the United States has exceeded that of non-Latino White women with less education.

RyanThe OpenStax sociology textbook makes the same point with an example. Prejudice aimed at a White woman because of her gender is very different from the layered prejudice aimed at an Asian woman in poverty, affected by stereotypes about poverty, gender and ethnicity together.

SoheeAnd the lifespan textbook adds a cost. Drawing on Goffman, it says people with stigmatized identities may carry extra work managing impressions, constantly trying to offset negative stereotypes.

RyanHow does the exam test this? Marcia's statuses through short vignettes. Cross's stages, often the order or the trigger. And intersectionality through a choice that treats identities as additive or rankable. That choice is the trap.

SoheeRecap. Identity is a full sense of self. Marcia's statuses come from exploration and commitment: achievement, moratorium, foreclosure, diffusion.

RyanA positive ethnoracial identity is linked with higher self-esteem and acts as a safeguard against discrimination. Racial socialization in families helps build it. Cross: pre-encounter, encounter, immersion-emersion, internalization.

SoheeKim and Poston describe Asian American and biracial paths. Cass outlined coming-out stages, though later research favors milestones. Sellers: salience, centrality, regard.

RyanIntersectionality: multiple identities interlock with systems of privilege and oppression. Not additive, not rankable.

SoheeRemember the student staring at those boxes? She doesn't have to pick one. And neither do you. Every part of who you are can come with you into this profession, and into the exam room.

RyanThanks for listening to EPPP Prep.

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