Social and Structural Influences on Social Identities

Dear Colleagues, 

Social identities are dynamic, multifaceted, and deeply contextualized. We also know that our social identities are developed, experienced, and perceived in ways that are fluid and sensitive to broader contexts such as the social, historical, political, and cultural contexts. Increasingly, social scientists have been calling for researchers to more intentionally center the ways in which these social and structural factors influence the content of social identities as well as their development, significance and salience. There is also great interest in developing innovative methodologies to assess the complexity of social identities—such as its multidimensionality and contextualized aspects of social identities—across development and type of identity. Understanding the implications of social identities and identity processes in various domains (e.g., school and workplace intergroup relations and bias) and life outcomes (e.g., well-being, academic/school-belonging and academic achievement) have also been critical areas of research.

This Special Issue aims to bring together scholarship—both empirical and theoretical/conceptual—that showcases work that situates social identities, the methodologies to assess them and their implications for various outcomes within broader social and structural, historical, political, legal, and cultural contexts. Work that takes on an interdisciplinary perspective by drawing on such fields as psychology (e.g., social, developmental, clinical, cognitive, health), education, sociology, political science, economics, and public health are encouraged.

This Special Issue welcomes empirical and theoretical/conceptual papers that focus broadly on the following topics:

• The ways in which social identities (e.g., race, ethnicity, immigrant identity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, social class) are constructed within social, historical, political, cultural and legal contexts.
• The influence of structural factors (e.g., policy, institutional practices, systemic inequities) on social identity development, salience, meaning, and expression.
• Innovative, developmentally focused and/or culturally framed measurements of social identities across the lifespan, including childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and beyond and in different domains such as schools, workplaces, healthcare, community settings, media, and the criminal legal system.
• The implications of multidimensionality and contextualized nature of social identities for broader intergroup relations and outcomes from the perspectives of those who embody social identities and/or those who perceive and react to them.

We especially encourage the following submissions:

• Work grounded in such frameworks as intersectionality, critical race theory, queer theory, feminist theory, Indigenous studies, and decolonial perspectives.
• Contributions that highlight the roles of systems of power, privilege, and disadvantage that shape social identities and identity-related processes and outcomes.
• Work that is empirical (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods).
• Work that is theoretical/conceptual, including reviews that synthesize and critique existing literature.

Dr. Negin Ghavami
Guest Editor

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