Our identity can be fluid and changing. Agency allows us to identify with certain groups or people that share similar interests. In the example of religion, if we were Jewish we may attend the synagogue with like minded worshipers.
Or we may wear the claret and blue of West Ham Utd when watching Saturday football on TV, because this identifies you as a West Ham supporter.
This shows that as individuals we take up identities of things we enjoy and relate it to the social. The West Ham supporter is a member of a club where he can discuss his main interest and share common opinions with others. The wearing of the symbols, colour or badge shows this.
The above person may change his identity when he goes to work as a teacher.
Discussing West Ham’s game may not be appropriate in a math lesson. This persons body language will change as will the verbal language.
Here structure is directing him in his identity in the appropriate way to act and dress in a professional role. This person then goes home to his wife and becomes a lover and a father and again identity changes to the family man.
Ervine Goffman believed that we act out roles of identity and this may change depending on the place we are or the people we are with.
Mead believed that our identities were formed via visualization and symbolization and there is a clear link between how we see ourselves and how we believe others see us.
Freud believes that our identities are formed by unconscious feelings or repressed experiences from childhood. These early experience come out through the way we treat others and the decisions we make through life.
From these three theorists it shows that identity is formed in many different ways and that identity is clearly linked to the social.
To conclude there seems to be no rigid ideas regarding how identities are formed. Identity is influenced by various factors in society, people are able to change their identity to a certain extent; identity is also brought about how other people see you as well as how we see ourselves.
(personal to social)
The control we have is via agency and making choices to join certain social groups. The restrictions we have are from our gender, our race or ethnicity.
Word count 725
TMA01 part b
How does class influence identity in a contemporary society?
I am going to look at how class influences our identity in todays society.
The three key question are: How do economic structures shape our understanding of who we are?
And, what is the justification for saying that there has been a move from collective to individual identities?
Which social science arguments support the idea that class identities are eroding?
To look at economic structure shaping identity, I am going to look at occupation
in the contemporary world.
Occupation is a useful tool to link a persons situation to class or status. The first questions asked in first encounters is “what do you do?”, which means what is your occupation. By having a particular occupation society's discernment will differ, for example doctors are perceived different to hospital cleaners. This will affect the way we perceive ourselves and have an impact on identity.(personal to social).
Life in the western world has faced many diverse changes creating insecurity of work identity, mainly due to the changes in society's expectations, the creation of new technology and the disintegration of labour intensive, heavy industry occupations such as mining.
People are migrating to different areas for work, consequently there is a fragmentation of the traditional large work orientated communities that once existed. Resulted in the degeneration of collective identity to individual identity, which is important for a sense of belonging to a community.
John Hargreaves(2004) testimony clearly suggests that we are not able to exercise much control over identity. He claims that prior to 1984 he was part of a traditional mining industry, where communities and culture grew; 'John was interpellated by that collective identity' (Kath Woodward 2004).
After 1997 as a result of unemployment he had lost his financial security and also his collective identity, which was his sense of belonging. Johns account put a large emphasis on the importance of paid work, suggesting paid work provides self worth.
If this is the case then people who work, but are not paid such as carers or housewives may be valued less in the community.
This finding clearly emphasises how the importance of paid and unpaid work can influence a persons identity “our identities are influences by the shape of the income distribution”(Kath Woodward 2004)
Marx believed that only two major classes existed.
The Elite who own the means of production – industrialist or capitalists, and proletarian that earn there living by labouring to elite.
Marx believed the unequal structure of society led to a class conscience in turn leading to action by the proletarians. In effect Marx felt that class defined identity.
Weber built the idea of stratification that allowed for multiple social positions. He believed that social inequality was measured by three proxies; class, status and party.
The inequality that was reflected through class was concerned with exploitation and the individuals 'market position' by this Weber meant skills, qualification and credentials which can effect the type of job a person was able to obtain.
He believed the more skilled a person the better opportunity for social mobility they had.
He argued that class was not the defining identity, but rather that it was status within a class.
During the 1960's boom Britain saw a rise in consumption. Well paid 'working class' people were increasingly adopting a middle class lifestyle through consumption.
Goldthorpe studied class and identities at the Luton car plant and found that there were clear signs that working class identity was being broken down and a new 'working class' identity being formed. The new working class were spending more time in the home, playing a key role in the family, becoming privatised and in turn eroding the working class sense of identity. (Woodward2004)
Peter Saunders argued that through the 1980's consumption had become more important than occupation based class identity. A period of restratification was happening where people were defining their class and status through the cars and houses they owned they were now becoming the middle class, whereas those dependant on benefits were now the working class. He identified a divide between the classes on the grounds of private ownership.
Bourdieu's ideas were slightly different. He agreed on the idea of consumption forming class but also looked at cultural capitol, not money or ownership, but how you fit in socially or culturally to society. These ideas are moving away from the historical class structure of upper, middle and working class and showing that class systems are eroding gradually
To conclude the job we do and the place we live shape our identities.
The job is no longer secure for life as once believed therefore our work identity is at risk of change.
The move from industrial backgrounds has broken down the sense of collective community and has pushed identity to be much more individual.
Social science arguments that support class identities eroding are Goldthorpe, who saw the breakdown of identity in industry, Saunders who felt consumption was the root of class and Bourdieu who looked at social status to form identity. They all believed that the roots of identity are moving and evolving and class is now not such a significant factor.
Word count 825
Reference
Woodward K, 2004 Questioning Identity: gender,class,ethnicity, Milton Keynes, Open University.
Sherrat N, Goldblatt D, Mackintosh M, Woodward K, 2004,
DD100 workbook 1, Milton Keynes, Open University.
Woodward K, 2003, Social Sciences: the Big issues, London, Routledge.