Topic 2- The Concept Of Identity

Question 1

Socialisation

Answer 1

Is the life long process of learning culture, through acquiring norms, customs and ideologies, providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within his or her own society

Question 2

Stigma

Answer 2

An undesirable physical or social characteristic that is seen as a normal or unusual in some way, seen of demeaning and stops an individual being fully accepted in a society

Question 3

Individual or personal identify

-Woodward

Answer 3

• suggests that individual identity is concerned with the question “who am I”
• how individuals define themselves, what is important and matters to them, how they see themselves as individuals different from other people and the things that give them their own unique personal and individual characteristics e.g names,passport ,national insurance number, finger print, DNa

Question 4

Social identity
Definition and example

How may social identities form and examples

Answer 4

Defines individuals in relation to the social group which they are identified with and to which they belong and how they differ from other social groups

• e.g men and women, ethnic groups or national groups
• formations of social identities may be given to them by the social roles that people play e.g the identity and the related behaviour that might be expected of them when playing their social roles as mothers,fathers,students, workers

Question 5

Identity

Answer 5

How individuals see themselves and define themselves and how other people see and define them

Question 6

Collective identity

Answer 6

A collective identity is a identity shared by a social group, (elements of personal and social identities) but different because it involves considerable elements of choice by individuals in that they actively choose to identify with a group and adopt the identity associated with it

Question 7

Multiple identities

Answer 7

• The idea of multiple identities means that people have several identities rather than just one
• identities may draw on more than one source of identity e.g in duties formed around their social class, ethnicity , sexuality

Question 8

2 types of stigma

Answer 8

• a physical impairment e.g being blind, losing the use of lower limbs
• a social characteristic e.g being mentally ill, a sex offender , a criminal or a child abuser

Question 9

What did goffman say about a stigmatised identity

Answer 9

• stigmatised identity is an identity that is in some way undesirable or demeaning>excluded people fro, full acceptance I’m society e.g the disable (stigmatised identity>high expectations on getting perfect body)
• people being refused employment