Privacy,Publicity, and Accountability of Self‐Presentation in an On‐Line Discussion Group*

Although the anonymous condition of on‐line interaction seems to provide space for the experiment of decentered, fluid, and multiple forms of identity, the disembodied on‐line identity often entails the fallout of accountability of self‐presentation. This article explores the nature of self‐presentation in cyberspace by conducting a case study of an on‐line discussion group. Specifically, it deals with the issue of disembodiment and accountability of on‐line identity in a close connection to the feature of the obliteration of the public/private boundary in the group. This study inquires into the following questions: “What techniques, if any, do members of the group employ to conceal their identity information?”; “Under what circumstances do members voluntarily disclose their identity information?”; “How do participants probe others’ identity cues and thus construct pattern knowledge about them?”; and “How should differences/similarities between on‐line self‐presentation and face‐to‐face identity styles be addressed?” In doing so, this article, on the one hand, tries to integrate the dynamics of participants’ active “identity probing” as an important interaction dimension to the study of on‐line self‐presentation that has so far heavily worked on the processes of identity concealment and self‐disclosure. On the other, referring to literatures on identity styles in off‐line settings, it addresses similarities of and differences between patterns of on‐line/off‐line self‐presentation.     

The Formation of Transnational Identity among French Immigrants Employed in French‐Speaking Companies in Israel

This study focuses on the formation of a transnational identity among immigrants from France who are employed in French‐speaking companies in Israel (mostly call‐centres). The preliminary qualitative analysis shows that this unique employment pattern contributes to the formation of their transnational identity, which is a combination of their francophone, Jewish and Israeli identity. The findings obtained from a larger‐scale online survey indicated that French immigrants employed in French‐speaking companies are more ethnically, socially and culturally segregated, and less fluent in Hebrew than French immigrants who are not employed in such companies. However, no significant differences were found between these two groups in their Israeli identity and sense of belonging to Israeli society. In general, the French immigrants feel at home in Israel, are satisfied with their life in Israel and plan to remain there. The implications of these findings for policymakers are discussed.     

Career Decision Self‐Efficacy of Asian American Students: The Role of Curiosity and Ethnic Identity

This study examined the role of curiosity and ethnic identity in career decision self‐efficacy among Asian American college students. Given that curiosity can promote the process of exploring one’s possible future self, opportunities, and career goals, the authors hypothesized that curiosity would be associated with career decision self‐efficacy, directly or indirectly, through a sense of ethnic identity. Results based on data from 425 Asian American incoming first‐year college students suggest that students with high curiosity tend to present a stronger sense of competence in completing career decision‐related tasks. These findings also confirmed a hypothesis that ethnic identity mediates the association between curiosity and career decision self‐efficacy. Implications for future research and career counseling with Asian American college students are discussed.     

Escaping into the world of make‐up routines in Iran

Traditionally, Iranian women's use of dress and make‐up has been an arena – sometimes a battleground – for identity negotiation. The present study questions the current over‐emphasis on identity and the prevalent tendency to look for identity meanings in the use of hejab (veiling) and cosmetics. The results of fifteen interpretive in‐depth interviews with young adult women in Iran reveal that these individuals' make‐up practices are largely associated with a total immersion in the experiential, creative aspects of make‐up use and with ways to uplift their tired spirits in a monotonous environment. Make‐up routines provide these women with opportunities to escape from boredom and immerse themselves in the playful fantasies of the world of cosmetics. Despite facing various challenges, including frequent stigmatization on account of their use of make‐up, the informants in the study derive high levels of satisfaction from their make‐up practices. The study establishes that changing socio‐cultural dynamics give rise to new forms of consumption experiences in contemporary society and calls for further investigation of such experiences in women's everyday lives.     

STEREOTYPE THREAT AND THE STUDENT‐ATHLETE

Achievement gaps may reflect the cognitive impairment thought to occur in evaluative settings (e.g., classrooms) where a stereotyped identity is salient (i.e., stereotype threat). This study presents an economic model of stereotype threat that reconciles prior evidence on how student effort and performance are influenced by this social‐identity phenomenon. This study also presents empirical evidence from a framed field experiment in which students at a selective college were randomly assigned to a treatment that primed their awareness of a negatively stereotyped identity (i.e., student‐athlete). This social‐identity manipulation reduced the test‐score performance of athletes relative to non‐athletes by 12%. These negative performance effects were concentrated among male student‐athletes who also responded to the social‐identity manipulation by attempting to answer more questions. (JEL I2, C9, D0)     

Correlates of Ethnicity‐related Dating Preferences among Asian American Adolescents across the High School Years

Ethnicity‐related dating preferences among Asian American adolescents and the links between preferences (i.e., for a same‐ethnic dating partner) and ethnic identity centrality and regard, American identity centrality and regard, parent – adolescent closeness, and perceptions of discrimination were investigated. Data from 175 self‐identified Asian American high school students were collected yearly for four consecutive years. Higher levels of ethnic identity centrality and regard and parent – adolescent closeness averaged across four years were associated with preferring a same‐ethnic partner. Moreover, foreign‐born adolescents were less likely to prefer a same‐ethnic partner when they encountered a higher than average level of discrimination on any given year. Results highlight variability in the developmental and individual‐level factors that shape how adolescents navigate their dating relationships.     

Practising family history: ‘identity’ as a category of social practice

Research on family history argues it performs the task of anchoring a sense of ‘self’ through tracing ancestral connection and cultural belonging, seeing it as a form of storied ‘identity‐work’. This paper draws on a small‐scale qualitative study to think further on the identity‐work of family history. Using practice theory, and a disaggregated notion of ‘identity’, it explores how the storying of family histories relates to genealogy as a leisure hobby, a form of historical research, and an information‐processing activity; and examines the social organization of that narrativity, where various practical engagements render certain kinds of genealogical information more, or less, ‘storyable’. Key features of ‘identity‐work’ in family history, such as the construction of genealogy as a personal journey of discovery and identification with particular ancestors, emerge as a consequence of the procedures of family history, organized as a set of practical tasks. The paper explores ‘identity‐work’ as a consequence of people's engagement in specific social practices which provide an internal logic to their actions, with various components of ‘identity’ emerging as categories of practice shaped within, and for, use. Focusing on ‘identity’ as something produced when we are engaged in doing other things, the paper examines how the practical organization of ‘doing other things’ helps produce ‘identity’ in particular ways.     

Relative Rank‐order of Salient Identities of the Japanese

How are multiple identities of Japanese people rank‐ordered? Previous studies on multiple identities almost exclusively focus on people in the USA. Little is known about the structure of multiple identities of people living in other countries. Japan is a good comparative case because it has both similar and different social contexts than the USA. Analyzing a recent survey of a nationally representative sample of Japanese adults, I examine how multiple identities are rank‐ordered by their salience among the Japanese. The results suggest that among ten identities, the most salient are the family–marital status identity, the occupational identity, and the national identity, while the least salient identities are social class, religious, and political identities. This identity rank‐order differs from that found in a comparable study of Americans in that the rank‐orders of national and religious identities are reversed. The observed patterns also seem to contradict an emerging line of cross‐cultural research that suggests national identity is less important for the Japanese than for Americans. Overall, this paper empirically demonstrates the fundamental dictum of symbolic interactionism that self reflects society, and suggests the importance of specifying and examining country‐level factors to study identity structures.     

Helpers “Here on the Front Lines”: Welfare‐to‐Work Managers' Moral Identity Work

Using data drawn from telephone interviews with Ohio Works First program managers (N = 69), we examine managers' moral identity work. This work included using militarized rhetoric to evoke moral identities as honorable workers. It also involved signifying helper/helpful moral identities by defining what it means to be helpful, legitimating their helper identity through connections to caseworkers, and affirming their identity through telling success stories. Additionally, managers implicitly othered clients they viewed as needy and politicians they considered to be out‐of‐touch. Our research contributes to the literature on welfare‐to‐work, but also more broadly to our understanding of moral identity work and implicit othering.     

Racism‐Related Stress and Ethnic Identity as Determinants of African American College Students' Career Aspirations

Drawing primarily on the construct of psychological buffer, the purpose of this study was to explore the extent to which racism‐related stress and ethnic identity are determinants of career aspirations. A total of 163 African American college students from a predominately White Midwestern university participated in the study. A moderation regression analysis was conducted. Results indicate that ethnic identity interacted with racism‐related stress (p= .04) to predict career aspirations. In other words, as racism‐related stress increases in the context of low identity development, career aspirations decrease. Conversely, as perceived racism increases in the context of high identity development, career aspirations increase. Implications for professionals and future research in the field of career counseling are discussed.     

Identity Management of the Dead: Contests in the Construction of Murdered Children

Presenting data gathered from fieldwork and ethnographic interviews with families of homicide victims, this study explores “postmortem identity‐contests” faced by families who have experienced the homicide of a child or other family member. Interview data from families on their interaction with police, funeral home directors, and other institutional officials suggest that the construction of postmortem identities is commonly a process of contestation filled with competing identity‐claims. The findings reveal that as families resist “oppressive othering” by the state and other institutional actors, they develop various accounts and strategies in “selfing” and sanctifying the identity of the dead.     

The Search for an Authentic Entrepreneurial Identity: Difference and Professionalism among Women Business Owners

This article contributes to the recent stream of research on enterprise and identity by exploring the authenticity‐driven identity work of a group of women business owners. While previous research has highlighted the effort some female business owners put into fitting in with the masculine identity of the entrepreneur, this article focuses on those women who self‐consciously adopt a feminized entrepreneurial identity as a means of being ‘who I really am’ in a business context. Nevertheless, despite their expressed commitment to a feminized identity, the article highlights their incorporation of a contrasting position or antagonism in this authenticity‐driven endeavour. Drawing on Charme's notion of existential authenticity, which places an emphasis on the cultural, historical, political, economic and physical limits to being ‘true to oneself’, the article shows how the situated nature of women's search for an authentically driven entrepreneurial identity means that they draw on a feminized discourse of difference and a contrasting masculine discourse of professionalism in their identity construction labours.     

Contextual Factors Related to African American Adolescent Career Development

African American adolescents’ career development has gained increased attention in light of various barriers affecting their educational and career development goals. The author examined relationships among career decision self‐efficacy, ethnic identity, and academic self‐concept of 104 African American high school students enrolled in Upward Bound programs. Participants responded to measures of career decision self‐efficacy, ethnic identity, and academic self‐concept. Results indicated that career decision self‐efficacy was significantly and positively correlated with ethnic identity and academic self‐concept. In addition, academic self‐concept was found to be a stronger predictor of career decision self‐efficacy than was ethnic identity. The results of this study may assist counselors, teachers, administrators, and parents to understand career decision self‐efficacy as it relates to ethnic identity, academic self‐concept, and demographic variables. This research supports the need for continued career‐related interventions within the schools designed to focus on factors related to ethnic minorities to help foster their career development.     

National Minority, National Mentality, and Communal Ethnicity: Changes in Ethnic Identity of Former Soviet Union Jewish Emigrants on the Israeli Kibbutz

In this paper we examine and compare the ethnic identity of the Jews in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and the process of change in ethnic identity among the new immigrants from the FSU. This analysis considers the role of the kibbutz as the first experience of Jewish community in their lives, as well as the location of the first phase of their process of absorption and resocialization into new and unfamiliar surroundings. The data are drawn through a longitudinal research design, with a pre‐ and post‐analysis of changes in the ethnicity of migrants studied from their arrival on the Israeli kibbutz until the completion of the five‐month kibbutz programme. We found that pre‐migration Soviet Jews defined their ethnicity as a discriminated national minority with a weak symbolic ethnicity content. The ambivalent nature of the ethnicity of Jews while in the FSU was expressed in the fact that although a majority were deculturized from traditional dimensions of Jewish life, they nevertheless felt they belonged to a specific ethnic group. Post‐migration ethnicity was found to be remarkably altered; the former ambivalence was dissolved. On the macro‐level, membership in the economically and politically successful Russian‐speaking group of Israeli society is a source of self esteem, rather than a sign of shameful otherness. On the micro‐level of ethnicity, the encounter in the initial phase of absorption in Israel, within the kibbutz Jewish community, often demands a re‐examination of their private concept of Jewishness, serving as a first step in resolving their ambivalent ethnic identity. Consequently, their new ethnic identity may now well have weaker boundaries, but a more positive (non‐alienating) content than that left behind.     

Cultural Identity and Acculturation Preferences Among South Asian Adolescents in Britain: An Exploratory Study

The study reported in this article is part of a wider research project on the adaptation of South Asians in Britain. It examines and compares the acculturation attitudes and cultural identity of Indian and Pakistani second‐generation adolescents Indian (Punjabi Sikh and Gujarati Hindu) and Pakistani (Muslim) in Britain. The research project integrates a social psychological approach to ethnic identity, Berry’s (Cross‐cultural Perspectives. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 1990) acculturation strategy and stress models, and Phinney’s (Journal of Early Adolescence, 9 , 1989:34) model of ethnic identification. There were 240 adolescents, aged 13–18 years, with an even split between the genders. Results from this study suggested that the majority of Indian youth adopted integration strategies as opposed to Pakistani Muslims who adopted a separation strategy. Cultural identity is a term used to include both ethnic and national identities. Ethnic identity scores were high for Indian and Pakistani adolescents. National identity was more important for Indian adolescents but ethnic identity was more important than national identity for all groups. Perceived discrimination was related to acculturation strategies.     

Immigrants' Identity Negotiations and Coping with Stigma in Different Relational Frames

This research describes strategies that immigrants deploy in face‐to‐face interactions with indigenous locals and links these strategies to their relational frames and networks. By focusing on interconnections between identity management and network management, the author further explores some of the key trends already documented in the contemporary literature on ethnicity. The article also adds new insight to the analysis of stigma and identity by showing how self‐friend and self‐stranger relationships present different opportunities and limitations for self‐presentation. Network fragmentation—commonly associated with a weak degree of social integration—is not necessarily an indicator of unsuccessful integration or segregation; it may be part of a wider immigrant identity project, a way to cope with stigmatization, and an important precondition for integration into mainstream society.     

Queers in the Line of Fire: Goffman's Stigma Revisited

Using data from in‐depth interviews with young queer people, this article proposes revisions for four areas of Goffman's classic work, Stigma. Interviews reveal a situation between complete acceptance of queer identity and outright hostility, which I term “being in the line of fire,” and three strategies participants use to manage their identity in this situation. Unlike classical identity management, this project considers how their “double consciousness” allows them to respond to stigmatizing situations while remaining insulated from the negative appraisals of others. Instead, they orient toward educating the stigmatizer, minimizing interaction by tailoring their identity, or disengaging. I use these strategies to demonstrate that identity management theory does not properly consider possible responses to hostile reactions, the diversity of stigmatized groups, Goffman's so‐called sympathetic others, or different frames of reference on stigmatized attributes. Orienting to the point of view of the marginalized, this article demonstrates how one manages an accepted identity when one is in the line of fire.     

Contesting Isan‐ness: discourses of politics and identity in Northeast Thailand

This paper discusses the idea of Isan (Northeastern Thai) ethnoregional identity, and its relationship with two major alternative ideas: Thai identity and Lao identity. Drawing on ethnolinguistic research, the paper argues that Isan identity is a problematic political construct, reflecting ambiguous self‐understandings and self‐representations on the part of Northeasterners. Northeasterners are engaged in a negotiation process about their relationships with Thai and Lao identities, relationships fraught with cultural, social and political ramifications. The study suggests a more nuanced appreciation of the ambiguities of Isan identity than has yet been proposed.