Identity (AQA A Level Sociology): Revision Note

What is identity?

• Identity is about how we understand and describe who we are, both in our own eyes and in the eyes of others

• It includes things like:

  • our personal traits, e.g., being kind or confident

  • social roles, e.g., being a student, sibling, or teammate

  • the groups we belong to, e.g., our gender, religion, ethnicity, or nationality

• Identity can be understood as having two main parts:

  • The self

    • This is a person’s inner sense of who they are—their awareness of their thoughts, feelings, and uniqueness

    • It influences how they express themselves to others

    • E.g., someone who sees themselves as confident may come across as outgoing and sociable in group settings

  • Social identity

    • This is how others see and define a person within society

    • It involves how individuals handle the expectations linked to the different social roles they hold, such as being a parent, employee, student, or friend

    • Social identity is also influenced by factors like ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender, and even hobbies or interests

How identity is formed

• Both the self and social identity are partly shaped by socialisation

• Some sociological theories believe that social identities are imposed on us by the social structure, i.e., the way societies are socially organised

  • E.g., in the UK, our class identity is often influenced by our socio-economic status—the kind of job we have or how much money we earn may lead others to see us as working class or middle class

• Other sociological theories, such as social action theory and postmodernism, suggest that we have personal agency or free will

• These views argue that we play an active role in creating our own identity by making choices that reflect who we are

  • E.g., we might choose to express our identity through

    • the clothes we wear

    • tattoos, piercings or cosmetic surgery

    • the music we listen to

    • or even the groups we associate with

• Identity can be influenced by both social forces and our individual choices