Who do You Think You Are?

Results of ESRC-funded research over 5 years on Identities and Social Action were published last year, engendering exceptionally high levels of interest. Director Professor Margaret Wetherell (OU) announced:

"This research did much to clarify the relationship between identity and social action, demonstrating, for instance, how women's identifications with their mothers were acted out in relation to their own babies and how more complex and multi-layered senses of identity moderate group conflict. The discursive research was able to show in detail how particular social categorisations of oneself and others impact on what can happen next in the interaction, with consequences for the identities people can carry forward. A number of studies focused on affect and the ways in whihc group-based emotions drive responses and, indeed, how whole communities construct affective environments for their members with implications for coping with collective trauma"

Findings from the various studies carried out during the programme are available at:
Identities and Social Action

One example follows:

Are traditional identities in decline?
Context
This project investigates the evidence for long-term declines in the social signifi cance of traditional identities (e.g. those based on social class, political partisanship, religion and the British nation), and whether these identities have been supplanted by newer identities based on education, age-groups, gender, or life-style. The possible decline of group identities has important policy implications. A declining sense of national identity has been linked to reduced support for the welfare state, reduced willingness to help fellow citizens, and reduced sense of civic duty, for example, while declining party identifi cation has been linked to lower rates of turnout in elections.

There is no ‘crisis of British identity’. There is long-term decline in the proportion of people who think of themselves as British and in the strength of this identity, but the majority of Britons continue to have dual identities (e.g. feeling both British and Welsh or British and Scottish).
Ethnic minorities demonstrate similar levels of attachment to Britain as their white peers.
Just like the Scottish and Welsh, ethnic minorities typically have dual rather than exclusive identities. Young black Caribbeans express weaker senses of belonging.
Most people continue to describe themselves as ‘middle’ or ‘working’ class. But class
belonging now has little infl uence on attitudes and behaviour.
There has been a major change in the gendered basis of class identity. Forty years ago women derived their class identity from their partner’s occupational position. This pattern of ‘male dominance’ has largely disappeared.
Class and religious identities continue to be inherited from parents. The inheritance of party identities (especially Labour) is considerably weaker than previously. Voters seem increasingly ‘free to choose’, with implications for turnout and electoral volatility.
Religious identity is the identity that has declined most and the identity which is most consequential for social attitudes. We see big declines in the proportion of adults who belong to a church but also that church membership strongly impacts on social attitudes.
Group belonging tends to be stronger for smaller groups (e.g. environmental and anti-war movements) than for larger groups (e.g. social class or the nation). Newer group identities may be smaller in membership but show higher levels of attachment.
Highest levels of attachment are found in groups such as young people, graduates, feminists, ethnic minorities, and Scots. These now appear to be the most salient social identities in British society.

- http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/identities/findings/Heath.pdf