2.2 Social Identity and Social Location
Kimberly Puttman
As a member of society, you have both a social identity and a social location. A social identity conveys who you are to others. A social location describes your relationship to power and privilege in your society. Both social identity and social location use multiple dimensions of diversity.
Social Identity
A social identity consists of the combination of social characteristics, roles, and group memberships with which a person identifies. According to Johnson, shown in Figure 2.2, social identity is “the sum total of who we think we are in relation to other people and social systems” (2014:178). Our social identity includes the following attributes:
- Social characteristics: These can be biologically determined and/or socially constructed and include sex, gender, race, ethnicity, ability, age, sexuality, nationality, first language, and religion, among other characteristics.
- Roles: These indicate the behaviors and patterns utilized by an individual, such as a parent, partner, sibling, employee, employer, etc., which may change over time.
- Group memberships: These are often related to social characteristics (e.g., a place of worship) and roles (e.g., a moms’ group), but could be more specialized as well, such as being a twin, a singer in a choir, or part of an emotional support group.
The social identity wheel in Figure 2.3 includes some common categories for social identity. The characteristics in the center of the wheel describe our individual characteristics. For example, we may value social justice or believe that building community is important. Our social identities also include social categories that describe us. The outside of the wheel includes our social roles and relationships. Each of us determines our social identity. We determine which of our social characteristics, roles, and group memberships are most important to our own identities. Other people in society may identify us differently, however. Sometimes, how we appear to others rdoesn’t match our personal lived experience.
The next sections examine how sociologists define these social characteristics.
Dimensions of Diversity
Groups of people can be diverse across many dimensions. This section defines the dimensions the sociologists commonly use to make sense out of social problems: race, ethnicity, gender, age, class, sexual orientation, and ability/disability. In other chapters, we will explore different dimensions of identity, including level of education, national origin or citizenship status, neurodiversity, and many other categories. As we look at specific social problems, we will use several of these identity dimensions to examine structural inequalities and individual experiences.
Race
One dimension of diversity we focus on is race, a socially constructed category with political, social, and cultural consequences based on incorrect distinctions of physical difference. Historically, race has been defined using obser