How Early Is Too Early to Begin Life Career Planning? The Importance of the Elementary School Years

The relationship of early and middle childhood experiences to life career planning is discussed. Life career planning is presented as a life skill beginning in infancy. The authors present five premises on which they have based their discussion: Life career development is a life-long, spiraling process; Life career planning includes a series of sub-skills; Career awareness and career exploration form the foundation for effective life career planning; Idiosyncratic factors influence the decision-making of each person; and Child development theory (e.g., Erikson, Piaget and Vygotsky) and career development theory (e.g., Super and Gottfredson) are interrelated. Implications for practice are included.     

The Very Best of Me: Longitudinal Associations of Perfectionism and Identity Processes in Adolescence

Personality and identity formation are intricately linked in adolescent development. The personality disposition of perfectionism has been associated with identity processes, but their longitudinal interplay in adolescence has not yet been investigated. This four-wave study, with 5- to 6-month intervals between each wave (N = 744 Caucasian adolescents, M_age = 15.2 years, 55% girls), examined associations between perfectionism (self-oriented and socially prescribed) and identity processes in the domain of future plans. Self-oriented perfectionism predicted increases in commitment making, identification with commitment, and exploration in depth. Socially prescribed perfectionism showed bidirectional positive relations with ruminative exploration. Exploration in depth predicted increases in socially prescribed perfectionism. Findings suggest that perfectionism is an important personality disposition in adolescent identity formation unfolding over time.     

On the Origins and Persistence of the Jewish Identity Industry in Jewish Education

“Jewish identity,” which emerged as an analytical term in the 1950s, appealed to a set of needs that American Jews felt in the postwar period, which accounted for its popularity. Identity was the quintessential conundrum for a community on the threshold of acceptance. The work of Kurt Lewin, Erik Erikson, Will Herberg, Marshall Sklare, and others helped to shape the communal conversation. The reframing of that discourse from one that was essentially psychosocial and therapeutic to one that was sociological and survivalist reflected the community’s growing sense of physical and socioeconomic security in the 1950s and early 1960s. The American Jewish Committee and its Division of Scientific Research offers an enlightening case study of this phenomenon. Jewish educators seized on identity formation, making it the raison d’être of their endeavor. But the ascent of identity discourse also introduced a number of challenges for the Jewish educator—conceptual, methodological, political, and even existential.     

Contextual influences on Latino adolescent ethnic identity and academic outcomes

This study examined the association between 3 components of ethnic identity (exploration, resolution, and affirmation) and factors related to family, neighborhood, and individual characteristics. The purpose was to identity factors that are positively associated with adolescent ethnic identity among a sample of 187 Latino adolescents with a mean age of 14.61. The findings suggested that family ethnic socialization was directly associated with exploration and resolution, but not ethnic affirmation. Analyses with moderator variables suggested that associations between family ethnic socialization and ethnic affirmation varied based on parental behaviors and neighborhood characteristics. The results also suggested that ethnic affirmation, but not exploration or resolution, was positively associated with teacher reports of school performance.     

“It's me. I'm it.”: Defining adolescent sexual identity through relational dialectics in Dawson's creek

Television criticism frequently focuses on the deconstruction of individual representations in texts, a practice that privileges specific characters rather than relationships among characters. This paper examines the usefulness of fictional television relationships for adolescent sexual identity formation by examining Dawson's Creek for its construction of gay character Jack McPhee. Jack's sexual identity is constructed and modified through dialectical tensions in his relationship with Jen Lindley, ultimately allowing him to express sexual identity in terms of acceptance rather than in terms of political or legal rights. This difference in narrative form illuminates potential differences between the formation of adult and adolescent sexual identity. Examining ethnographic work on gay men and their use of fictional media combined with a close reading of Dawson's Creek for sexual identity construction, this paper ultimately argues that fictional representations could serve as a template from which gay adolescents enact personal relationships. It also calls for critical media scholars to examine positive aspects of television representations.     

Exploring mathematics identity: an intervention of early childhood preservice teachers

ABSTRACT

Early childhood and elementary preservice teachers often fear mathematics, find it irrelevant, have mathematics anxiety, hold negative self-perceptions, and have low mathematics achievement. This study investigates the influence of an identity exploration intervention on preservice teachers’ mathematics identities during a college Algebra course specifically designed for education majors. Results provide insight into the patterns of change in identity and motivation. Data was analyzed following a theoretical framework on role identity that highlights the interaction between self-perceptions, beliefs, goals, and action possibilities. Analysis identified patterns of change in student identities. Themes across cases highlight the differences in change amongst participants, the influence of initial identity, and the impact of perceived relevance on identity exploration.     

Patterns of interaction in family relationships and the development of identity exploration in adolescence

The purpose of this research was to develop a model of individuation in family relationships that focuses on communication processes, and to assess the links between them and adolescent identity exploration. Expressions of the 4 dimensions of the model--self-assertion, separateness, permeability, and mutuality--were predicted to be positively associated with identity exploration in adolescents. A sample of 84 Caucasian, middle-class, 2-parent families, each including an adolescent and 1 or 2 siblings, was observed in a Family Interaction Task designed to elicit the expression and coordination of a variety of points of view. Multiple regression analyses revealed differentiated results concerning father-son, father-daughter, mother-son, mother-daughter, and marital relationships as well as both positive and negative contributions of communication variables to identity exploration when verbal ability and sociability were controlled. Results are discussed in terms of recent formulations of the progressive redefinition of the parent-child relationship during adolescence.     

Adolescent exposure to violence and adult physical and mental health problems

Evidence on the relationship of adolescent exposure to violence (AEV) with adult physical and mental health problems is limited, with studies often focusing on earlier childhood rather than adolescence, and also on short term rather than long term outcomes. Information specifically on the relationship of AEV to seeking help for mental health problems in adulthood from either formal sources such as mental health professionals or informal sources such as friends and clergy is even more difficult to find. The present study investigates how adolescent exposure to violence (AEV), in the form of parental physical abuse, witnessing parental violence, and exposure to violence in the neighborhood, are related to self-reported adult physical problems and seeking formal or informal assistance with mental health, controlling for more general adolescent violent victimization and for self-reports and parent reports of mental health problems in adolescence. This study adds to the literature on AEV and adult physical problems, and provides a rare look at the relationship of AEV to adult help-seeking for mental health problems. The results suggest that AEV is associated with mental health problems in adolescence for both females and males, that for females AEV is related to physical problems and to seeking help for mental health problems in adulthood, but for males the only significant relationship involves inconsistent reports of witnessing parental violence and adult physical problems.     

Adolescence and computers. Dimensions of media‐related identity formation,self‐formation and religious value as challenges for religious education

Computers play an important role in adolescent youth culture. This adolescent use of computers has much deeper implications than simply developing specific technical skills. Focusing on the relation between adolescent subjects and computers reveals three issues of particular interest: individual identity formation, self‐formation and ‘fluid’ forms of religion. The following is an overview of the main dimensions of these issues and their implications for religious education. All the results presented are related to a larger qualitative empirical research project on adolescents and computers. The final pedagogical conclusions in this paper are developed from a perspective of religious education within the Protestant tradition as it is practised within the German school system, but have wider implications.     

Korean Artists in Transcultural Spaces: Constructing New National Identities

This article reports research on New York‐based Korean artists' dynamic processes of identity‐shaping and the implications that these processes have for art education. The study uses postcolonial theories that illuminate the dialectical process of hybrid cultural production in the global dimension. The artists' identities narrated elucidate the recognition of difference with others; this identification emerges as the artists simultaneously escape from and discover their Korean identities. The artists' childhood experiences and memories work as reflective thinking in their different context, and because of their search for an individual identity, Korean culture is an important factor in their art making. When their identity formation and practice are in constant negotiation with difference, this results in learning and translating from others. They assume an ‘open universalism’ necessary to communicate at an international level, and as a consequence these artists' identity formation always involves the process of a doubling and dividing of reflections of existing Korean identities as well as the building of new ones. In this dualistic state, the artists' multiple identities remain heterogeneous, composed of contradictory factors that are revealed in the artists' hybrid artworks.     

Socio-emotional connections: identity,belonging and learning in online interactions. A literature review

This review focuses on three interconnected socio-emotional aspects of online learning: interaction, sense of community and identity formation. In the intangible social space of the virtual classroom, students come together to learn through dialogic, often asynchronous, exchanges. This creates distinctive learning environments where learning goals, interpersonal relationships and emotions are no less important because of their ‘virtualness’, and for which traditional face-to-face pedagogies are not neatly transferrable. The literature reveals consistent connections between interaction and sense of community. Yet identity, which plausibly and naturally emerges from any social interaction, is much less explored in online learning. While it is widely acknowledged that interaction increases the potential for knowledge-building, the literature indicates that this will be enhanced when opportunities encouraging students’ emergent identities are embedded into the curriculum. To encourage informed teaching strategies this review seeks to raise awareness and stimulate further exploration into a currently under-researched facet of online learning.     

孝文化视野下的嘉靖皇帝与大礼议探析

生于安陆的朱厚熜以藩王身份入继大统,引发了关于其父母尊号问题的＂大礼议＂。旷日持久的＂统＂、＂嗣＂争论迅速转化成不同派系的政治斗争,对明代中期政局和少年嘉靖的性格产生了巨大影响。纵观＂大礼议＂的整个过程,当事人朱厚熜处处表现出固执、叛逆和冲动。其政治能力没有超出青春期少年的心智水平。对朱厚熜个人而言,＂大礼议＂归根到底是廷臣所捍卫的宗法礼制与其孝亲情节之间的冲突。其孝亲情结的形成,与他童年时期的家庭教育、生长环境、丧父经历密切相关。     

DiaspoRican Art as a Space for Identity Building,Cultural Reclamation,and Political Reimagining

The lives of Puerto Ricans in the neighborhood of Humboldt Park, Chicago, are often situated in a complex social field shaped by transnational cultural and political border crossing. We argue that artistic practices in this neighborhood are integral to building community and individual identities grounded in local meanings of the Puerto Rican diaspora experience. Interviews with three adolescent community residents and a high school art teacher indexed themes that exemplify community residents’ purposes for artistic practice: (1) self-expression within practices of collective identity building; (2) cultural reclamation; and (3) political reimagining. We also discuss how such work invites new tensions for identity making, including who can participate, who is represented, and what forms those representations take. These tensions point backward in time, forward to the future, and across geopolitical space. Finally, we suggest implications for learning in schools.     

Exploring the theories and consequences of self-assessment through ethical inquiry

The authors argue that writing studies has not explored the ethical implications of using self-evaluations in classroom and large-scale writing assessment. Postmodern ethics does not attempt to provide moral answers to practices or activities but rather strives to explore and uncover hidden assumptions and unarticulated implications. Its focus is on the process of inquiry, not on determining the rightness or wrongness of individual practices. Using this postmodern ethical framework, the authors explore portfolio cover letters, reflective essays, self grading, and self-placement as depicted in college composition literature. They demonstrate a process of ethical inquiry that dovetails with validity inquiry, arguing that both types of research are necessary—although often missing—in the literature on self-assessment.     

How Do I Begin To Tell a Story that Has Not Been Told? Anarchism,Autoethnography, and the Middle Ground

As a testament to the growing literature on autoethnography and my own connections to systemic and direct racism, this article is a therapeutic way to explore my past through the ancient way of telling, testifying, and developing knowledge through narrative inquiry. Testimony opens new ways of looking at the world by participating in a subversive form of scholarship. Indigenous scholars have claimed that stories play a vital role in transmitting who we are. Through my experiences, I explore the concept of “the middle ground” and the spaces of identity created by complex relationships of power. Similar to the literature on borders, “go-betweens” dance across worlds and exist in spaces wrought with alienation, discovery, transmission, and cooperation. I also argue that anarchist theory and praxis can inform larger autoethnographic writing, pushing radicals to include narrative inquiry into their own communities and praxis through an exploration of self. In this way, we can begin the difficult process of theorizing from our own locations that includes moments of intense pain, shame, and triumph that life sometimes brings us.     

Black youth, identity, and ethics

This article examines stage models of racial identity that researchers and educators use to explain the subjective processes that influence how black youth navigate school. Despite the explicit challenge that most models of racial identity have posed to racist discourses in the research literature, the underlying ethics of their developmental trajectories is constrained by a politics of respectability that subverts a larger project of affirming black humanity. I use interview data to propose an alternative model for how black adolescent identity is formed. I conclude with a discussion of the importance of rethinking black adolescence in the context of changes in communication technologies associated with postindustrialism and globalization.     

关于幼儿性别认同的个案研究

性别认同是个体对自己性别状态的认识、理解或自我意识.通过对A幼儿园幼儿性别认同的研究,发现部分幼儿出现了两个方面的问题:一是幼儿不能分清自己的性别;二是幼儿出现明显异于自己性别的行为、态度和情感.而教师和家长对幼儿性别认同也存在不同的态度和做法.这些研究发现启示教师和家长都应重视幼儿性别认同教育,并在教育过程中通力合作,以利于幼儿形成正确的性别认同.     

Latino Adolescents’ Ethnic Identity: Is There a Developmental Progression and Does Growth in Ethnic Identity Predict Growth in Self‐Esteem?

The current longitudinal study of 323 Latino adolescents (50.5% male; M age = 15.31 years) examined whether ethnic identity exploration, resolution, and affirmation demonstrated significant growth over a 4-year period and whether growth in ethnic identity predicted growth in self-esteem. Findings from multiple-group latent growth curve models revealed that exploration, resolution, and affirmation all increased significantly from middle to late adolescence for Latina girls. For Latino boys, only affirmation increased significantly. Furthermore, only growth in exploration predicted growth in boys' and girls' self-esteem. This research indicates that patterns of growth in ethnic identity vary by adolescent sex. Furthermore, findings underscore the need to examine the unique contributions of each ethnic identity component, rather than using a composite ethnic identity score.     

Interparental conflict in kindergarten and adolescent adjustment: prospective investigation of emotional security as an explanatory mechanism

Advancing the long‐term prospective study of explanations for the effects of marital conflict on children’s functioning, relations were examined between interparental conflict in kindergarten, children’s emotional insecurity in the early school years, and subsequent adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems. Based on a community sample of 235 mothers, fathers, and children (Ms = 6.00, 8.02, 12.62 years), and multimethod and multireporter assessments, structural equation model tests provided support for emotional insecurity in early childhood as an intervening process related to adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems, even with stringent autoregressive controls over prior levels of functioning for both mediating and outcome variables. Discussion considers implications for understanding pathways between interparental conflict, emotional insecurity, and adjustment in childhood and adolescence.     

Humor:

The use of Humor is often neglected and underutilized in counseling. The literature indicates that humor is indeed a powerful and versatile therapeutic tool. This article investigates the use of humor in counseling with college students. The authors highlight aspects of the therapeutic process in which they feel humor can be used effectively: initial problem exploration, decatastrophizing the situation, relationship building, breaking down barriers, reframing, and fostering insight.