Maite Villareal Rodriguez Blog Post

Over Spring Break I visited my parents in Atlanta.  One night we went shopping for my soon-to-be born niece or nephew.  We don’t actually know what the sex of the baby will be so my Mom, my Dad, my husband and I all stood in front of the onezies and debated what would be an appropriate selection.  The conversation went something like this -

“Can purple go both ways?”

“No, that’s still kinda girly.”

“This one has a tie painted on it but it’s pink, does that mean it’ll work for both boy or girl?”

“Well, could always go with yellow or just polka dots…”

After a few minutes of this dialogue about gendered fashion choices for a being that in reality will have no idea nor opinions or care as to what colors it may be sporting, my “i’m-in-grad-school-and-have-learned-a-bunch-of-stuff” mind came back to me and I said, “Wait, this is all a social construction anyways!”  My Dad said, “Oye mirala (wow, look at her) with the language.”  He was calling me out on my jargon in the middle of the gift store!  Essentially he was saying, you may be 31 and in a fancy grad school, but those words don’t impress us here, here you are our daughter.  While my parents would definitely be up a conversation about challenging social norms, my primary identity at home is as a daughter, not a student.  This moment crystallized for me an awareness that though conversations about identity development are important and I do hope to carry my learning beyond the classroom - context matters.  My parents are and have always been very supportive of my ambitions and have never restricted me to gender norms, yet my academic language is seen as presumptuous when I’m there as their daughter.

Jones & Abes (2013) offer a similar example of a woman who discusses how her identity is perceived differently based on context, “In the U.S. I would probably be called assertive, but kind of polite.  But back home I think they would call me just down right aggressive!” (p. 74).  Again, in regards to identity and development, context matters!  Who we are and how we carry ourselves has different impact which is largely predicated on environment.  

For this centering of interplay between context and identity I loved the model presented in this weeks reading: Model of Multiple Dimensions of Identity (MMID)(Jones & Abes, 2013).  MMID is illustrated through an “atom” where the nucleus represents an individual’s core identity, the revolving rings of electrons represent different social identities that are both in flux and at differing distances from the core, and the circle surrounding the atom represents context.  

The original study from which this model emerged was conducted in 1995 by Susan Jones (Jones & Abes, 2013).  The goal was to “understand the multiple dimensions of identity development among women college students” (Jones & Abes, 2013, p. 64).  

There are several strengths to this model.  One, rather than zeroing in on one aspect of identity, it accounts for as many as one wants to look at and puts them in dynamic relationship with one another.   This is a unique approach since most of the models that we have looked at consider stages along one identity.  

Second, this model incorporates context such as “family background, socio-cultural conditions and current life experiences” (Jones & Abes, 2013, p. 55).  Identity is described to have “relative salience” depending on the context (Jones & Abes, 2013, p. 76).  

One of my favorite online blogs is NPR’s “Code Switch; Frontiers of Race, Culture and Ethnicity.”  In a recent post authors highlighted immigration activists who, in light of record high deportations, are calling Obama to greater action, saying “We want an emancipator, Not a Deporter In Chief.”  MMID is a helpful model when analyzing this issue.  While an individual’s ethnic identity and citizenship status both can be salient identities, given the current political context, citiizenship status becomes closer to the core.  

Third, I personally appreciated that this model presents a “core sense of self” which exists independent of social identities and context.  The model makes a distinction between personal identity and social identity (Jones & Abes, 2013. p. 82).  My belief is that each person does have a true and core self that exists apart from the influence of society.  This is the first model I have seen that has accounted for this possibility.  

Another aspect of this model that rings true for me is the concept of how privilege and oppression influence salience of identity.  Jones and Abes (2013) offer that the more privileged an identity, the less salient it is.  For instance, growing up my SES was one of my privileged identities.  My family had financial resources and so my class identity was not something I thought of often because I simply didn’t have to worry about it.  However, for my cousins who did not have access to those resources, they thought about their class identity and the stress it incurred everyday.  Jones and Abes (2013) add this into the model as a “prism of difference” (p. 86).  

A similar model is used by Romero and Roberts (2003) in exploring the multiple elements of ethnic identity development in Mexican youth.  They were testing for how different aspects of ethnic identity affected self-esteem and perception of discrimination (Romero & Roberts, 2013).  In contrast to MMID this model is still only looking at one aspect of identity whereas MMID looks at multiple.  However, similar to MMID, Romero & Roberts wanted to look at multiple dimensions because that would increase depth to their findings.  I think the mark of MMID on current scholarship is that it offers the most depth, dimension and complexity.  

Gonzalez, R. (2014, 03 29). Activists: We want an emancipator, not a Code Switch: Frontiers of Race, Culture and Ethnicity, Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/03/29/296290027/activists-we-want-an-emancipator-not-a-deporter-in-chief

Jones, S. R. & Abes, E. S. (2013). Chapter 3, 4 & 5: Multiple social identities and intersecting identities. In Identity development of college students: Advancing frameworks for multiple dimensions of identity (pp. 53-121). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Romero, A. J., & Roberts, R. (2003). The impact of multiple dimensions of ethnic identity on discrimination and adolescents’ self-esteem. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33(11), 2288-2305.