ABSTRACT
The field of Identity Studies can be characterized in terms of a Venn diagram showing three overlapping circles, or ‘faces’ (Côté and Levine 2015). One face is the timeless philosophical approach, dating to antiquity. The second is the more recent scientific approach, dating back over a century and which gained popularity in the mid-twentieth century. The third face, the political approach, in which the identity concept is applied to the realm of contested privileges, gained traction in the 1960s and 1970s, especially influencing the humanities through post-modernism. Several political approaches, such as ‘identity politics’, have in common with the scientific approach the concern with how forming and sustaining a sense of identity have become more challenging in modern societies. These three approaches operate under somewhat different assumptions, resulting in a number of ‘border disputes’. In the subfield of Youth-Identity Studies, these disputes can be found between the scientific and political approach. These two approaches and their disputes about the nature of youth-identities are the subject of this chapter. In the scientific literature, prior to the 1950s, the term ‘identity’ was found mainly in psychiatry and psychoanalysis. However, in the 1950s, based on the works of Erik Erikson, the concept became a ‘reasonably value-neutral and interdisciplinary term’ (e.g. Weigert et al. 1986: 29) with which to describe the effects of social change on social status, group allegiances, value acquisition and the process by which people developed a sense of meaning and purpose in life. At the same time, theories of mass society emerged in the social sciences to account for the decline in traditional forms of community and a consequent rise in problems of identity (Stein et al. 1960). Since the 1950s, concerns about problems in identity formation and identity construction have morphed into several approaches. In sociology, the term mass society has been replaced by concepts like post-modernity and late modernity, although similar problematic societal conditions remain as likely sources of identity problems. In addition, a developmental psychology has emerged that ‘normalizes’ identity problems in protracted maturation processes, rather than in problematic societal conditions (e.g. Arnett 2000; for critiques see Côté and Bynner 2008, and Côté 2014a). It appears, however, that the societal conditions undermining problem-free
identity formation and identity maintenance persist, to the point where the popular press now recognizes ‘identity’ as a key to the increased complexity of youth and young adulthood (e.g. Frank 1997). This chapter first reviews the major scientific approaches and leading figures in this approach to Identity Studies and then shows how this field is intersecting with Youth Studies, producing the new field of Youth-Identity Studies. From this foundation, the current controversies in the area are reviewed and the future prospects of the hybrid Youth-Identity Studies field are speculated upon.
