ABSTRACT
The goal of the chapter is to show the relevance of the concept of “identity” and its applicability in social research, and to investigate links between social identities (occupation, family, gender, ethnic background, age group, nationality, religion, social class, region, political orientation) and the social structure. In ISSP-2003 (National Identity II) a new instrument has been developed which measures the salience of ten social identities. The findings show that significant differences between the thirty-three countries exist regarding the relative salience of the different social identities. These differences are related, on the one hand, to the diverse cultures and, on the other hand, to personal and social characteristics of the respondents. The effects of these factors on identities are examined in a multilevel regression analysis. The results lead to the following conclusions: the salience is higher in those social identities (a) in which persons are actively engaged and have most personal leeway of decision; (b) which make it possible for people to distinguish themselves from other groups; (c) which indicate a high or a low status; (d) which are in transformation, problematic, and connected with conflicts at the societal level; and (e) which are not taken for granted.
“Identity” is a term which has gained widespread acceptance in the social sciences in the last decades (Erikson 1956; Gleason 1983; Weigert et al. 1986; Rosenberg and Kaplan 1982; Burke 2003; Abels 2006). There are two main reasons for this. On the one side, the concept of identity promises a theory of human action and behavior which is more comprehensive than many other approaches (e.g. rational choice theory) because it also includes the aspect of values and emotions. On the other side, changes have been going on in the social structure and in the dominant values which increase the options but also the decision constraints of the individual person; today the individuals are constrained to “construct” their identities. A weakness of many contributions to the concept of identity and its relevance in modern societies, however, is that they remain on a rather general and abstract level; so far, there exist few works which have presented reliable and valid measurements of identity and empirical analyses of their concomitants.
