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Developing identity in classrooms through generated crisis
The students I have decided to focus on in this week’s blog post are in the sixth grade. This would put them right at the beginning of Piaget’s formal operational stage, and on the cusp of Erikson’s fifth psychosocial stage (Identity vs role confusion). I observed these particular sixth graders during their discussion of a story about a young Rosa Parks. All of the students having had the opportunity to read the relevant material, the class engaged in a discussion guided by the teacher’s open-ended questions (which were printed on a worksheet for convenience). Overall, the students appeared calm/well-behaved and eager to participate in the discussion.
In this case, the topic of discussion was extremely important. The teacher and the majority of students (14 of 15) were white; there was one black student. Because of the demographics of the classroom, during the discussion of Rosa Park’s experiences with racism, I could, even through the computer screen, feel a heightened sense of tension. At the very least, it seemed that the teacher and the students were all aware that the subject matter was serious. Of course, this has everything to do with identity—the students were clearly aware of their own racial identities in that moment. Racial identity will be discussed further in the additional comments section.
In my observation of their discussion, it seems that the development of identity can be greatly assisted by the onset of the formal operational stage. For example, one of the discussion questions that stood out to me was “If you were in the place of [character], how would you feel/act?” The first thing to note about this question is the use of a hypothetical proposition (“If”). In order to answer this kind of question, the students must be able to, in an abstract way, place themselves into the specific context of the story, and replace a particular character within that context. Secondly, this kind of question suggests a certain sense of identity already present in the students. Specifically, the question of “how would you feel/act” implies that this is not an invitation to pretend that you are Rosa Parks (or the character in question). Rather, this implies that you, a person distinct from the character you replace, may feel/act differently because of your identity.
In a sense, this identity-building hypothetical discussion generates a real crisis in the student. Given the serious nature of the subject, the students are faced with genuine choices between certain beliefs. By answering “I would do [a particular action] because it is the right thing to do,” the student has implicitly committed to a certain belief about what right and wrong. If I recall correctly, one student in the class responded by saying “I would not do [a particular action] because I am not a mean person.” It is clear that the student has made a kind of commitment concerning their identity: being “mean” has been rejected from their identity.
While this is just one example of an activity that promotes identity development, I think that any such activity necessarily includes crisis. Conceptually, this is in line with Marcia’s theory: without crisis, a person either (1) has not made commitments or (2) has not made personal commitments. It seems that part of creating a good environment to develop healthy identities involves teachers generating crises in a controlled setting.
My identity status according to Marcia
I think that I am between moratorium and achievement. While there are some aspects of my life that I have (I think) resolved on my own terms and have made a commitment, other aspects seem to fall under the description of moratorium, particularly in the career/occupation area. I am currently working toward law school, and I have made some commitments to it. I have paid for LSAT study books, I have paid for and taken the LSAT, etc. Moreover, I have, on many occasions, presented law school as my stated goal to both others and myself. Despite these significant commitments of time and effort toward this goal, they could become temporary if I happen to change my mind about law school. There remains a sense of impermanence with my commitments that are not in line with an achieved identity. Moreover, “law school” or even “lawyer” does not really count as an occupation. After all, there are many different fields of law, and many different kinds of lawyer: and I have not decided on any of that yet. I will need to further explore the different fields of law before I can decide—a clear symptom of being in moratorium.
Additional thoughts and commentary
Instead of merely thinking about the students who were discussing the Rosa Parks story, I had an interesting thought about Rosa Parks herself. As a child growing up in a racist America, she would have been painfully aware of her black identity from a young age. As a black child, she would have been treated differently from the white children. Instead of having a teacher generate crises in a safe, controlled environment to promote healthy identity development, Rosa Parks would have faced dangerous crises in the form of racial intimidation and even violence. Of course, this would lead her to quickly develop a racial identity; but not in a safe or healthy way. This accelerated development reminded me of the Nine documentary we watched earlier this week. One girl, who was sexually assaulted by her grandfather, described herself as having two boyfriends “like a teenager,” despite only being nine years old. In light of that, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that racial trauma could also lead to an accelerated development of racial identity.
One final thought I had on identity development is that it seems to me that the process is somewhat dependent on the things to which one is exposed. For example, are there really crises in “occupation” in a hunter-gatherer society? Occupational crises in modern society seem to be caused, at least in part, by our preoccupation with dividing work into different jobs, then having individuals choose between those jobs. In societies where, say, you are a hunter because you are a man (occupations are social roles), or you are a blacksmith because your father was a blacksmith (occupations are inherited), is there room for this identity theory? In other words, I am concerned that Marcia’s theory presupposes the ability for individuals to choose (that is, to make commitments); while whether or not individuals can actually choose may be heavily dependent on cultural and historical context.
In a similar way, it would be ludicrous to ask a medieval peasant farmer about his political beliefs. If he was exceptional, perhaps he could say something about the “divine right of kings.” But he has not experienced any crisis—monarchy is the only form of government he has ever known. In Marcia’s theory, he would be considered “forclosed,” since his commitment to monarchy has been given to him by others, and he has not reached it through personal exploration. Are we to assert that for most of human history, a vast majority of people have not successfully reached “Identity achievement”? At the very least, it seems that Marcia’s four components of identity are tailored to a modern Western society, and may not apply to societies in other historical or cultural contexts.
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