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Institutional Construction of Identity

Institutional Construction of Identity

Working in the spirit of Goffman's (2003) study of the psychiatric clinic and the resulting description of how a social identity is constructed as an evolutionary process dependent in large measure upon the socializing environment in which the individual is positioned, two discrete interviews and observations were conducted. The first interview and observation focused upon a secondary school administrator (i.e., vice-principal) while the second interview and observation focused on an attending physician in a local trauma center's emergency room.

Bourdieu and Passeron (2000) have pointed out that most areas of specialization tend to be accompanied by specific cultural capital which shapes and informs the ways in which participants in the culture identify themselves. Bourdieu and Passeron (2000) also claim (as does Goffman [2003]) that the very processes by means of which individuals are educated for their life's work also function as socializing factors. Given that both the school administrator and the attending physician interviewed for this report each experienced a prolonged period of professional education and preparation for practice, it was anticipated that both subjects would present strong identity affiliations with the values of their individual professions.

The specific paradigms of social psychology formation around which this discussion is organized are cognitive and behavioral learning, symbolic interactionism, and cultural constructionism. O'Brien and Kollock (2001) state that although disparate, what these theories or paradigms of social psychological formation share is a recognition that the individual is fully positioned within an environmental context with which he or she interacts and from which he or she learns. Over time, as a person achieves greater immersion in the group, identification with its normative framework and knowledge base, and mastery of necessa...

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Institutional Construction of Identity. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:55, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1699766.html