Showing papers on "Identity (social science) published in 2013"

Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies

Abstract: Welcome to the Jungle brings a black British perspective to the critical reading of a wide range of cultural texts, events and experiences arising from volatile transformations in the politics of ethnicity, sexuality and "race" during the 1980s. The ten essays collected here examine new forms of cultural expression in black film, photography and visual art exerging with a new generation of black British artists, and interprets this prolific creativity within a sociological framework that reveals fresh perspectives on the bewildering complexity of identity and diversity in an era of postmodernity. Kobena Mercer documents a wealth of insights opened up by the overlapping of Asian, African and Caribbean cultures that constitute Black Britain as a unique domain of diaspora.

The dynamics of place brands An identity-based approach to place branding theory

Abstract: This article introduces a novel approach towards place branding theory, adopting a view based on the relationship between the place brand and place identity. The article first evaluates the dominant conceptualization of identity within place branding. It is argued that better understanding of the relationship between place identity and place brands might advance the theory of place branding. In its current state, place branding practice and, to a great extent, place branding literature adopt a rather static view on place identity as something that can easily be articulated and communicated for the purposes of branding the place. This approach is limited as it does not reveal the full complexity of place identity and limits the role and potential of place branding. The article, drawing on a combination of the literatures on place identity and organisational identity, proposes a more dynamic view of place identity that considers identity a constant dialogue between the internal and the external. The role of...

Memorylands : Heritage and Identity in Europe Today

Abstract: Acknowledgments Prologue 1. The European Memory Complex: An Introduction 2. Making Histories: Europe, Tradition and Other Present Pasts 3. Telling the Past: The Multitemporal Challenge 4. Feeling the Past: Materiality, Embodiment and Place 5. Selling the Past: Commodification, Authenticity and Heritage 6. Musealization: Everyday Life, Temporality and Old Things 7. Transcultural Heritage: Reconfiguring Identities and the Public Sphere 8. Cosmopolitan Memory: Holocaust Commemoration and National Identity 9. The Future of Memory - and Forgetting References

Organizational Identity Formation and Change

Abstract: Theory and research concerning organizational identity (“who we are as an organization”) is a burgeoning domain within organization study. A great deal of conceptual and empirical work has been accomplished within the last three decades—especially concerning the phenomenon of organizational identity change. More recently, work has been devoted to studying the processes and content associated with identity formation. Given the amount of scholarly work done to date, it is an appropriate time to reflect on the perspectives, controversies and outcomes of this body of work. Because organizational identity change has received the preponderance of attention, we first review that extensive literature. We consider the conceptual and empirical work concerning the three putative “pillars” of identity (i.e. that which is ostensibly central, enduring, and distinctive). We devote particular attention to the most controversial of these pillars—the debate pitting a view that sees identity as stable over time (a position ...

A Temporal Perspective on Organizational Identity

Abstract: We offer as our main theoretical contribution a conceptual framework for how the past is evoked in present identity reconstruction and the ways in which the past influences the articulation of claims for future identity. We introduce the notion of textual, material, and oral memory forms as the means by which organizational actors evoke the past. The conceptual framework is applied in a study of two occasions of identity reconstruction in the LEGO Group, which revealed differences in ways that the past was evoked and influenced claims for future identity. Our study suggests that 1 a longer time perspective in the use of memory enabled a longer time perspective in formulating claims for future identity, 2 a broader scope of articulated identity claims for the future was related to the combination of a broader range of memory forms, and 3 the depth of claims for future identity was related to the way in which memory forms were combined. At a more general level, our paper illustrates how viewing identity construction from the perspective of an ongoing present adds a new dimension to understanding the temporal dynamics of organizational identity.

Crafting a Future in Science Tracing Middle School Girls’ Identity Work Over Time and Space

Abstract: The underrepresentation of girls from nondominant backgrounds in the sciences and engineering continues despite recent gains in achievement. This longitudinal ethnographic study traces the identity work that girls from nondominant backgrounds do as they engage in science-related activities across school, club, and home during the middle school years. Building a conceptual argument for identity trajectories, the authors discuss the ongoing, cumulative, and contentious nature of identity work and the mechanisms that foster critical shifts in trajectories. The authors argue that the girls view possible future selves in science when their identity work is recognized, supported, and leveraged toward expanded opportunities for engagement in science. This process yields layered meanings of (possible) selves and of science and reconfigures meaningful participation in science.

Deflecting the trajectory and changing the narrative: how self-affirmation affects academic performance and motivation under identity threat.

Abstract: To the extent that stereotype and identity threat undermine academic performance, social psychological interventions that lessen threat could buffer threatened students and improve performance. Two studies, each featuring a longitudinal field experiment in a mixed-ethnicity middle school, examined whether a values affirmation writing exercise could attenuate the achievement gap between Latino American and European American students. In Study 1, students completed multiple self-affirmation (or control) activities as part of their regular class assignments. Latino American students, the identity threatened group, earned higher grades in the affirmation than control condition, whereas White students were unaffected. The effects persisted 3 years and, for many students, continued into high school by lifting their performance trajectory. Study 2 featured daily diaries to examine how the affirmation affected psychology under identity threat, with the expectation that it would shape students’ narratives of their ongoing academic experience. By conferring a big-picture focus, affirmation was expected to broaden construals, prevent daily adversity from being experienced as identity threat, and insulate academic motivation from identity threat. Indeed, affirmed Latino American students not only earned higher grades than nonaffirmed Latino American students but also construed events at a more abstract than concrete level and were less likely to have their daily feelings of academic fit and motivation undermined by identity threat. Discussion centers on how social-psychological processes propagate themselves over time and how timely interventions targeting these processes can promote well-being and achievement.

'The presentation of self in the online world': Goffman and the study of online identities

Abstract: This paper presents an exemplification and discussion of the contemporaneity of Erving Goffman's work and of its applicability to the analysis of identity and presentation of self in the blogging and Second Life (SL) contexts. An analysis of online identity and interaction practices in 10 different cases of bloggers and SL inhabitants and of their online spaces is presented in terms of: expressions given; embellishment as a minor form of persona adoption; dividing the self; conforming and 'fitting in'; and masking, anonymity and pseudonimity. The key finding of the research is that, contrary to engaging with the process of whole persona adoption, participants were keen to re-create their offline self online, but engaged in editing facets of self. This emphasizes the key premise in Goffman's work that, when in 'front stage', people deliberately chose to project a given identity. It is concluded that Goffman's original framework is of great usefulness as an explanatory framework for understanding identity through interaction and the presentation of self in the online world. Equally, the online environment, with its enhanced potential for editing the self, can offer opportunities to contribute to the further development of the Goffman framework.

Identity in emerging adulthood: Reviewing the field and looking forward

Abstract: The present article presents a review of identity status-based theory and research with adolescents and emerging adults, with some coverage of related approaches such as narrative identity and identity style. In the first section, we review Erikson's theory of identity and early identity status research examining differences in personality and cognitive variables across statuses. We then review two contemporary identity models that extend identity status theory and explicitly frame identity development as a dynamic and iterative process. We also review work that has focused on specific domains of identity. The second section of the article discusses mental and physical health correlates of identity processes and statuses. The article concludes with recommen- dations for future identity research with adolescent and emerging adult populations. Identity is a fundamental psychosocial task for young people. Beginning in their early teens, adolescents start to ask questions such as ''Who am I?'' ''What am I doing in my life?'' ''What kind of relationships do I want?'' ''What kind of work do I want to do?'' and ''What are my beliefs?''(Archer, 1982). The con- sideration of alternative possibilities often coincides with the advent of formal operational thought during adolescence (Kret- tenauer, 2005). As young people develop the ability to consider an abstract idea such as who and what they could be, they may begin to imagine new and different possibilities for themselves. Accordingly, the purpose of this article is to review what is known about identity in young people—with particular atten- tion to work conducted since 2000. We begin with an overview of what identity is (from a developmental perspective), how it functions, and how the task of developing a sense of identity has changed in the past 40-50 years due to technological advances and associated social changes. We attend to research and theory that is rooted in the pioneering work of Erikson (1950), who was one of the first ''grand theorists'' to character- ize identity as a fundamental task of adolescence and of the transition to adulthood. We then review a number of prominent neo-Eriksonian identity theories and some of the content domains in which identity processes operate. We focus partic- ularly on Marcia's identity status model, which was one of the first empirical operationalizations of Erikson's work and has generated more than 45 years of theoretical and empirical work. We also review two other prominent neo-Eriksonian approaches, identity style and narrative identity. We then review research linking identity processes and domains with psychosocial and health outcomes. Finally, we suggest future directions for identity research.

A review of research on student teachers' professional identity

Abstract: This article presents a review of 29 empirical studies to identify the main foci of research on student teachers' identity, the methodologies used and their major findings. The reviewed studies were found to investigate four broad factors: the contribution of: (1) reflective activities, (2) learning communities, (3) context and (4) (prior) experiences. Reflective practices and interviews were found to be mainly used by researchers as data collection tools and the findings were mainly reported to be changes in components of student teachers' identity, including their cognitive knowledge, sense of agency and voice. Questions raised in this review and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Explaining Communication : Contemporary Theories and Exemplars

Abstract: Contents: Preface. S.W. Littlejohn, The Nature and Evaluation of Theory. K. Tracy, Discourse and Identity: Language or Talk? W.A. Afifi, Nonverbal Communication. C. Pavitt, Impression Formation. S.R. Wilson, Communication Theory and the Concept of "Goal". B.R. Burleson, Constructivism: A General Theory of Communication Skill. A. Rancer, A.M. Nicotera, Aggressiveness Communication. C.R. Berger, Plans, Planning, and Communication Effectiveness. J.O. Greene, Formulating and Producing Verbal and Nonverbal Messages: An Action Assembly Theory. A.S. Babrow, Problematic Integration Theory. D.E. Brashers, A Theory of Communication and Uncertainty Management. D. Goldsmith, Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory. M. Cody, D. Dunn, Accounts. M.C. Morr, S. Petronio, Communication Privacy Management Theory. L. Baxter, D.O. Braithwaite, Social Dialectics: The Contradictions of Relating. H. Giles, T. Ogay, Communication Accommodation Theory. J. Courtright, Relational Communication: As Viewed from the Pragmatic Perspective. W.A. Beach, Conversational Interaction: Understanding How Family Members Talk Through Cancer. F.H. van Eemeren, Pragma-Dialectical Theory of Argumentation. S.L. Faulkner, M.L. Hecht, Tides in the Ocean: A Layered Approach to Communication and Culture. J. Bryant, D. Miron, Historical Contexts and Trends in Development of Communication Theory.

Branding the Nation: The Global Business of National Identity

Abstract: List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction: There Must Certainly Be Some Such Place 1. Nation and Brand: Keywords for the Twenty-first Century 2. The New and Improved Nation: How Culture Became Competitive 3. Living the Brand: The Identity Strategies of Nation Branding Consultants 4. Creative Tension, Normal Nation: Branding National Identity in Poland 5. From Bland to Brand: Transforming Canadian Culture 6. Trading Spaces: The World Tour Conclusion: Variable Utopias List of References Notes Index

Transformative Learning and Identity

Abstract: Transformative learning has usually been defined as transformations of meaning perspectives, frames of reference, and habits of mind—as proposed initially by Jack Mezirow. However, several authors have found this definition too narrow and too cognitively oriented, and Mezirow has later emphasized that emotional and social conditions are also important. Thus, there is a need for a broader, more up-to-date, and still significant definition. This article suggests that the target area of transformative learning should be defined by the term “identity,” which explains what this term implies, argues why it is the best possible choice, and gives examples of how the concepts of transformative learning and identity can mutually enrich each other and lead to new understandings in both of these areas.

Shattering the Myth of Separate Worlds: Negotiating Nonwork Identities at Work

Abstract: How much of our self is defined by our work? Fundamental changes in the social organization of work are destabilizing the relationship between work and the self. As a result, parts of the self traditionally considered outside the domain of work—that is, nonwork identities—are increasingly affected by organizations and occupations. Based on an interdisciplinary review of literature on identity and work, we develop a model of how people negotiate nonwork identities (e.g., national, gender, family) in the context of organizational/occupational pressures and personal preferences regarding this identity. We propose that the dual forces of pressures and preferences vary from inclusion (e.g., incorporating the nonwork identity within the work identity) to exclusion (e.g., keeping the identities separate). We suggest that the alignment or misalignment of these pressures and preferences shapes people's experience of the power relationship between themselves and their organization/occupation and affects how they ma...

Tourism Destination Brand Identity: The Case of Slovenia

Abstract: This paper explores the concept of tourism destination brand identity from the supply-side perspective, in contrast to those studies which have focused on the demand-driven, tourists’ perceived tourism destination brand image. Both researchers and practitioners have concluded that an analysis of the branding concept from both the identity and perceived-image perspective is essential and should be intertwined, where appropriate. However, this study argues that investigations of tourism destination branding have primarily been conducted from a perceived-image perspective. Therefore, the dearth of studies offering an insight into the supply-side perspective may lead to an unbalanced view, misunderstandings and oversights concerning the possibilities and limitations of tourism destination branding. It introduces a theoretical framework designed to analyse tourism destination identity, particularly for the case study of Slovenia.

An interprofessional socialization framework for developing an interprofessional identity among health professions students

Abstract: Although health professional educational programs have been successful in equipping graduates with skills, knowledge and professionalism, the emphasis on specialization and profession-specific education has enhanced the development of a uniprofessional identity, which has been found to be a major barrier to interprofessional collaborative person-centred practice (IPCPCP). Changes within healthcare professional education programs are necessary to enable a shift in direction toward interprofessional socialization (IPS) to promote IPCPCP. Currently, there is a paucity of conceptual frameworks to guide IPS. In this article, we present a framework designed to help illuminate an IPS process, which may inform efforts by educators and curriculum developers to facilitate the development of health professions students' dual identity, that is, an interprofessional identity in addition to their existing professional identity, as a first step toward IPCPCP. This framework integrates concepts derived from social identity theory and intergroup contact theory into a dual identity model of IPS.

Conceiving Sexuality : Approaches to Sex Research in a Postmodern World

Abstract: Acknowledgements. Introduction. Part I: Histories of Desire. Part II: Gender, Sexuality, and Identity. Part III: Gender Power. Part IV: Social and Sexual Networks. Part V: The Social Construction of Sexual Risk. Afterword. Contributors. Bibliography.

Engineering Identity: Gender and Professional Identity Negotiation among Women Engineers

Abstract: This article considers how women in a gendered profession, engineering, construct their professional identity in response to workplace interpersonal interactions that marginalize it. Using data from interviews with women engineers, it also explores how these interactions influence the engineers' sense of self and belonging in engineering. The interpersonal interactions place professional identity on the periphery and can overly validate gender identity. I discuss two types of identity construction strategies employed by the participants in response to these marginalizing interactions: impression management tactics and coping strategies. Although the data demonstrate that participants may be left feeling devalued or ambivalent towards their identity or fit in engineering, some interactions are more validating and offer a sense of belonging. This article also reflects on how the engineers' actions may, in fact, represent forces for change in the gendered culture of engineering.

Uncertainty–identity theory: Extreme groups, radical behavior, and authoritarian leadership.

Abstract: This article describes uncertainty–identity theory's analysis of how self-uncertainty may lead, through social identity and self-categorization processes, to group and societal extremism. We provide details of empirical evidence from direct tests of the theory that focus on four aspects of extremism: (1) studies of self-uncertainty and student support for extreme campus protest groups that promote a radical agenda; (2) studies of uncertainty, identity centrality, and support for violent group action in the context of the Israel–Palestine conflict; (3) studies of the role played by self-uncertainty in support for leadership per se and for authoritarian leadership in particular; and (4) studies of the conjunction of group-membership factors that lead specific individuals within a group to go to greater extremes than others on behalf of the group. The article ends with a discussion of policy implications and principles that might help prevent uncertainty leading, through group identity processes, to societal extremism.

The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World

Abstract: No one has failed to notice that the current generation of youth is deeplysome would say totallyinvolved with digital media. Professors Howard Gardner and Katie Davis name todays young people The App Generation, and in this spellbinding book they explore what it means to be app-dependent versus app-enabled and how life for this generation differs from life before the digital era.Gardner and Davis are concerned with three vital areas of adolescent life: identity, intimacy, and imagination. Through innovative research, including interviews of young people, focus groups of those who work with them, and a unique comparison ofyouthful artistic productions before and after the digital revolution, the authors uncover the drawbacks of apps: they may foreclose a sense of identity, encourage superficial relations with others, and stunt creative imagination. On the other hand, the benefits of apps are equally striking: they can promote a strong sense of identity, allow deep relationships, and stimulate creativity. The challenge is to venture beyond the ways that apps are designed to be used, Gardner and Davis conclude, and they suggest how the power of apps can be a springboard to greater creativity and higher aspirations.

Evidence, memory, identity, and community: four shifting archival paradigms

Abstract: This essay argues that archival paradigms over the past 150 years have gone through four phases: from juridical legacy to cultural memory to societal engagement to community archiving. The archivist has been transformed, accordingly, from passive curator to active appraiser to societal mediator to community facilitator. The focus of archival thinking has moved from evidence to memory to identity and community, as the broader intellectual currents have changed from pre-modern to modern to postmodern to contemporary. Community archiving and digital realities offer possibilities for healing these disruptive and sometimes conflicting discourses within our profession.

Why has research in face recognition progressed so slowly? : The importance of variability

Abstract: Despite many years of research, there has been surprisingly little progress in our understanding of how faces are identified. Here I argue that there are two contributory factors: (a) Our methods have obscured a critical aspect of the problem, within-person variability; and (b) research has tended to conflate familiar and unfamiliar face processing. Examples of procedures for studying variability are given, and a case is made for studying real faces, of the type people recognize every day. I argue that face recognition (specifically identification) may only be understood by adopting new techniques that acknowledge statistical patterns in the visual environment. As a consequence, some of our current methods will need to be abandoned.

Black Twitter? Racial Hashtags, Networks and Contagion

Abstract: Race itself has become a digital medium, a distinctive set of informatic codes, networked mediated narratives, maps, images, visualizations that index identity. (1) There is a growing body of research exploring issues of race and ethnicity in digital environments. Social networking relations, modes of online communication and digital identities have been revealed to be far from race-neutral. (2) Research has raised questions concerning how extant racial segregations and inequalities have spilled over into the virtual realm, highlighting the creation of new kinds of digital divides. The oft-cited, iconic 1993 New Yorker cartoon by Peter Steiner announcing 'On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog' captured the apparent freedom of a blossoming World Wide Web. However, the original cyberspace promise of 'leaving the meat (body) behind' has done little to withstand the racialization of online spaces. The internet has always been a racially demarcated space and today the plethora of online communication platforms (instant messaging, email-lists, blogs, discussion forums and social media) continue to exhibit varying degrees of identity marking and racialized segregation. (3) The internet, in other words, is a manifold set of sociotechnical practices, generative of digital privileges and racial ordering. It has become apparent that online race is complex and mutable. This picture supports Geert Lovink's declaration that: 'The idea that the virtual liberates you from your old self has collapsed. There is no alternative identity'. (4) That digital media should be understood as merely an adjunct to the 'real' world is, then, an increasingly tenuous standpoint. But this should not be taken to mean that there is a static replication of 'off-line' identities online, far from it. Online racial inclusions and exclusions are dynamically transforming, augmented by the explosion of 'Web 2.0' social networking sites, and modes of access (broadband and mobile phones). For instance, the rise of social networks witnessed the 'white flight' of users from MySpace towards Facebook. (5) And variations in the adoption of social media by different ethno-racial groups have become more visible. (6) The hype of Web 2.0 celebrating user participation and content generation has obscured the racialized protocols that circumscribe our online interactions. (7) Web studies exploring race and ethnicity have principally conceived identity as a 'lived' social construction or hegemonic mode of representation. The relationship between communication platforms and identity practices is difficult to unravel, particularly as research in this field risks essentialising online activity in relation to supposed ethno-racial designation. The rapidly expanding digital landscape poses a further challenge to researchers, as the 'real-time' speed, propagation and irruptions of race online create a presentism that seemingly resists critical analysis. (8) Modalities of race wildly proliferate in social media sites such as Facebook, Youtube and Twitter: casual racial banter, race-hate comments, 'griefing', images, videos and anti-racist sentiment bewilderingly intermingle, mash-up and virally circulate; and researchers struggle to comprehend the meanings and affects of a racialized info-overload. (9) The complexity of online racial formations raises the question of whether adequate attention is being paid to the significance of the online environments that race exists in: how are both race and digital networks transformed in their mutual encounter? This essay offers an analysis which centres upon exploring the technosocial production of race. Digital networks are generative of race and can be grasped by an approach attentive to the operations of online platforms. My contention is that a move to a materialist understanding of digital media and networks (10) opens up new possibilities for rethinking how race works online. Lisa Nakamura and Peter Chow-White intimate that 'race itself has become a digital medium'; thus the materiality of both race and the digital can prompt an alternative approach and method, beyond the mantra of race as a social construction. …

Identity Development of College Students: Advancing Frameworks for Multiple Dimensions of Identity

Abstract: List of Tables and Figures vii The Authors ix Dedication xi Acknowledgments xiii Foreword xv Marcia B. Baxter Magolda Preface xix SECTION ONE SITUATING IDENTITY 1 1 Situating Ourselves in the Study of Identity 5 2 Situating the Study of Identity in the Evolution of Student Development Theories 19 SECTION TWO MULTIPLE IDENTITIES AND MODELS 47 3 Multiple Social Identities and Intersecting Identities 53 4 Model of Multiple Dimensions of Identity 77 5 Reconceptualized Model of Multiple Dimensions of Identity 97 SECTION THREE CRITICAL THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS AND MULTIPLE IDENTITIES 123 6 Intersectionality 135 7 Critical Race Theory 166 with Stephen John Quaye 8 Queer Theory 191 with David Kasch SECTION FOUR EDUCATIONAL APPLICATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS 213 9 Application of the Models in Educational Contexts 219 10 Future Directions: Considering Theoretical Perspectives in Conjunction with One Another 252 Final Interludes 288 References 294 Name Index 311 Subject Index 315

Identity and Language Learning in Study Abroad

Abstract: Identity, and related conflict, can influence both qualities of language learning experiences in study abroad settings and learners of choices of language to appropriate or reject. The article offers an overview of research examining the role of identity in student sojourns abroad. This research includes (1) holistic, qualitative studies of the ways in which identities shape language learning opportunities, and (2) studies examining the development of specific, identity-related pragmatic abilities. After defining identity and study abroad, the researcher organizes this article in terms of salient demographic categories represented in the literature: nationality/"foreigner" status, gender, linguistic inheritance, age status, and ethnicity. Where possible, examples of both holistic and pragmatics-oriented research are included for each category. The conclusion suggests implications for language education and the design of study abroad programs along with some avenues toward greater ecological validity in research of both kinds.Key words: conflict, identity, pragmatics, qualitative research, study abroadIntroductionAs a 22-year-old American study abroad participant in France, "Bill" (Kinginger, 2008) enrolled in courses at a local university in Dijon, anticipating no doubt that the social organization of a classroom in a classical French university would resemble that of the academic institutions he had frequented in the past. To his astonishment, the norms for interaction in this new environment were quite disorienting:B: I don't get it. people talk during class, they don't pay attention to the professors, [c] it blew my.it blew my mind. it still does.I: what else have you noticed? since you're in class with French students.B: they always talk. like they don't pay.they don't pay attention to professors, the professor doesn't really engage the class. he kinda just presents material, um and he says what he has to say, he needs to fit it all in, whether or not his students learn it. um it's up to.I: = it's up to them to learn it right? =B: = yeah he just presents the material and that's it. [...] the biggest thing is like just talking and not paying attention to the teacher. like blatantly. like having a normal conversation, and the teacher not even caring, like you you could tell where the international students are like especially the Germans and the Americans. they're in the front row, cause you can't sit in the back cause you won't hear anything, and especially if it's in French. (Kinginger, unpublished interview data; emphasis in original)Like many of the other students in his cohort, Bill observed an apparent display of disrespect for university professors as the students in the class pursued their private conversations during the lecture. Meanwhile, the professor's failure to engage the students and to monitor their comprehension of the material also struck Bill as evidence of that professor's indifference to the well-being of the class. Bill's dramatic representation ("it blew my mind") attested to the depth of his emotions as he recalled this scene.Patron's (2007) case study of a cohort of French students sojourning for a year in Australia recounted similar unpredicted and initially inexplicable academic practices. These students were shocked to find classmates and professors socializing on a firstname basis. An invitation to tea from a male professor prompted one female student to question the nature of the professor's motives. In the classroom, the students' dress and demeanor could only be interpreted as blatant lack of respect. According to "Brigitte,"En classe [en France] on va etre tres formels ... on va essayer de s'habiller formellement, on va pas venir en short a l'universite. On se tient droit, on s'asseoit bien dans sa chaise, pas avec les pieds sur la table, allonges sur la table, en savattes et avec des trous partout. C'est degueulasse! …

Social Class in Applied Linguistics

Abstract: Social class is a curious construct. In the discipline where it has traditionally been most at home, sociology, there has been a constant flow of commentary on its demise and, indeed, its death over the years. In applied linguistics, the situation is somewhat different in that there has been a degree of social class denial, but more importantly, there has been social class erasure in that the construct has tended to receive little or no attention in publications that deal with language and identity and social life. Where social class is introduced into research, it is almost always done in a very cursory, partial, and superficial way. Still, there has been some research examining the interrelationship between social class and language over the years, and in this article, I provide a review of that research, focusing primarily on the period 2000–2014. First, however, I include a discussion of what social class means in 21st-century societies and a short review of class-based research carried out from the 1960s to the 1990s, the inclusion of the latter being necessary to an understanding of research after 2000. I conclude the article with some thoughts about future directions.