Identity Construction and Multiple Identities

The chapter begins by exploring Erikson’s concepts of personal and social identity development and how social identity has expanded to include cultural identity because of sociocultural and political contextual changes. This chapter illustrates multiplicities, complexities, and fluidity involved in multiple identities and their intersectionality. It also points out that holistic thinking is the only way to comprehend interwoven and interlocking relationships among dominant identity, multiple identities, and their intersectionality. Experiential learning activities for multiple identity assessment (modified Rowe et al.’s model) are designed for readers to assess their multiple identities (race, gender, sexual orientation, class, impairment/disability, age, language, religion, and region). Experiential learning activities provide readers an opportunity to connect the concept they learned to their lived experience which allows them to be aware of their inner experiences. The chapter provides readers to experience the consequences of transformation which is the dialectical unity which is experiencing the unity of opposites internally (Friedman, 2022). This means paying attention to inner experiences mindfully without assumptions, expectations, or anticipation.