Running head: Identity Development in Public Schools

Identity Development in Public Schools

Identity Development in Schools

One of the biggest developmental tasks an adolescent must face is the formation of his or
her own identity. As an adolescents development continues, he or she continues to advance
biologically through puberty, cognitively as they acquire formal-abstract reasoning, and socially
through peer interactions and re-negotiations with ones parents. As this happens, questions such
as Who am I?, What do I want to accomplish?, and What is my place in the world? begin
to surface and become regular, seemingly unanswerable questions in the adolescents mind
(Crocetti, Erentait, & ukauskien, 2014). Identity formation being as important as it is for
finding ones place in the world and setting life goals and morals, one begins to wonder how we
can promote and influence this abstract but ultimately necessary part of an individuals
development. Probably the most influential environment for an adolescents development is in
fact the school setting, which brings up the question whether or not schools should attempt to
incorporate a promotion of students identity development into the curriculum. If identity
development is promoted through the school curriculum, it would create a healthy, strong sense
of identity in students. In the end, the school environment is the most effective place to
incorporate a promotion of identity development, and it should be put into the students
curriculum in order to provide for the students the best possible platform on which they can find
themselves, forming a solid sense of self and simultaneously producing active, productive
members of society.
Before one gets into the specifics of incorporating identity development into the school
curriculum, one must first understand the fundamental concepts of identity. Identity is essentially
a persons sense of self, which can be influenced both by their environment and their very nature.
Factors such as gender, racial identity, ethnic identity, and perceptions of how one is viewed by

Identity Development in Schools

other in a social setting, among countless others, all contribute to a persons identity. One main
contributor to the collective knowledge of identity development was Markus and his research
that focused primarily on goals, behaviors and the reasons behind these behaviors, and
knowledge of the self. The theories of Markus suggest that identity development starts as early as
infancy, where self-recognition is the first thing that develops. As children continue to age and
mature from infancy, they begin to form a self-concept, which is defined as a concept that is
active and capable of change by including multiple representations of self. This concept of self
develops out of what is called a self-schema. A self-schema is the knowledge of self that comes
from a wide array of different past experiences. When one delves further into Markus theories,
one will find the concepts of possible selves and future selves. A possible self is essentially what
a person can expect to become, would like to become, or avoid becoming. This concept is
essentially the connection of ones present self to ones future self (Windsor, Murrell, & MagunJackson, 2015).
Now that we have defined the basics of identity, we can move on into discussing certain
identity styles. Identity styles are the social-cognitive methods and strategies that people would
rather use in their processing, structuring, utilizing, and revising information that is relevant to
themselves. Three of these identity styles are identified, which include an information-oriented
style, a normative style, and a diffuse-avoidant style. Those of the information-oriented style of
identity generally reflect upon themselves and actively pursue and evaluate what information
they deem to be self-relevant. Information-oriented styled people are also more likely to actively
look into identity alternatives before making any commitments. Individuals who have more of a
normative identity style tend to automatically incorporate prescriptions and values from the
important people in their lives and tend to also conform to their expectations. These adolescents

Identity Development in Schools

therefore will tend to commit their identity in this automatic fashion without exploring other
alternatives. The diffuse-avoidant identity style is characterized by an individuals tendency to
put off exploring and committing to different identities for as long as possible. These individuals
are often too concerned with their desire to build or maintain their reputation or popularity to
fool with exploring potential identities. Research on these three identity styles has found that
they relate strongly to adolescent adjustment, and it has also found that identity styles can
influence an individuals ability to internalize and externalize problem behaviors. In fact,
adolescents with the diffuse-avoidant style have been found to have a wide array of problem
behaviors including conduct and hyperactivity disorder behaviors, delinquency, eating disorders,
depressive symptomatology, neuroticism, and hopelessness (Crocetti, Erentait, & ukauskien,
2014).
Three researchers, Flum, Kaplan, and Sinai, made a trip to a school to see if identity
development incorporated into the school curriculum would be beneficial to the adolescents
involved. An experiment was performed on a sample of students from a high school, in one 9th
grade English class. The study was performed by having students take a poem and replace all of
the descriptive adjectives with their own adjectives, promoting creativity and giving students a
platform on which they can express themselves. In this lesson, students were essentially forced to
reflect on their childhood, pondering whether it was over or partially over. The students were
also brought this idea of identity exploration, and were encouraged by this assignment to
continue this exploration of identity on their own (Flum, Kaplan, Sinai, 2012).
Through different researchers studies and findings, one can quite easily observe that
identity development is a core aspect of an adolescents maturity process. With the public school
environment being most students primary social setting for a majority of their lifespan by the

Identity Development in Schools

time they graduate, it only makes sense that some effort is made by the school system to assist its
students in exploring different possible identities. Through the research study done by Flum,
Kaplan, and Sanai, the impact that just one lesson can have on students abilities to explore
identities and express themselves is reason enough to look further into this. With schools
focusing on identity development, strides can be made to assist students with different identity
styles in becoming the best people they can be, not only worried about their reputation or
popularity, but with most of the emphasis placed on the students themselves. Incorporating
identity development in the school system would not only help the students academically, but it
would help them socially and emotionally, too. On top of this, in a study performed by Crocetti,
Erentait, & ukauskien, it was found that having a strong identity and identity style can also
benefit the community, as well. The school curriculum should guide its students not only to have
the best education possible, but it should also assist the students in being the best people they can
be.

Identity Development in Schools

References
Crocetti, E., Erentait, R., & ukauskien, R. (2014). Identity Styles, Positive Youth
Development, and Civic Engagement in Adolescence. Journal Of Youth & Adolescence,
43(11), 1818-1828 11p. doi:10.1007/s10964-014-0100-4
Flum, H., Kaplan, A., Sinai, M. (2012). Promoting identity exploration within the school
curriculum: A design-based study in a Junior High literature lesson in Israel.
Contemporary Educational Psychology, 37, 195-205 11p.
Windsor, D.L., Murrell, V.S., & Magun-Jackson, S. (2015). Lifespan development: An
educational psychology perspective. Boston, MA: Pearson Learning Solutions.