Identity-Bearing Signifiers and Beliefs – Can You Identify With This?

All of us have ways which we think about ourselves and how we participate in the world.  We are a good friend because we listen and keep confidences.  We are smart because we have successfully completed post-secondary education.  We are charitable because we contribute to the United Way through payroll deduction.  We are creative because we are left-handed.  And so on.  Identity is within us and surrounds us.  We talk about it in pop culture, such as in movies when a person needs to create a new identity to avoid some type of persecution, to denouncing a female pop star we see as promiscuous because we can’t identify with her.  We put our identity on display for others when we carry particular types of identification in our wallets.  A Gold Card identifies we are professionally successful, a gym membership card identifies we are fit and healthy. 

            Bracher describes the ways in which we think about ourselves, our attributes, and our beliefs as our identity-bearing signifiers.  He states

“…identity-bearing signifiers embody socially valued ideals and attributes that we strive either to enact or to avoid embodying in our behavior.  Our identity depends, first, on the integrity and status of such master signifiers and, second, on our assurance that we actually embody these signifiers” (2006, p. 18).

In other words, we determine as individuals what personal characteristics are valued by the society we live in and then focus on modeling our behavior to be viewed as representing these characteristics.  The construction of identity is more complex but this is a simplified way of explaining the concept.

            People talk about identity as if it is well understood and a self-evident notion arising from personal experiences.  In a course I completed last winter I wrote a paper on professional identity construct and the role of formal education in becoming a teacher.  In doing research I was surprised that is was difficult to find a clear definition of identity.  I did find a few definitions that captured the idea well.  In an article by Sfard and Prusak they described identity as collections of stories about persons, or more specifically, as those narratives about individuals that are reifying, endorsable, and significant (2005, p. 16). I liked this definition because of its reference to stories and narratives as I always find myself wondering what a person’s story is.  I can see now the similarity to Bracher in his description of narratives as diachronic systems of meaning (2006, p. 17).  Another definition which I quoted was in a 2008 study by Horn, Nolen, Ward and Campbell, who defined identity as the way a person understands and views himself, and is often viewed by others, at least in certain situations – a perception of self that can be fairly constantly achieved (p. 62).  Again there seems to be a tie to the work of Bracher and his description of self-perception as our identity-bearing signifiers.  In a 2008 paper by Olsen, he described identity as a continuum rather than, discrete linear parts (p. 23).  I can relate to identity in this description because our life experiences are impacting and causing changes to the way we see ourselves in different situations on an ongoing basis. 

            In terms of learning, Bracher describes ability or failure to learn as partially motivated by the need to maintain one’s identity-bearing signifiers (2006, p.18).  In post-secondary education examples of this are evident.  In the first book we reviewed this term by Tomasello, I found myself wondering if there were students in the class who might have difficulty in reading the book because of a belief in divine creation.  Would they have trouble identifying with the material because they deny evidence of evolution?  Bracher discusses this as an instance where learning can be undermined because the knowledge being discussed is divergent from a person’s core beliefs and therefore triggers resistance to consider it.  Additionally, I think of friends who have chosen to pursue a career path because they perceived the profession to be something they identified with.  In some cases they were right and excelled in their program of choice because their identity-bearing signifiers and beliefs were congruent with that of the profession.  In another instance, one friend was in the initial stages of a dentistry program when they decided that they could not deal with having to cause pain to others in the course of their work.  They just could not identify with this part of the job; they were not a person that caused others to feel pain.  Bracher (2006) describes a degree of identity destabilization as almost inevitable in university students.  The ability of students to be comfortable enough with their own identity to allow pursuit and exploration of belief-threatening information is important to development of critical thinking skills.  This doesn’t mean that core beliefs will always be changed but being open to questioning and exploring alternatives allows for new knowledge and better understanding of yourself and others.  I liken this point to the idea of being comfortable in your own skin.  If you know who you are and why you are who you are, it becomes easier to open yourself to considering new meanings.  I think this is what being a lifelong learner is all about.

References:

Bracher, M. (2006). Radical pedagogy: Identity, generativity, and social transformation, New York,  N.Y. : Palgrave MacMillan.

Horn, I.S., Nolen, S.B., Ward, C. & Campbell, S.S. (2008). Developing practices in multiple worlds: the role of identity in learning to teach. Teacher Education Quarterly, 2, 61-72.

Olsen, B. (2008). How reasons for entry into the profession illuminate teacher identity development. Teacher Education Quarterly, 2, 23-40.

Sfard, A. & Prusak, A. (2005). Telling identities: in search of an analytic tool for investigating learning as a culturally shaped activity. Educational Researcher, 34(4), 14-22.