Theories of Identity – Psychology and Childhood Studies

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about the question of identity is theories in psychology and childhood studies, respectively, focusing in particular on: (i) the separateness of childhood studies and psychology as academic disciplines; (ii) the idea that humans are hardwired to favour people who are 'like them' and to disfavour people who are 'not like them', and some of the issues with this statement – how do people find themselves as part of an 'us' in the first place?; (iii) Henri Tajfel and the minimum conditions experiment, which found that people are willing to form strong group identities on the basis of ostensibly trivial criteria (e.g. whether you prefer the paintings of Kandinsky or Klee); and (iv) the question of what structures are in place to encourage some identities and make others more difficult if not impossible.

About the lecturer

Professor Karen Wells is Professor of Human Geography at Birkbeck, University of London. Her research is focused on childhood studies, particularly the formation of childhood and the impact of inequality on children’s lives. She is author of The Visual Cultures of Childhood (2020), Childhood Studies: Making Young Subjects (2017), and Childhood in Global Perspective (2014).