Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Identity

While reading Identity in Context by Nakkula and Toshalis it spoke about how “our goal is to help educators move beyond an understanding of adolescent identity development and toward constructive ideas for promoting such development through their everyday interactions (pg 17).”
Context mapping is an approach to design in which designers use people’s everyday lives to inform and inspire themselves for ideation.  While thinking about my own context map I had to categorize it by categories such as home, school, work and social. 




Four different identities would be achieved identity, foreclosed identity, moratorium and diffuse identity.  “Foreclosed identity status is one in which an individual has committed to a life direction or way of being without exploring it carefully and without experimenting with alternatives (Nakkula and Toshalis p29)”.  While I was growing up I had a foreclosed identity status when I was choosing what vehicle to drive.  My parents, sisters and relatives have always had a Toyota so when it was time for me to buy a car; I went straight to a Toyota dealership.  No questions asked on the brand of car I was going to get, only idea I pondered was what type.  I went for the Corolla; my new baby and at that point forward I was part of the norm in my family of going with Toyota. 


“Diffuse Identity status is a state in which there has been little exploration or active consideration of a particular identity and no psychological commitment to one” (Nakkula and Toshalis p32).  This is considered to accompany adolescents and how they struggle with emotional problems to identify themselves. 

4 comments:

  1. I liked your example of foreclosed identity because even though it's simply like the baseball example given in the text, it really helps people gain an understanding of what it means.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Melissa,

    I enjoyed reading your post. I like how you attached pictures for your your personal context map. You also gave a good example of your foreclosed identity while growing up. Between, Toyota is the way to go- they will last you forever!

    -Milena

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey Melissa!

    Piggy backing off of what Milena said, I loved how you used actual pictures from your life in you context map.It makes it seem much more personal!

    -Brittany

    ReplyDelete
  4. Melissa, your context map is great. I like that even though you had categories like home, school, work, and social life, you also had sub-identities in there too. You have different names you go by based on where you are. It seems like you have a many positive identities that allow you to pull strengths from different areas. Awesome job!

    ReplyDelete