Identity is the distinctive characteristic that defines an individual or is shared by those belonging to a particular group.
• Identity can also change over the course of a person’s lifetime.
• ==Environment== and ==history== are two of the primary factors that shape the behavior of human groups.
7 CATEGORIES
==NATIONALITY==
• It connotes membership of a person, in the country, ==describing his/her connection with the political state.==
• Basis of identification for nationality is by ==birth== or ==inheritance.==
==Citizenship== is granted to an individual by the government
of the country, when he/she complies with the legal
formalities.
==By birth==
– it is either jus soli or jus sanguinis.
==By naturalization== – the process of becoming or making someone a citizen of a country that they were not born in.
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==ETHNICITY==
• It refers to the person’s identity in relation to the social, cultural or religious group.
• Bases of identification for ethnicity are through language, religion, culture, race, etc.
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==GENDER==
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==SOCIOECONOMIC CLASS==
It refers to the category of persons who have more or less the same socioeconomic privileges in a society.
• The types of social class/status operate in varying forces and combinations at different times within a society or in diverse societies.
==Upper class==
– they are considered the most productive in terms of resource
generation and oftentimes very successful in their respective fields of
interests and endeavors. The elite has two general types: ==the new
rich/nouveau riche== and ==the old rich/traditional== upper class.
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==Middle class== – composed of small business and industry operators mostly owners and managers, professionals, office workers, and farm owners with income sufficient enough to provide a comfortable and decent living.
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==Lower class== - are the farm employees, skilled and unskilled artisans, service workers, and people who may be unemployed or underemployed or those who belong to indigent families or informal sectors.
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==RELIGION==
• It refers to an organized system of ideas about the spiritual sphere or the supernatural, along with associated ceremonial or ritualistic practices by which people try to interpret and/or influence aspects of the universe otherwise beyond human control.
• Today, religion has evolved to promote far complex forms of understanding human nature, the afterlife, and natural events.
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– belief that the nature and existence of gods is unknown and inherently unknowable due to the nature of subjective experience.
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==POLITICAL IDENTITY==
• It refers to the set of ==attitudes and practices that an individual adheres to in relation to the political systems== and actors within his or her society.
• In a more rigid context, an individual can acquire political identity by subscribing to a political belief such as ==communism, democracy, or socialism.==
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==EXCEPTIONALITY==
• It refers to the ==state of being intellectually gifted and/or having physically or mentally challenged conditions== concerning personality/behavior, communication, intellect, physical appearance, or a combination of more than one specific exceptionality or disability.
• This could be ==understood in a spectrum of capabilities==, wherein you have the geniuses in one extreme and you have the disabled and challenged in the other extreme.
• Issues relating to this can range from having fewer employment opportunities due to being physically disabled to not reaching one’s full capacity due to the lack of advanced mechanisms to support an exceptional talent.
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==CULTURAL VARIATION==
==Ethnocentrism== - is a perspective that ==promotes an individual’s culture as the most efficient and superior==; hence the individual who exhibits ethnocentrism feels that his or her culture is the most appropriate as compared with other cultures.
• ==Cultural relativism== promotes the perspective that ==cultures must be understood in the context of their locality==