FIRST DRAFT

It's quite obvious to common-sense that humans aren't born with an innate sense of identity as there is no influence or process in the womb that would confer one, nor is there the need for one. Any needs, such as obtaining nutrition or evacuating waste are carried out instantaneously and automatically. any interaction between mother and child, or even child and twin sharing the womb, is non-direct and inconsequential to the sense of the unborn child's existence.

This sans-identity state continues for some time after birth, when needs such as food, becoming warmer or colder, to be cleaned etc. are communicated bu the child by crying and appear to be magically met. It's sometime after physical birth with the ending of 'infantile omnipotence', a realisaation that needs aren't being magically met but are actually being provided by (usually) the mother and this is a person which exists separately from the child. Thus the birth of the child's ego is the understanding that it exists as a separate being in the world and has a relationship to another separately existing identity. Now, throughout the course of the child's entire life its multifaceted and ever-changing identity will be about its relationships to the separately existing and ever-0changing individual and collective identities which populate its human experience. Yet this initial relationship with the mother is deeply formative in establishing identity and motivation throughout the ensuing life. A fact which forms the backbone of the work of Sigmund Freud.

Freud's work, and the resultant social theory of psychoanalysis explains the continuation of the child's identity after the initiating stage of realising a seperate existence, of 'identification', a growing child develops an understanding of how it is separate and different from the parent and also begins to understand that is is more similar to one of two parents in triangle based on gender, and 'takes into' itself the idea of gender of that parent and this identification will further define its place in the world.

According to Freud, the parental relationship has a lasting effect on identity depending on how well the child's needs e met results in an optimistic or pessimistic adult. A large part of Freud's ideas revolve around the concept of the unconscious. Children repress all their anti-social needs (Woodward 2000???) which become the unconscious. These repressed needs still exist as a forgotten part of the mind and has an unconscious effect on adult behavior, which suggests that childhood upbringing imposed on children by the parents becomes a kind of lifelong structuree on ensuigault ideentity and behaviours although Freud's ideas also accommodate the ideas that both the ego and the uncoscious are neverfixed, but are cvhangig ad dynamic processes, to whih we can transform by bringing to light unconscious, forgotten mterial by various means, such as creativity, dream interpretation and therapy.

Another social theory of identity is the dramagaturgical roles we consciously adopt as described in Goffman's The ????????? of self in everyday life (1959). The idea that identities are roles we consciously adopt suggests more individual agency than does Freud's ideas though structure still exists in that each pre-written identity-role has a pre-written script which defines it. The same person may play 'London policeman' for a 9-5 job and secretly the role of 'effeminate homosexual' in seedy bars each evening will result in a P45.

The first structure on the construction of identity to be considered in this essay is race. The foundation of early identity with a parent would generally occur regardless of a child's race. Even if the parents were of mixed race, this would only become significant tot the construction of a racial identity due to relationships outside the home, with the realisation that a child's sense of separately existing is also linked to race and ethnicity; either you are the same colour as the majority of society or you are not (race) and that different racial groups have different ways of doing things (ethnicity). [EXPAND DEFINITION] and that one group tends to have more resources than another and sometimes tries to deliberate reinforce this position (racism).

The exact point (or gradual process) when a child adopts a racial identity and how this is specifically reinforced is difficult to say. My own experience as a Eurasian would be early experience of racism (public name calling) reinforces a sense of collective identity separate from the ethnic majority, different treatment and expectation of teachers (expecting Asians to be good and bad at certain things and (at that time)) to be of a generally passive disposition and different food and cultural practice again have the effect of reinforcing collective difference of Asian ethnicity.

As an ethnic minority, a racial identity is ascribed to you through the relationships of people around you, though as individuals we have agency over our reactions, which leads onto (and links to) the second structural influence of the essay, schooling. I experienced racism in a state school where there was a sizable Asian population and was (eventually) interpellated (recruited) into an Asian identity. Whereas my much older brother and sister went to an almost all-white private school of more upper-class Caucasian majority, and have ended up wholly rejecting our Asian roots and culture and both strongly follow English culture to the point of making racist jokes and denying that they are anything than English born and bred. This reaction highlights the findings of a study by Osuwa-benpah (2001) that non-white people growing up separated from the wider ethnic community haver a marginalised identity which my siblings wholly rejected. It also points to the conflicts caused by the difference between how we see ourselves and how others see us (Woodward 2002).

And this leads us to the essays last choice of structural influence on identity, the place within the United Kingdom a person is born. This again intersects to race as Os?????-Beenpah (????), and also Scourfielf et al (2002) who, in s study, interviewed non-white children and their families living in an almost all white South wales valleys found increased racism and racist graffiti. The same study illustrated how maladjustive behavior of such children in t6hese areas was improved when the given therapy given as based on thee assumption that the problem was based on race identity issues, even if this had not been considered relevant in past interventions.

various other studies have also highlighted the different experience for non-white children in such areas. Pugh (2001) found a general assumption that racism only occurs in ethnically diverse areas. DeLima (1999) found that people in almost all white areas try to defend the areas good name when race crimes occour rather than tarry and address the problem. Hewitt (1996) found the existence of a white, racist youth culture caused by 'shoddy' reporting concerning asylum seekers. Chandra (1996) fould little evidence of 'culturally competant organisations' that worked to value diversity. All of these factors occouring away from metropolitan areas serve to reinforce an 'other' identity to non-whites leading to a strengthening or rejecting of ethnic identity.

This essay shows how the various identities that we all hold are not only multiple and fluid, but the influences varied and intermeshed. After the ????

Part B

The work of Snow and Anderson (1987) focused on interviewing homeless people and studying 'identity talk patterns' (the casual use of the words 'I' 'me' 'us' and 'them') found a distinctly existing 'homeless identity' that people without a permanent address may have accepted or be striving to reject, despite their homeless circumstances. They also found that the longer a person exists without a permanent address the more likely they were to accept this identity.

In Britain, the 1996 H0omelessness Act defines homelessness as either a person either having no home to occupy, a home that's unreasonable to occupy, unable to secure entry to a home or living in a movable structure with no permanent place to put it. This constitutes a legal definition of homelessness, as opposed to being functionally homeless (hidden homeless) in other ways such as rough sleepers, people in bed and breakfast, squatters, living with unwilling friends and relatives.

SECOND DRAFT

Question A: Outline and describe three structural influences on identity.

This essay will explore three structural influences on identity by first examining what identity is, its conception and development in the human mind, and then briefly summarizing the social theories of Frued, Goffman and ?????. In the light of these theories, the three structural influences covered are race, schooling and UK regionality, and their intersections.

Humans are obviously without an identity before birth as there is neither the need, nor the means to confer one. Even after birth, all needs seem to be instantly satiated by magic and a face which seems to appear and disappear as a new born doesn't even have thderstanding that things out of sight still persist (object persistence).. This state of infantile omnipotence ends with the child's comprehension that needs are actually being met by another being to which it exists separately and to which it has a relationship. This relationship marks the birth of the ego identity and although throughout the child's life their ever-changing identity will be multi-faceted, and both individual and collective, this initial relationship with (usually) the mother will be deeply formative in developing the identity and motivation, a fact which forms the backbone of the work of Sigmund Freud.

Freud's work, and the resultant social theory of psychoanalysis explains the continuation of the child's identity after the initiating stage of realising a separate existence, of 'identification', a growing child develops an understanding of how it is separate and different from the parent and also begins to understand that is is more similar to one of two parents in triangle based on gender, and 'takes into' itself the idea of gender of that parent and this identification will further define its place in the world.

According to Freud, the parental relationship has a lasting effect on identity depending on how well the child's needs are met results in an optimistic or pessimistic adult. A large part of Freud's ideas revolve around the concept of the unconscious. Children repress all their anti-social needs (Woodward 2000???) which become the unconscious. These repressed needs still exist as a forgotten part of the mind and has an unconscious effect on adult behavior, which suggests that childhood upbringing imposed on children by the parents becomes a kind of lifelong structure on ensuing identity and behaviours, although Freud's ideas also accommodate the ideas that both the ego and the unconscious are never fixed, but are changing ad dynamic processes, which we can transform by bringing to light unconscious, forgotten material by various means, such as creativity, dream interpretation and therapy, thus increasing an individual's agency.

Another social theory of identity is the dramagaturgical roles we consciously adopt as described in Goffman's The ????????? of self in everyday life (1959). The idea that identities are roles we, consciously and unconsciously, adopt suggests more individual agency than does Freud's ideas, though structure still exists in that each identity-role has a pre-written script which defines it, and we may sometimes adopt roles based on unconscious motivations or identifications or choose roles according to unresolved childhood issues, which would lesson agency.

The first structural influence on identity to be considered in this essay is race. The foundation of early identification with a parent would generally occur regardless of a child's race. Even if the parents were of mixed race, this would only become significant to the construction of a racial identity due to relationships outside the home, with the realisation that a child's sense of separately existing is also linked to race and ethnicity; either you are the same colour as the majority of society or you are not (race) and that different racial groups have different ways of doing things (ethnicity) and that one group tends to have more resources than another and sometimes tries to deliberate reinforce this position (racism).

The exact point (or gradual process) when a child adopts a racial identity and how this is specifically reinforced is difficult to say. My own experience as a Eurasian would be early experience of racism (public name calling) reinforces a sense of collective identity separate from the ethnic majority, different treatment and expectation of teachers (expecting Asians to be good and bad at certain things and (at that time)) to be of a generally passive disposition, and different food and cultural practice again have the effect of reinforcing collective difference of Asian ethnicity.

[STUDY:RACIAL EXPETATION IN EDUCATORS, AND ACHIEVENT][ADD DIFFERENT TYPES OF RACISM STUDY]

A racial identity is ascribed through the relationships of people around one, though as individuals we have agency over our reactions, which leads onto the second structural influence of the essay, schooling. I personally experienced racism in a state school where there was a sizable Asian population and was (eventually) interpellated (recruited) into an Asian identity, identifying with people around me experiencing the same situation. Whereas my much older brother and sister went to an almost all-white private school of more upper-class Caucasian majority, and have ended up wholly rejecting our Asian roots and culture and both strongly follow English culture to the point of making racist jokes to distance themselves from Asian ethnicity and denying that they are anything than English 'born and bred'. This reaction highlights the findings of a study by Osuwa-benpah (2001) that non-white people growing up separated from the wider ethnic community haver a marginalised identity which my siblings wholly rejected. It also points to the conflicts caused by the difference between how we see ourselves and how others see us (Woodward 2002).

And this leads us to the essays last choice of structural influence on identity, the place within the United Kingdom a person is born. This again intersects to race as a study by Scourfield et al (2002), in a study, interviewed non-white children and their families living in an almost all white South Wales Valleys found increased racism and racist graffit which increased racial hegemony as non-whites felt a stronger identification with people experiencing the same marginalising behaviour . The same study illustrated how maladjustive behavior of such children in these areas was improved when the given therapy given as based on thee asumption that the problem was based on race identity issues, even if this had not been considered in past unsuccessful interventions.

Various other studies have also highlighted the different experience for non-white children in such areas. Pugh (2001) found a general assumption that racism only occurs in ethnically diverse areas. DeLima (1999) found that people in almost all white areas try to defend the areas good name when race crimes occour rather than try and address the problem. Hewitt (1996) found the existence of a white, racist youth culture caused by 'shoddy' reporting concerning asylum seekers. Chandra (1996) fould little evidence of 'culturally competent organisations' that worked to value diversity. All of these factors occouring away from more ethicnally diverse metropolitan areas serve to reinforce an 'other' identity in non-whites leading to a strengthening or rejecting of ethnic identity.

This all amounts to a structural influence in the lives of non-white children as they didn't exercise agency in choosing to live in these areas, but it could also be considered a structural influence in their parents' lives who did have the agency to choose where to live but didn't have control over the racism which existed there.

[CLASS IDENTITY STUDIES AND RACISM] POVERTY HOMOGONISING, POOR HAVE LESS DIFFERENCE. MAX AND WEBER. TAKEN NOTES. MY ARGUMENT THAT HEGEMONY IS ACHIEVED FOR ASIAANS TIES WITH MARX'S IDEAS OF HEGEMONY.

This essay shows how the various identities that we all hold are not only multiple and fluid, but the influences varied and intermeshed. After the ????

word Count 1413

Question B: With reference to an occupation or social role of your choice, show how individual agency and structural influences interact or link.

In Britain, the 1996 Homelessness Act defines homelessness as either a person either having no home to occupy, a home that's unreasonable to occupy, unable to secure entry to a home or living in a movable structure with no permanent place to put it. This constitutes a legal definition of homelessness, as opposed to being functionally homeless (hidden homeless) in other ways such as rough sleepers, people in bed and breakfast, squatters, living with unwilling friends and relatives etc [CHECK OK TO USE ETC]

The work of Snow and Anderson (1987) focused on interviewing homeless people and studying 'identity talk patterns' (the casual use of the words 'I' 'me' 'us' and 'them') and found a distinctly existing 'homeless identity' that people without a permanent address may have accepted or be striving to reject, despite their homeless circumstances. They also found that the longer a person exists without a permanent address the more likely they were to accept this identity. Mouffe (1994), Sarup (1994) and Tierney (2000) found that identity is relational and changing and so people can (and do) take on a homeless identity for a while, sometimes by choice, and sometimes as a structural necessity for being legally classified as homeless and receiving state assistance. Even without this necessity a person may take on this identity as Sommerville (1992) found 'The cultural milieu of life on the streets becomes a means of redefining the home' and that homeless people feel a connection with other people experiencing the same hardship, which is similar to Marx's ideas to the growth of hegemony in class consciousness. Though Snow and Anderson (1987) [multiple] found that a homeless identity was associated with being worthless and unwanted.

So, to be homeless is generally considered to be a negative state and may or may not carry with it an identity. The next step is to consider the amount of structure and agency around the situation. Few people directly choose to be without a home except traditional Romanies who are statutory homeless as they choose not to put their movable structures in a single place, but are bound by the structure of the law – and are forced to be in one place. Being Romany is a structure as one is born into that culture, and can exercise the agency of staying within it, compared to New Age Travelers, who have wholly chosen the nomadic lifestyle but are still bound by the structure of the law, and the need to procure an income despite having tried to reject a consumerist lifestyle. Neither of these groups would consider themselves 'homeless'.

The more popular understanding of homelessness occours without direct choice, in the situations described in the homelessness act. Many people experiencing statutory homelessness have a secondary factor, such as mental illness, having been released from prison with nowhere to go, addiction issues etc. In one sense, this is a factor of individual agency in their homeless situation. No one asked an ex-prisoner to break the law or a heroin addict to take drugs. But structure could be considered a factor in the light of Freud's ideas, considering what unconscious motivation from unresolved past trauma would inspire the behaviour in a person that causes them to break the law or need to use chemicals to escape from anxiety. Possibly people can be interpellated or recruited by peer pressure into drug addiction or to identify with the outsider image of criminals and be recruited into this role. Perhaps a person initially takes drugs after taking on a role/script of a rebel to distance themselves from very controlling parents, though they possibly could have chosen a different path to independence, there might not have been the life-experience to know what it was. All of these factors suggest that an individual's conscious and unconscious agency in taking an identity which ultimately can result in becoming homeless.

Of course, there are always structural influences. Mental illness can be due to past influences, but also has a genetic component which no one chooses. The society-given label and definition of what is mental illness (which varies over time and between cultures) is also imposed without the individual's choice.

Concerning homelessness, collective agency occours by charities of concerned individuals rather than by homeless people themselves BIG ISSUE. to bring change in a government where the thinking is to cure 'socially deficient others' in need of 'expert' intervention (Wright 1997).

Third Draft

Question A: Outline and describe three structural influences on identity.

This essay will explore three structural influences on identity by first examining what identity is, its conception and development in the mind, and then briefly summarize the social theories of Freud, Goffman and Mead. In the light of these theories, the three structural influences covered are race, schooling and UK regionality, and their intersections.

*54*54*

Humans are obviously without an identity before birth as there is neither the need, nor the means to confer one. Even after birth, all needs seem to be instantly satiated by magic and a face which seems to appear and disappear as a new born doesn't even have the understanding that things out of sight still persist (object persistence). This state of infantile omnipotence ends with the child's comprehension that needs are actually being met by another being to which it exists separately and to which it has a relationship. This relationship marks the birth of the ego identity and although throughout the child's life their ever-changing identity will be multi-faceted, and both individual and collective, this initial relationship with (usually) the mother will be deeply formative in developing the identity and motivation, a fact which forms the backbone of the work of Sigmund Freud.

*147*201*

Freud's work, and the resultant social theory of psychoanalysis explains the continuation of the child's identity after the initiating stage of realising a separate existence, of 'identification', a growing child develops an understanding of how it is separate and different from the primary parent and also begins to understand that is is more similar to one of two parents in triangle based on gender, then 'takes into' itself the idea of gender of that parent and this identification will further define its place in the world.

*86*287*

A large part of Freud's ideas revolve around the concept of the unconscious. Children repress all their anti-social needs from the conscious mind. These repressed needs still exist as a forgotten part of the mind and has an unconscious effect on adult behavior, which suggests that childhood upbringing imposed on children by the parents becomes a kind of lifelong structure on ensuing identity and behaviours, although Freud's ideas also accommodate the idea that both the ego and the unconscious are never fixed, but are changing and dynamic processes, whichcan be transformed by bringing to light unconscious, forgotten material by various means, such as creativity, dream interpretation and therapy, thus increasing an individual's agency.

*114*401*

*53*454*

Another social theory of identity is the dramaturgical roles we consciously adopt as described in Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959). The idea that identities are roles we, consciously and unconsciously, adopt suggests more individual agency than does Freud's ideas, though structure still exists in that each identity-role has a pre-written script which defines it, and we may sometimes adopt roles based on unconscious motivations or identifications or choose roles according to unresolved childhood issues, which would lesson agency.

*84*538*

*121*659*

The exact point (or gradual process) when a child adopts a racial identity and how this is specifically reinforced is difficult to say. My own experience as a Eurasian would be early experience of racism (public name calling) reinforces a sense of collective identity separate from the ethnic majority, different treatment and expectation of teachers (expecting Asians to be good and bad at certain things and (at that time)) to be of a generally passive disposition, and different food and cultural practice again have the effect of reinforcing collective difference of Asian ethnicity. These examples were structural influences in my childdhood as I didn't choose my race nor the treatment I sometimes received because of it; though people's reactions because of it have partly defined how I feel about my place in the world.

[STUDY:RACIAL EXPETATION IN EDUCATORS, AND ACHIEVENT][ADD DIFFERENT TYPES OF RACISM STUDY. ?MY SIBLING'S AGENCY]

*134*793*

Of course, schooling plays a role in the formation of everyones identity, not just concerning race. The expectation and interpretation of my abilities because of my race can also be applied to gender as Murphy and Elwood (1998: p102) found that girls' lack of confidence in certain subjects was interpreted by educators as lack of ability, and the resultant lack of encouragement leads to girls to underrate their ability (Joffe and Foxman 1998), this becomes a belief about themselves and a part of their identity. From these two examples of race and gender, it could be conferred that schooling often serves to reinforce identity based on teachers judgments and expectations on a whole range of identities

*116*909*

And this leads us to the essays last choice of structural influence on identity, the place within the United Kingdom a person is born. This again intersects to race as a study by Scourfield et al (2002), in a study, interviewed non-white children and their families living in an almost all white South Wales Valleys found increased racism and racist graffit which increased racial hegemony as non-whites felt a stronger identification with people experiencing the same marginalising behaviour . The same study illustrated how maladjustive behavior of such children in these areas was improved when the given therapy given as based on thee assumption that the problem was based on race identity issues, even if this had not been considered in past unsuccessful interventions.

*125*1034*

*120*1154*

*59*1213*

Of course, where you are born in the United Kingdom helps to define identity not only in terms of race. Ludwig (1938) found how key industries in the North were, at the time, being sourced overseas, leading to the north of England becoming relatively impoverished, and this unequal allocation of resources strengthened the north-south divide. If the United Kingdom consisted of one small tribe of one hundred people, then wherever they chose to settle wouldn't have an influence on their collective identity. To consider regionality a structural influence on identity, the issue is really about class and wealth distribution, and how these factors vary within the UK geographically. Even if Pakulski and Waters (1996) are right (debatable) that 'class is dead' there are still regional differences within the UK, such as accents, attitudes, outlooks, that combine with income, reactions from people outside the region aascribing their assumptions, that serve to reinforce a feeling of being 'other' to people who don't have the southern, middle-class 'majority' identity off the British portrayed as norm on British media, causing people in the regionalities ti identify with the local culture and to recognise the same sense of 'other' in the people around them. Thus it might be argued that regionalism has the cause of exclusion and is also an extension of class consciousness in the Marxist sennse of the word.

MENTION FOOD AND FOOTBALL TEAMS.

*228*1441*

The definition of UK regionalism as class can be better understood in terms of Weberian sociology, as a population from a certain UK area have certain interests in common, their market position, similar consumption patterns, identify with each other through similar 'other' (non-media focused) accents and through regional cultural practices, such as football matches, all serve to increase the regional hegemony as society ascribes different (often less) prestige on non-majority regional groups..

*74*1515* INTERPELLATION IS 'HEY YOU'

[CLASS IDENTITY STUDIES AND RACISM] POVERTY HOMOGONISING, POOR HAVE LESS DIFFERENCE. MAX AND WEBER. TAKEN NOTES. MY ARGUMENT THAT HEGEMONY IS ACHIEVED FOR ASIAANS TIES WITH MARX'S IDEAS OF HEGEMONY.

This essay shows how the various identities that we all hold are not only multiple and fluid, but the influences varied and intermeshed. After the ????

word Count 1413

Question B: With reference to an occupation or social role of your choice, show how individual agency and structural influences interact or link.

*79*79*

The work of Snow and Anderson (1987) focused on interviewing homeless people and studying 'identity talk patterns' (the casual use of the words 'I' 'me' 'us' and 'them') and found a distinctly existing 'homeless identity' that people without a permanent address may have accepted or be striving to reject, despite their homeless circumstances. They also found that the longer a person exists without a permanent address the more likely they were to accept this identity. Mouffe (1994) and Tierney (2000) found that identity is relational and changing and so people can (and do) take on a homeless identity for a while, sometimes by choice, and sometimes as a structural necessity for being legally classified as homeless and receiving state assistance. Even without this necessity a person may take on this identity as Sommerville (1992) found 'The cultural milieu of life on the streets becomes a means of redefining the home' and that homeless people feel a connection with other people experiencing the same hardship, which is similar to Marx's ideas to the growth of hegemony in class consciousness. Though Snow and Anderson (1987) [multiple] found that a homeless identity was associated with being worthless and unwanted.

*198*277*

So, to be homeless is generally considered to be a negative state and may or may not carry with it an identity. The next step is to consider the amount of structure and agency around the situation. Few people directly choose to be without a home except traditional Romanies who are statutory homeless as they choose not to put their movable structures in a single place, but are bound by the structure of the law – and are forced to be in one place. Being Romany is a structure as one is born into that culture, and can exercise the agency of staying within it, compared to the New Age Travelers (a largely 1980's phenomenon), comprised of people who have wholly chosen the nomadic lifestyle but are still bound by the structure of the law, and the need to procure an income despite having tried to reject a consumerist lifestyle. Neither of these groups would consider themselves 'homeless'.

*158*435*

STUDIES: DRUGS AND PEER PRESSURE, THE ONE ALREADY HAVE.

MENTAL ILLNESS AND CAUSES, GENES.

*215*650*

*50*650*

In individuals without factors predisposing them to homelessness there are many structural influences such as poverty, housing policies, the need to pay advance bonds to commence renting leading to a homelessness trap, exist. Once trapped in homelessness, collective agency is rare as homelessness is a temporary role/identity which carries a sense of shame, as something that people seek to eradicate, rather than a permanent identity that homeless people of varied and diversity,with and without predisposing factors rarely come together to improve their lot so the improvement as described in social identity theory as happened with black people for example, doesn't occour. Unlike, for example, the way that people with disabilities have changed social and individual expectations (Bernstein and Croft 1995), campaigns of this kind would require people to adopt a homeless label which many, despite possibly having a homeless identity, would not wish to do as the label would imply permanence. The successful goal of most homeless people is not to improve the image of homeless people in the eyes of the non-homeless majority but to eradicate their homeless state and thus identity. Collective agency occours by charities of concerned individuals rather than by homeless people themselves. to bring change in a government where the thinking is to cure 'socially deficient others' in need of 'expert' intervention (Wright 1997).

*222*872*

This essay shows the complex blend of structure and agency which exists around any sociological issue. To be a homeless person, for whatever reason, is never wholly a result of structure or agency. If it is never possible to be sure of the motivations that lead to certain individuals being predisposed to becoming homeless such as addiction or criminality. In cases of voluntary homelessness, such as Roma people for example (many of whom now stay in one place), there is still the structure of being born into that culture. Even in the case of people become without an address to reject consumerist culture, there is still the structure of living within a consumerist culture, having the agency to reject it, and then be bound by the structure of property law and the need to fulfil basic needs. The only firm conclusion about structure and agency is that, in all issues, they are always in a complex interplay.

*157*1029*

References

Chandra, J. (1996) Facing Up to Difference. London. Kings Fund.

De Lima, P. (1999) Research and action in the Scottish Highlands. In: Rural Racism in the UK: Examples of Community Based Responses (eds P Henderson & R Kaur) pp. 33-43. London. Community Development Foundation.

Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, New York, Doubleday Anchor.

Hewitt, R. (1996) Routes of Racism. Stoke on Trent. Trentham Books.

Joffe, L. and Foxman, D. (1998) Attitudes and Gender Differences, Slough, NFER/Nelson.

Mouffe, C. (1994). For a politics of nomadic. In: Robertson, G., Mash, M., Tickner L., Bird, J., Curtis, B., and Putnam, T. (eds), Travellers Tales Narratives of Home and Displacement. PP 105-113. London. Routledge.

Murphy, P. and Elwood, J. (1998) 'Gendered experiences, choices and achievements – exploring the links', Journal of Inclusive Education, Vol. 2, no.2, pp.95-118.

Pakulski, J. and Waters, M. (1996) The Death of Class, London, Sage.

Pugh, R (2001) Rural Social Work, Lyme Regis. Russell House.

Scourfield, J., Evans, J., Shah, W. and Beynon, H. (2002). Responding to the experiences of minority ethnic children in virtually all white communities. Child and Family Social Work. 7 pp 161-175 Cardiff. Cardiff University School of Social Sciences/Blackwell Science Limited.

Snow, D., and Anderson, L. (1987). Identity work amoung the homeless: the verbal construction and avowal of personal identities. USA. American Journal of Sociology.

Somerville, P. (1992). Homelessness and the meaning of home: rooflessness and rootlessness. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 16. PP 529-539.

Tierney, W. (2000) Undaunted courage, life history and the postmodern challenge. In: Denzin N., and Lincoln, Y. (eds) handbook of Qualitative Research. pp 537-553. USA. Sage.

Wright, T. (1997) Out of Place. Homeless mobilizations, subcities and contested. P6. New York. State University of New York.

Fourth Draft

DD121

PI:X9337464

TMA02

Question A: Outline and describe three structural influences on identity.

Identity is about the idea of one's place in the world, thus it is ultimately about relationships. To a newborn sans-identity, needs appear to be magically fulfilled, later, realising that this isn't actually the case, the identity commences to define the child's place in relation to (usually) the mother. Although throughout life the identity will be ever-changing, multifaceted, individual and collective, this initial relationship will be deeply formative, a fact which forms the basis of the work of Sigmund Freud and the resultant social theory of psychoanalysis. Children sacrifice antisocial needs for the sake of early relationships, but these needs still exist unconsciously, possibly forming a lifelong structure on identity and motivation, though Freud's ideas still allow for the agency of bringing to light these unconscious motivations by means such as therapy and creativity.

Other social theories of identity tend to focus less on childhood. For example, the ability of the human mind to imagine how others see us is central to Mead's (1934) ideas. People construct and regulate their identity by considering how the individual sense of self is linked to the social world by imagining ourselves through symbols (symbolizing). Another social theory of identity concerns the dramaturgical roles we consciously adopt as described in Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959). The idea that identities are roles we, consciously and unconsciously, adopt suggests more individual agency than do Freud's ideas, though structure still exists in that each identity-role has a pre-written script which defines it, and we may sometimes adopt roles based on unconscious motivations or identifications, or choose roles according to unresolved childhood issues or present necessities such as having to earn a living, which would lesson agency.

The first structural influence on identity to be considered in this essay is race. The foundation of early identification with a parent would generally occur regardless of a child's race. Even if the parents were of mixed race, this would only become significant to the construction of a racial identity due to relationships outside the home, with the realisation that the sense of self must now be defined in the light of new relationships, some of them with people of a different colour (race), culture (ethnicity) and sometimes a dominance of these two factors being reinforced (racism). The relationships that define this identity are often encountered at school amongst peers, and often reinforced by educators' judgments and expectation of certain races.

Of course, schooling plays a role in the formation of everyones identity, not just concerning race. The expectation and interpretation of my abilities because of a child's race can also be applied to gender as (Murphy and Elwood 1998: p102) found that girls' lack of confidence in certain subjects was interpreted by educators as lack of ability, and the resultant absence of encouragement leads to girls to underrate their ability (Joffe and Foxman 1998), this then becomes a belief about themselves and a part of their identity. From these two examples of race and gender, it could be conferred that schooling often serves to reinforce a whole range of identities based on teachers judgments and expectations.

And this leads us to the essays last choice of structural influence on identity, the place within the United Kingdom a person is born and the influences this also has on a wide spectrum of identities. The effect of awareness of one's racial identity, for example, can be strengthened by the excluding effect of racist acts such as offensive graffiti in such areas (Scourfield et al 2002), increased racist white youth culture (Hewitt 1996), no local organisations working to value diversity (Chandra 1996), local reluctance to tackle the issue of racism (DeLima 1999) and outright denial of racism in such areas (Pugh 2001). This all amounts to a structural influence in the lives of non-white children as they didn't exercise agency in choosing to live in these areas, but it could also be considered a structural influence in their parents' lives who did have the agency to choose where to live but didn't have control over the racism which existed there.

Race isn't the only intersection with where a person was born within the United Kingdom. To consider regionality as a structural influence on identity, the issue is really about the geographically uneven distribution of class and wealth. That some areas of the UK are poorer than others has varied causes such as the reallocation overseas of key industries to name one. Possibly due to the expanded middle class people in such areas presently feel less 'class consciousness' in the Marxist sense of the word and the hegemony of regions can be better understood in terms of Weberian sociology, that they have similar market positions and consumption patterns. Other factors leading to increased hegemony are, distinct regional accents and linguistic use (different to the 'norm' portrayed in the popular media and carrying less status) means that people in such regions identify with each other and are interpellated into a specific regional identity as they recognise themselves in the people around them.

This essay illustrates how race, schooling and regionality are structures in themselves, but also on each other, forming not only an interplay on each other, but can also be viewed and understood differently from within the major sociological theories.

word Count: 936

Question B: With reference to an occupation or social role of your choice, show how individual agency and structural influences interact or link.

This essay begins by defining homelessness and goes on to consider if there is a 'homeless identity'. Interactions between structure and agency are illustrated by examining factors predisposing individuals to homelessness and structural influences on people who choose to be without an address for cultural of altruistic reasons.

In Britain, statutory homelessness is defined by the 1996 Homelessness Act as various forms of being without a place to live, as opposed to being 'functionally homeless', a broader definition of not having a permanent address. By studying 'identity talk patterns' in people without a home, Snow and Anderson (1987) found the existence of a distinct homeless identity, though it was usually associated with feeling worthless and unwanted. Sommerville (1992) found 'The cultural milieu of life on the streets becomes a means of redefining the home', and that homeless people feel a connection with other people experiencing the same hardship, which is similar to Marx's ideas to the growth of hegemony in class consciousness.

So, to be homeless is generally considered to be a negative state and may or may not carry with it an identity. The next step is to consider the amount of structure and agency around the situation. Few people directly choose to be without a home except traditional Romanies who are statutory homeless as they choose not to put their movable structures in a single place, but are bound by the structure of the law – and are often forced to be in one place. Being Romany is a structure as one is born into that culture, and can exercise the agency of staying within it, compared to the New Age Travelers (a largely 1980's phenomenon), comprised of people who have wholly chosen the nomadic lifestyle but are still bound by the structure of the law, and the need to procure an income despite having tried to reject a consumerist lifestyle. Neither of these groups would consider themselves 'homeless'.

The more popular understanding of homelessness occours without direct choice, in the situations described in the homelessness act. Bearsley-smith (2008) uncovered a range of influences statistically predisposing adolescents to homelessness, some concerning agency such as having been drug-taking or binge drinking in the preceding 30 days, past school attendance record, and structural factors such as parents' drug use, parent level of education, gender, past depressive symptoms and a few factors a mix of structure and agency such as health, early problem behaviour etc. Many adult people experiencing statutory homelessness have a secondary factor, such as mental illness, having been released from prison with nowhere to go, addiction issues etc. In one sense, this is a factor of individual agency in their homeless situation. No one asked an ex-prisoner to break the law or a heroin addict to take drugs. But structure could be considered a factor in the light of Freud's ideas, considering what unconscious motivation from unresolved past trauma would inspire the behaviour in a person that causes them to break the law or have the need to use chemicals to escape from anxiety. Possibly people can be interpellated by peer pressure into drug addiction or to identify with the outsider image of criminals and be recruited into this role. Perhaps a person initial drug use occours afteran individual's taking on a role of a rebel to distance themselves from very controlling parents, though they possibly could have chosen a different path to independence, there might not have been the life-experience to know what it was. All of these factors suggest that an individual's conscious and unconscious agency in taking an identity which ultimately can result in becoming homeless coexists with structural influences.

Structural influences can be the sole factor in causing homelessness in people without predisposing factors or secondary problems, influences such as lack of housing, bond requirements to secure rent, poverty and unemployment etc. Collective agency of homeless people is rare as the label carries a stigma. As identity is relational and changing (Mouffe 1994 and Tierney 2000) people wish to eradicate it, and so the kind of campaigning to change public perception and expectation noted by Bernstein and Croft (1995) of disabled people is generally unseen other than organisations which some squatters have formed. Collective agency concerning homelessness occours via charities of concerned individuals rather than by homeless people themselves, to bring change in a government where the thinking is to cure 'socially deficient others' in need of 'expert' intervention (Wright 1997).

Word Count: 780

References

Chandra, J. (1996) Facing Up to Difference, London, Kings Fund.

Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, New York, Doubleday Anchor.

Hewitt, R. (1996) Routes of Racism, Stoke on Trent, Trentham Books.

Joffe, L. and Foxman, D. (1998) Attitudes and Gender Differences, Slough, NFER/Nelson.

Mouffe, C. (1994). 'For a politics of nomadic'. In: Robertson, G., Mash, M., Tickner L., Bird, J., Curtis, B., and Putnam, T. (eds), Travellers Tales Narratives of Home and Displacement. PP 105-113. London. Routledge.

Murphy, P. and Elwood, J. (1998) 'Gendered experiences, choices and achievements – exploring the links', Journal of Inclusive Education, Vol. 2, no.2, pp.95-118.

Pakulski, J. and Waters, M. (1996) The Death of Class, London, Sage.

Pugh, R (2001) Rural Social Work, Lyme Regis, Russell House.

Scourfield, J., Evans, J., Shah, W. and Beynon, H. (2002). 'Responding to the experiences of minority ethnic children in virtually all white communities'. Child and Family Social Work. Vol 7 pp. 161-175.

Snow, D. and Anderson, L. (1987). 'Identity work amoung the homeless: the verbal construction and avowal of personal identities', American Journal of Sociology.

Somerville, P. (1992). 'Homelessness and the meaning of home: rooflessness and rootlessness', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol 16. pp 529-539.

Tierney, W. (2000) 'Undaunted courage, life history and the postmodern challenge', in: Denzin N., and Lincoln, Y. (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research. pp 537-553. USA. Sage.

Wright, T. (1997) Out of Place. Homeless mobilizations, subcities and contested WHAT???. P6. New York. State University of New York.