Social Identity: A Composite Concept in Social Sciences Research

Social identity is amongst concepts which have attracted considerable attention from sociologists and numerous studies have been conducted for recognition its nature and aspects. Although identity construction and its process is an individually-based concept, its construction is affected by society and social factors and reforms in relation to society throughout one’s life. Nowadays, raising relevant issues to social identity has been turned to be one of the most significant subjects in the realm of social sciences research. It is considered as one of the most complex concepts in humanities field. Sociology and psychology are the two disciplines have centralized it in research. Multidimensionality of social identity is one of the tenets of social identity theory. Under the research umbrella of applied linguistics, results of research regarding social identity in psychology and sociology have gone toward making them applicable for educational settings. Considering the importance of learning and pertinent factors, the current review study intends to put flesh on this multifaceted issue from a different perspective. In the end, suggestions are provided for future researchers to pay more attention to the role of social identity in academic settings.

Keywords:

Applied linguistics , social identity , multidimensionality , social sciences