Children and social identity

The structures and processes underlying the self and human identity are as fundamental to psychological inquiry as it is possible to imagine. These topics have occupied social psychology’s centre stage for a century, but, interestingly, the same cannot be said with respect to developmental psychology. Despite significant early statements from Baldwin (1895), James (1890), Cooley (1902) and Mead (1934) on the origins and development of self and identity, relatively little work has addressed children’s identities.