Hybridity, hyphens and intersectionality - relational understandings of children and young people's social identities

Children and young people’s everyday lives and relationships are both situated within their immediate environments (such as within the family or in institutional settings) as well as shaped by wider structural developments and experiences of inequalities. This means that children and young people’s social identities involve multiple and shifting positions in terms of gender, social class, race, ethnicity, age, religion, sexuality, disability/ability, and more. While many writers acknowledge the complexity and relationality of children’s social identities, there are various theoretical frameworks through which these have been conceptualized, with different implications for which children and young people’s lives are explored and which aspects of their social identities are foregrounded through research. This chapter discusses three such theoretical frameworks: (1) hybridity, (2) hyphenated identities, and (3) intersectionality. In doing so, this chapter draws attention to the importance of the historical and ontological bases of theoretical frameworks and how they impact on the understandings of children and young people’s identity work.