Supporting Your Child's Multiple Identities

Supporting Your Child’s Multiple Identities: A session for parents and caregivers of children with multiracial and/or cross-cultural identities

We all have multiple identities—race, gender, age, sexual orientation, culture, occupation, etc. However, psychology research has traditionally focused on the effects stemming from one identity (i.e., race OR gender), rather than trying to measure how belonging to multiple groups may actually shift our behavior. With today’s society becoming increasingly diverse, it is important to consider how exposure to and interactions with diversity affects the various perspectives and experiences we have as both children and adults.

Join the A Foot in 2 Places student group for a virtual discussion about the roles our multiple identities play starting from early childhood through college with the goal of increasing awareness of all of our multiple identities.

Dr. Gaither will explore:

1. How some social identities begin to form in childhood
2. How a multifaceted sense of self may boost flexible thinking for children and adults
3. How interactions with diverse others such as college roommates can shift our views of diversity.

Dr. Sarah Gaither is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, and a faculty affiliate for the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity. Prior to starting at Duke, she was a Provost’s Postdoctoral Scholar in the Psychology Department and Fellow at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago after earning her Ph.D. and M.S. in Social Psychology from Tufts University and her B.A. in Social Welfare from U.C Berkeley. Her research focuses broadly on how a person’s social identities and experiences across the lifespan motivate their social perceptions and behaviors in diverse settings. Dr. Gaither has become a leader in the field of multiple identity and multiracial research with her work being published in over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and her recent designation as both a Rising Star from the Association of Psychological Science and a Society for Experimental Social Psychology Fellow. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Russell Sage Foundation, The Charles Lafitte Foundation, and The Spencer Foundation. Dr. Gaither has also garnered media attention including The New York Times, New York Magazine, Time Magazine, People, BBC, and NPR.

A Foot in 2 Places is a student group that celebrates diversity by providing a safe space for students of two or more different identities to speak openly about their similarities and differences with other communities. We celebrate identities through games, international snacks, speakers and conversations. Many of our attendees have multiracial/multicultural, interfaith, or socio-economically diverse identities. We welcome students who identify with having “a foot in two places,” in any way they feel it relates to them.

For more information, check out this video.