The Complexities of Diversity: Exploring Multiple Oppressions

Abstract

There has been a growth of identity development models in multicultural psychology for the past 20 years; these frameworks, however, rarely acknowledge the complexities of multiple identities and multiple oppressions. The purpose of this article is to challenge our understanding of cultural diversity beyond its current simplistic frameworks. Alternative worldviews, such as Afrocentric psychology, can broaden our comprehension of human diversity and are used to examine the identity development literature. Several case examples of individuals experiencing multiple identities and multiple oppressions are explored to illustrate the complexities of cultural diversity. Implications for counseling, training, and research are briefly discussed. Durante los últimos veinte años ha habido un aumento de modelos de desarrollo de identidad en la consejería multicultural; sin embargo, estos cuadros no suelen reconocer las complejidades de identidades múltiples y opresiones múltiples. El propósitio de este artículo es desafiar a nuestro conocimiento de diversidad yendo más allá de sus simplistas cuadros actuales. Visiones universales alternativas, como la consejería afrocéntrica, pueden ampliar nuestra comprensión de la diversidad humana y pueden ser usadas para examinar la literatura del desarrollo de identidad. Para ilustrar las complejidades de diversidad, se exploran varios ejemplos de individuos que sufren de identidades múltiples y de opresiones múltiples. Se discuten las implicaciones para la conserjería, el entrenamiento y la investigación.

Unseen Risks: HIV-Related Risk Behaviors Among Ethnically Diverse Sexual Minority Adolescent Females

“…While previous research has postulated that mixed race/ethnicity, or biracial, individuals could be more likely to identify as bisexual because of increased comfort with liminal identities (Dworkin, 2002;Fukuyama & Ferguson, 2000), girls identifying as mixed in this sample were not more likely than others to identify as bisexual. However, it is possible that commonalities between identifying as both mixed race/ethnicity and bisexual, including not belonging to an easily-identifiable in-group and having no predictable model of identity development (Reynolds & Pope, 1991;Ross, Dobinson, & Eady, 2010), could create additional minority stress for these girls, which could be linked to compromised sexual health outcomes.…”

“Putting My Man Face On”: A Grounded Theory of College Men’s Gender Identity Development

“…(Josselson, 1996, p. 29) Social group identities of individuals are complex. Examining identity with regard to one social group identity at a time can provide needed focus, but in doing so, researchers must recognize the greater complexity involved in the multiple and intersecting identities (Reynolds & Pope, 1991). Scholarship on the impact of multiple social group identities on individuals' identity development can help inform the impact of multiple identities on men's identity development.…”

Navigating STEM-worlds

“…Although we can analyze groups of underrepresented students, students develop their sense of self as individuals with multiple intersections of social identities (Reynolds & Pope, 1991).…”