<p><a>This study sought to identify obstacles and challenges that impact political participation and involvement among Latino voters. At the same time, it explored how the Latino Democrats of Allen County (LDAC), a constituency caucus in a primarily conservative area, could address such barriers to engage Latinos from the area politically (specifically in support of the Democratic party). Social Identity Theory provided a backdrop from which to examine the challenges and obstacles that Latinos face to participating in local government. By exploring these questions from the perspective of Social Identity Theory, I examined how a demographic in a primarily conservative area grapples with their political participation. Findings suggest that Latinos struggle with their participation due to lack of awareness about opportunity, low political efficacy, lack of trust in the political process and those that facilitate it, and lack of education about how the political process works. Literature on communication strategies and techniques used by organizations and groups with similar structures and goals provided a roadmap for constructing a functional and meaningful strategic communication plan for LDAC based on the findings from this study.</a></p>

Previous research shows that the Swedish Police Authority have had problems with employeeretention and tensions between police and civilian employees. One reported way for organizations to attract new applicants and keep their current ones is to work on their organizational identity. However, there is a gap in research concerning how Swedish police’s civilian and police investigators identify with the organization and how they perceive eachother. Thus, this case study aims to examine how these two kinds of investigators at Polisregion Mitt perceive and construct identities and how they identify with the organization. The study applies a theoretical framework of Social Identity Theory adapted to a constitutive view on communication. It examines how the investigators construct individual, social and organizational identities through language. Also, how the organization affects the constructions and if there are any similarities or differences between the two groups. Data was collected through interviews and analysed with discursive psychology andthematic analysis. The results show that the investigators mostly identify with the organization at some levels, e.g. to their units and lower level management. The investigators do not identify with the organization to a great extent. The cause seems to be deficient communication from highlevel management. Contrary to previous research there seemingly is no tension between the groups. Still all participants construct some problems between the two groups, but they are said to be caused by the organization or management.

This thesis examines how Palestinian ethnicity is negotiated and embodied in different contexts by young people with Palestinian background in Sweden. It is based on semi-structured interviews and uses Social Identity and Self Categorization theory. A main result is that the Palestinian ethnicity of the respondents play an essential role for their identity building, regardless of context. While being “Palestinian” is fore-fronted by all the interviewees as central to their identities, they ascribe somewhat different meanings to the concept of Palestinian-ness - what actually makes them “feel Palestinian” or can claim a Palestinian identity. Further, the interviewees’ perception of how Palestinian-ness is generally regarded in different contexts matter. Lastly, their notion of Palestinian ethnicity is strongly connected to the Palestinian territory and the historical-political situation and conflict with Israel. Together, these themes show the complexity of identity and ethnicity, however, the interviewees relation to their Palestinian background is solid.

The majority of information related to the postprison experiences of exonerated individuals is frequently found in reports by journalists, or based on the findings of scholars on systematic factors that contribute to wrongful incarcerations. There is a lack of social science research on the unexplored meanings and essence of the postprison lived experiences of exonerees exclusively from their perspectives. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand and describe the postprison lived experiences of exonerated individuals, 1 year or longer after their prison release. The conceptual framework was guided by Tajfel's social identity theory and Becker's social reaction theory. Interviews were conducted with a purposeful sample of 8 exonerated males who were released from prison 1 year or longer. The data were analyzed using van Kaam's 7-step phenomenological analysis process as modified by Moustakas. The 7 themes that emerged from the data were employment and financial challenges, negative societal reaction, broken family relationships, unresolved emotional and psychological factors, self-imposed social isolation, role of family support, and resilience. Understanding the experiences of exonerees contribute to positive social change by providing knowledge to policymakers and others in the criminal justice system to assist in creating policies to expunge the records of exonerees without the necessity of litigation. Findings from this study also provide valuable insights on the need to offer monetary compensation and social services assistance to exonerees in all U.S. states to help in their reintegration experiences as they transition into their communities.

The purpose of this study was to examine the reasons for the decline of young adult church attendance after an affiliation with church during childhood. Religion plays an important role in the lives of African Americans as a coping mechanism for loss, adversity, racism, and trauma. In addition, spiritual exploration is a component of psychological development during maturation. Using the social identity theory, the study explored the impact of childhood church affiliation and coping styles of young adults. African American Youth between 18 and 30 years old were randomly selected to complete a combination of questions from the Lasting Faith Scale, Private Religious Practices questions, Brief Religious/Spiritual Coping, and Organizational Religiousness scales (n = 103) via Survey Monkey to (a) assess variables which contributed to their decision on whether or not to continue participating in organized fellowship and (b) examine the relationship between the childhood affiliation and their adult coping styles. The design for the study was quantitative and comprised of correlational measurements using Spearman's Rho. Among young adults who attended church as children, there was a significant positive relationship between church attendance and positive spiritual coping. This study will increase church leaders' understanding of this congregation's needs. It will provide a framework for program development that addresses the needs of young adults as related to coping styles. The implication for social change is a greater understanding from church leaders and young adults of what is beneficial for the spiritual development of children and how it is related to identity and coping factors later in life.

This study was conducted to identify what principles leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were teaching women about their gender roles and expectations from 2000 through 2007, and to investigate whether age, marital status, or media exposure correlated with women's perceptions of levels of importance of those concepts to both their leaders and to themselves personally. This study used deductive and inductive framing analyses to examine visiting teaching messages and General Conference Relief Society talks published in the Ensign, the official magazine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The study built on those results to create a survey conducted with LDS women living in Cache Valley, Utah, in 2008. Survey results provided insight into levels of importance LDS women living in Cache Valley assigned to doctrinal and cultural concepts surrounding the "ideal Mormon woman." The doctrine reflected an overwhelming emphasis on both inner spiritual characteristics and religiously motivated actions. Lack of correlation between exposure to either visiting teaching messages or General Conference talks and what the women said Church leaders thought was important indicated some disconnect between what was being taught and what the LDS women reported. Although leaders' priorities were revealed by the frequency with which they taught individual components of the doctrine, the women did not recognize those priorities. Instead, they perceived that nearly everything was very important or important to their leaders. The women also indicated that although religiously motivated actions were very important, inner spiritual characteristics were even more important to them personally. Although the women reported inner spiritual characteristics as more important, they were also taking on responsibilities for those behaviors that may be more visible and easily compared to others. Exposure to General Conference talks correlated highly with how important survey items were to the women personally, which may indicate a channel of communication that is working for Church leaders. Statistically significant correlations in women's perceptions about what their leaders think and what they think personally were also found according to age and marital status, but there are not consistent trends that can be easily summarized.

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Background and aim: The consumption of illicit drugs remains stable among youths in Sweden, yet an increase in consumption has been observed in affluent areas. This study aims to explore the reasons for illicit drug use in these areas and if this could be further understood using Social Identity Theory. Methods: Twenty participants from four high schools in an affluent municipality participated in semi-structured in-depth interviews regarding substance use. The interviews were coded using thematic analysis and six themes emerged.  Results: Social influence was the prominent influence for illicit drug use. Furthermore, this use was normalized and availability was high. The influence of family norms and outspoken negative effects of drugs caused a decrease in consumption. Conclusion: These results are in accordance with previous research claiming social influence on illicit drug use, and further confirms this in an affluent area. Social Identity Theory (i.e. how informants categorize, identify and compare themselves with their social group) had an impact on consumption.

The purpose of this essay is to, with help of content analysis, analyze three posts on the website Chabad.org to regarding how married orthodox Jewish women within the group Chabad express their choice of wearing a sheitel. The analysis is based on social identity theory as well as identity process theory. Chabad is a jewish orthodox group who follow the Chabad-Lubavitch philosophy and are known to follow the progress of technology to spread God’s word. The result of the essay is that married women within the group express different opinions about wearing the sheitel, but both seem to wear them because of the ingroup norm. They way the women express themselves it seems from an identity process theory standpoint that their hair is as big of a part of their identity as their religion.