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Our fourth theme is identity, a concept that connects the individual’s experience to their wider social context. To talk about identity means considering the questions ‘who am I?’, ‘who are you?’ and ‘does my view of you match your own view of your identity?’ Does our personal identity change over time, and, if so, how? For sociologists, our starting point is that individual or ‘personal’ identities are not biologically given but socially created in social interactions. The mundane, but thoroughly revolutionary conclusion is that, in spite of everything we may feel and no matter how strongly we feel it, our identity is, in highly significant ways, shaped by other people. All identities are social identities.

There are many sources from which our identities are constructed: nationality, ethnicity, social class, gender, occupation, political affiliation, religion, sexuality, musical taste and lots more. We may find that, at different times, one of these seems to define our real, ‘authentic’ identity more than all others. Yet, if that perception shifts, has our identity then changed? Sociological studies show that questions of identity have become more significant today than in the past, and the book contains many discussions of the subject.