Oh, the Places [I'll] Go! Identity, Possible Selves, and Role Changes in Social Movements

Preparation for life course transitions begins before the actual event occurs, and individuals use possible selves to map out potential courses of action. Meanwhile, social movements scholars are increasingly using identity as a theoretical construct, but most research in this area uses social psychology ad hoc without building from existing theory. The present study builds from research on the possible self and identities at a life course transition. The study demonstrates the variation in activist identities by background and time horizon and the identity work that graduating student activists use to construct activist identities. The quantitative results demonstrate that the strength of the possible activist identity varies by sex, race/ethnicity, feminist cause affiliation, and time horizon. The qualitative results show that collective memory of past social movement struggles and exposure to feminist ideology produce markedly different types of activist identities, explaining much of the variation identified in the quantitative results.Master of Art