Is Social Identity Theory amenable to describing all social identities?
No, I think SIT pretty much describes all social identities equally well. Take identities like African-American. SIT would say that for a lower stauts identity like that there are 3 options people can take to improve their status. They can abandon the identity for the majority identity. This is something is difficult for African-Americans to do since their skin color is what places them in their category and so it’s very had to escape. Though many have tried, such as Shelby Steele. Secondly, they can find something unique to their group to give them higher status. In the case of African-Americans, they have used aspects of Black culture such as sports, music, and dance to give their group status over other groups. Thirdly, and this has met with mixed success among African-Americans, they can revolt and pressure the majority to give their group higher status. African-Americans have gained political rights like the right to vote, but they have gone gained economic parity with White Ameri
