Group+3 Report


 * GROUP 3 REPORT - IDENTITY BOXES **
 * by Aliyah and Amaal **

Personal identity is always been a concern for philosophers but it is important to know what distinguish one person from others. Also, knowing the variable factors that may influence individuals identities would increase our curiosity to know ourselves and identities better. Each individual personality has a different characteristics and influences have shaped their identities. Even similar aspects affected other people in different ways and up to a variable degree. For example the family is an essential and critical influence in some students identity but not of that great importance for others. This could be due to multiple factors such as personality and level of education.

In this SIS project we started to represent our identities through pictures and each student represented similar influences of their life in a different metaphor. Using the family example, the family is represented as a tree by some student or by house in other identify boxes. Also, the arrangement of pictures, it reflects the importance or up to what degree this individual is influenced by this aspect in his/her life. According to Gauntlett D. (2006) who conducted similar research before” This is a process which takes time and uses the hands and body as well as the mind. The method should be empowering for the participants – since they have a creative opportunity to express and explore something as a part of a project which is interested in what they have to say”. This approach is more effective than interviewing people because they have the time to think about their identities. Also, their identities is already considered and they will be more confident to represent their identities as a familiar task (Gauntelett D.,2008)

We (Amaal and Aliyah) have chosen to try to analyse the identity box of 2 international female students.

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 * Identity Box 1**

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 * Identity Box 2**

females are believed to be family oriented. However, only one of the identity boxes refers directly to the family – identity box 1 uses a picture of a tree. The second identity box focuses more on representing the student’s personality. We assume that the second identity is more confident and independent character but the first one is strongly connected to her family as she represent them by the wide tree branches that protects her through her life journey. There are a considerable similarity between the two identities they are both considering themselves as a social being and an essential unit of the society (Gauntlett D., 2008) by representing the friendship by a clock or a picture of friends on long road to reflect the importance of the time spent with their friends, helping them a lot through their life journey.

The second significant similarity is the studying experience. Female identity 2 represented it by picture of two books and her explanation reflects how much she is enjoying her studying experience. In contrast, female identity 1, she represented her studying experience by long lonely road in the desert to imply how much it is a hard, lonely and boring journey. As she is a new international student this may be a reflection of the distress stage of culture shock when everything seems difficult and annoying (UKCISA, 2008). International student are more liable to experience some emotional and academic difficulties as a result of being away from family and home country. On the other hand, this is has a positive impact on their personality which made them more independent and ambitious to achieve their goals and dreams. Also, the experience of studying abroad may lead to a wider vision and consideration of their identities as an essential and crucial unit of the whole world.

To sum up, This project give the student the opportunity to portray their identities in more efficient and sensible way than other traditional interviewing methods. I n addition, this was a very useful way to help the international student to express their identities and show up what they might be suffering from, happy to achieve or different feelings regarding being away from family.

Gauntlett D. And Holzwarth P. (2006), Visual Studies, the official journal of the International Visual Sociology Association, Creative and visual methods for exploring identities.(online) Available form: [] Gauntlett D. (2008), Representing Identities (Part 2: Findings). Available from: [] (9/3/2014) UKCISA (2008) International student and culture shock. Available from: []
 * References **