Strengthening Individual Identity in the Group Context

Author(s): Benjamin Gorvine, Eli Karam and Marina Eovaldi

Source: Middle School Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 (November 2008), pp. 13-20
Published by: Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23047363
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 Strengthening Individual
Identity in the Group Context
Benjamin Gorvine, Eli Karam, & Marina Eovaldi

When asking typical adults to reminisce about their
middle school years, one often receives emotionally
charged responses: "The worst years of my life!" "It was
so awkward and painful." "I had a hard time fitting in."
"It was so difficult to figure out who I was." Although
struggle and discord or, in the now famous words of
American psychologist G. Stanley Hall, "storm and
stress," are not inevitable in the middle school years,
they are characteristic of many people's experiences
of this time. What is so difficult about this period for
some, and what, if anything, can mental health and
education professionals do to help young adolescents
face the challenges? This was the central question that
inspired the development of the project described here,
a program for working with groups of seventh graders
around a range of issues such as identity development,
group formation and dynamics, team building, and
leadership. This program has been piloted with seventh
graders at a middle school in Evanston, Illinois.
A vivid vignette from Wiseman (2002) provides a
compelling window into the world of young adolescents,
and nicely frames this discussion of the program:
Let's go back to middle school. (Are you suppressing
an involuntary shudder?) Parents, teachers, and
other adults are telling you what to do. They're
especially telling you what you can't do. You have a
close group of friends, but for some reason one of
your best friends comes up to you between classed
and tells you that one of your other friends is
spreading rumors about you. Your face feels hot;
you can feel everyone looking at you. Thoughts race
through your head. What did you do? Why is she
mad at you? Are your friends going to back you or
side with her? All of a sudden, a question drives an
icy stake of fear through your heart as you stand
there clutching your orange plastic lunch
tray in the cafeteria line: Where are you
going to sit at lunch? (p. 9)
The struggles and often
compelling social dramas
of middle school may be
either long-forgotten or
intentionally blocked
by adulthood, but as
the intensity of the
vignette indicates,

This article reflects the following This We Believe characteristics: An inviting, supportive,
and safe environment — School-wide efforts and policies that foster health, wellness, and safety —
Multifaceted guidance and support services

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 Erikson described the period as a time to resolve the conflict
between identity achievement and identity confusion.
many middle schoolers could benefit from guidance
during this difficult period of their lives.
What follows is a description of the rationale, along
with the basic contours of a six-session program that has
been developed to help young adolescents give voice to
key developmental struggles. The program goals and
the overall approach are outlined, followed by a brief
description of the ways in which each of the six sessions
(lessons) of the program addresses particular challenges
for young adolescents. For a complete version of the
program activities, please contact the first author.
Program goals for seventh
grade participants
The classic formulation of the primary developmental
task of adolescence was authored by Erikson (1985), who
described the period as a time to resolve the conflict
between identity achievement and identity confusion.
Erikson believed that the child who successfully
negotiated this period in development would enter into
young adulthood with a firm sense of identity, ready to
face the challenges of developing intimacy, while those
whose development stalled during this period would be
left in a state of confusion and would be subsequently
compromised in their ability to meet the tasks that would
confront them in later stages of life. As the starting
point for developing our program, identity formation
constituted the first major goal, although it was only
one of several foci for our intervention. In helping the
students to explore issues around identity, we also hoped
to provide a setting in which the children would learn
that it is good to talk about feelings and explore the
key questions of "Who am I relative to the group?" and
"Who am I by myself?" We chose seventh graders because
they are on the cusp of this crucial developmental
task. Consequently, intervening early may give them a
"head start" in addressing the challenges ahead. Using
terminology developed by Marcia (1993), who further
operationalized Erikson's theory of identity development,
we hoped to help students reach a committed sense of
identity after a period of exploration (with this program
as one influence fostering some of that exploration).
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A second goal for the project was to develop a model
for a school-based intervention involving substantial
cooperation between the mental health and school
personnel. As Greenberg, Weissberg, O'Brien, Zins,
Fredericks, Resnik, and Elias (2003) have noted, the
current impact of many school-based intervention
programs is limited because of insufficient coordination
with other components of school operations. By
developing a model in which mental health professionals
and school professionals (social workers, school
psychologists, and teachers) share responsibility for
facilitating groups, we strove to have an impact on
students that would go beyond the limited amount of
time spent in the activity sessions. The implementation
of the groups involved clinical psychologists, a school
psychologist, two school social workers, two teachers,
the school principal, and marital and family therapy
student trainees.
A third goal of the program was to normalize the
struggles of middle school for the student participants.
As child developmentalists have long held, it is a hallmark
of the period of emerging adolescence that children
believe their experiences to be unique (the "personal
fable") and that everyone is constantly watching and
evaluating them as if they were on stage ("imaginary
audience") (Elkind, 1967). While we did not presume to
override these cognitive limitations of adolescence, we
did hope to provide the student participants, at minimum,
with a sense that they were not alone in their struggles.
Overall approach
What is the best way to engage seventh graders with
the issues of identity and group membership? Perhaps
trapped in our adult conceptions of how to spur
conversation, we initially considered developing a
combination psychoeducational/process group, not
unlike the model often used in group therapy (Yalom,
1995). But is this the sort of model, which is designed
with adults in mind, really likely to get children talking?
Upon further reflection, we decided to go a different
route, to take a page from some models of family
therapy and child play therapy, which suggest an activity
based approach where "processing" (i.e., discussion)
follows the completion of an activity. This approach
is best articulated by Stern (2002), who noted that, in
child therapy, "providing an array of activities ... helps
maintain interest and encourage involvement. ... [I term
this the] 'we are learning while having fun' approach. ...
The activities stimulate conversation" (p. 17). The idea is
that the shared experience provides a basis for children
to discuss deeper issues. For each of the sessions, then,
the group facilitators started by introducing and
engaging the students in an activity and then followed
up the activity with discussion about what everyone just
experienced.
In implementing this program, we worked with
groups of seventh graders that varied in size from 8 to
16 students. Optimally, we found that the smaller groups
were not only easier to manage, but allowed for more
sharing and deeper processing by the students. That
said, larger groups were workable and still allowed for
good experiences, in terms of the activities. Ideally,
we believe the program should be implemented over
a six-week period, with sessions occurring once a
week consecutively. In practice, and particularly in
dealing with the realities of a school calendar, this
may not always be possible, so it may be the burden of
the facilitators to take a little bit of extra time at the
beginning of a given session to foster continuity and
remind students of the previous activities.
Outline of sessions
Session 1: Creating a group identity
The importance of the group and of peers for middle
school aged children has been well documented, both
in the popular and scholarly press. It is particularly
important for identity development. As Pugh and Hart
(1999) noted: "Participation in new activities allows
adolescents to explore different norms and values.
Discussion with friends and peers about these norms and
values assists them in understanding where they stand on
these issues." (p. 55). We made use of this natural group
tendency of young adolescents in designing activities to
help them consider how to define their individuality (i.e.,
their own values) in the group context. Our approach is
grounded in the assertion from Thompson and Grace
(2001) that "groups are so important to children that
it is difficult for them to act as freethinking, empathic
individuals when they are part of one. But adults have
found ways to make groups more comforting, cohesive,the basis for discussions of deeper issues, photo by Man c*ho
structured, and purposeful for kids." (p. 96). We wanted
seventh graders to emerge from our program feeling
that a group can be a positive force, and that there is
room for oneself within the group. A major goal of each
of these sessions was to create a group experience that
was, as noted above, comforting, cohesive, structured,
and purposeful.
The first session focused on beginning to develop a
positive group identity by engaging the participants in
a collaborative discussion of group rules and guidelines,
including the notion that there would be confidentiality
within the group and that group members must respect
one another. The collaborative development of group
rules was critical, as the participants were encouraged
to feel ownership of the "code of behavior" within the
group—an experience that most likely felt quite different
from the classroom experience of having rules "handed
down." Our goal in the first session was to turn the
potentially destructive nature of group rules, especially
those that seem imposed and unfair, on its head. We did
this by first acknowledging the importance of rules and
then by facilitating the creation of a set of rules that were
constructive rather than destructive. After completing
the rules, participants were asked to complete a survey
about their perspective on social groupings at the school,
which would be used for session two. Sample items
included, "Is it better to have a large circle of friends or a
smaller more intimate group of one or two close friends
and why?" "Name five things you share in common
with your friendship group." and "Draw a diagram of
In helping students with identity development, shared experiences provide

Character Education and Identity Development 15

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 the lunchroom, labeling each table according to the
friendship group or social clique that sits together."
Finally, student participants engaged in an
"icebreaker" activity designed to give the group members
some initial familiarity with one another.
Session 2: Leadership and group
dynamics—collaborate on a shared goal
given specific limitations
Now that the students had begun to form a group
identity during the first session, the second session
sought to explicitly explore the realities of group life
for the student participants. During the first session,
students were given questionnaires that allowed them to
voice their own views about social groupings; the second
session involved following up on this student feedback
and facilitating discussion about the students' thoughts.
Students were asked to reflect upon the different
organized groups at the school, informal groups/cliques,
pressure to "belong," whether a large or small group of
friends was more desirable, the qualities of a good leader,
and the groupings in the school lunchroom. Because
open-ended questions often fail to yield significant
information from children, we borrowed a technique
from family therapy (Breunlin, Schwartz & MacKune
Karrer, 1997). Using closed-ended circular questioning
where students were asked to physically position
themselves in different parts of the room depending
on how strongly they agreed or disagreed with a variety
of statements. We posed such statements as these: "It is
possible to be part of more than one group or clique."
"There is pressure to be part of a social group or 'crowd'
at this school." "Students can sit at any table they want in
the lunchroom." Using circular questioning and physical
activity proved to be an effective means to garner
participation, even from the more reticent students.
Why is having such a dialogue with students
important? We felt that, while both adults and children
are implicitly aware of the social groupings and
conflicts in middle school, these realities are rarely, if
ever, discussed in a frank manner. The centrality of the
group and of the roles that are played in the group is
eloquently described by Thompson and Grace (2001):
Hierarchy is a fact of group life. Within that
structure ... children play other roles besides the
basic categories of in, out, up, and down. Every class
has a leader, a clown, a suck-up, a goody-goody, a
jock, and a flirt. ... A person's nature might help
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determine what role he or she is selected to play, but
the fact of different roles is one of those universal
aspects of group life. (p. 90)
Providing children with a forum to label this experience
was the primary purpose of the second session.
After completing the follow-up to student
questionnaires, the participants were asked to
collaborate on a maze activity where they shared a
common goal: everyone in the group had to follow the
correct path on the maze in the shortest possible amount
of time. There was a catch, however; while the group
members were not prohibited from helping their fellow
students navigate the maze, they were prohibited from
talking others through the maze, and, therefore, had
to find other, nonverbal means of helping one another.
This activity was designed with the classic "Robber's
Cave" study by Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood, and Sherif
(1961) in mind. In the Sherif study, eleven- and twelve
year-old boys attending a camp were first divided into
two groups that became bitter competitive rivals but were
subsequently given a superordinate goal in which both
groups had to work together. The mutually shared goal
of fixing the water supply and camp truck could only be
achieved through intergroup cooperation. Sherif and
associates (1961) found that the groups not only came
together, but their negative stereotypes declined and
friendships increased. While each student group did
not explicitly have rivals within them, we used the Sherif
notion of a superordinate goal to further group identity
and cohesion (a goal initially approached in the first
session). Strikingly, students became enthusiastic and
were quite committed to getting every group member
through the maze, even those members who were
clearly at the fringe of the group. As in the Sherif study,
the hoped-for outcome was that such fringe members
would become more tied to other members of the group
through such intra-group cooperation.
Session 3: Roles and labels—how they impact
group process and sense of self
In the second session, students began to explore and
discuss the social groupings and hierarchy at the
school; in the third session, we sought to expand on this
discussion with an activity intended to vividly illustrate
how labels affect how individuals feel about themselves
and how they are treated by the group. In the activity,
participants wore labels on their heads that they could
not see but that instructed those who interacted with crucial group processes which we wanted the students
them as to how they should be treated (e.g., "Ignore to understand.
me."
"Treat me like I'm a bully." "Compliment me." "Ask me Fourth, and finally, we wanted students to consider
about my ideas."). Following the activity, students were the possibility of change. Once someone had been
asked to consider the ways in which these literal labels labeled, did the students think that label could ever
might parallel the figurative labels that each of them be altered? Were there things they could do to change
wore and read on others. either their own labels or the labels of others? We

We saw this issue of labeling as important for the sought to move students beyond simple awareness of the
student participants to consider for several reasons. phenomenon of labeling, to highlight for them the ways
First, for those students whose labels put them on thein which each of them were active participants in (and
margins of the group, the impact can be devastating.recipients
As of) the process.
Thompson and Grace (2001) stated, "When a child finds
himself on the 'out' side of the group equation, it canSession
be 4: Looking for commonalities and
powerful enough to change his perception of himself" connections among perceived differences
(p. 85). We helped students understand the relationship
Having explored a variety of dimensions of group
between the labels imposed by others and one's view life at the school, the fourth session asked students to
of oneself.
consider commonality and difference within the group.
Second, the ways in which labels position middle Tatum (1997) has made some of the most striking points
schoolers in the social hierarchy can present difficulties about how difference and similarity play out for young
and can lead to confusion about the difference between
adolescents. She has observed that, while elementary
one's own values and those of the group. Being able school children freely mix across racial boundaries,
to reflect on the nature of the hierarchy itself and when children hit middle and high school (and puberty),
consider how one's self-perception might differ from thethey start to separate out by race. She further suggested
views of others is potentially quite powerful as a way of
that this is essential for adolescent identity development
clarifying one's own values as distinct from the group. and that adolescents not only want to be understood by
As articulated by Pugh and Hart (1999), "Insofar as others who look like themselves and who share similar
reputation differs from self-perception, there is potential
experiences and common understandings, but also ,
for discrepancy between individual values and those ofthat they feel the need to be seen and have themselves
the crowd" (p. 56). reflected by similar others.

A group can be a positive force, and there is room for oneself within the group.

Third, we wanted students to consider how the

Does this mean, then, that we must be resigned to
pervasiveness and power of the group, vis-ä-vis its adolescents segregating themselves along racial and
labeling of individuals, could be a threat to individuality: other similar lines (e.g., social class, extracurricular

The presence of the group seems to diminish the
sense of morality and individual responsibility
that children possess. Children in general, and
adolescents in particular, act differently when
they are with their peers. When kids are together,
individuals can be much less mature and empathic
than they otherwise might be on their own.
(Thompson & Grace, 2001, p. 102)
The power of the group to label and sanction members,
and the ways in which this diminishes the individual, are and were asked to stand on one side or the other of a
interests, etc.)? We felt that the student participants
could benefit from considering similarities with
classmates that might not have occurred to them and
contemplate ways that they could connect with others
they might have initially seen as completely different.
Students were presented with a series of statements ("I
have experienced the death of someone close to me." "I
have a close group of friends.") across a range of topics
(friendship, love, family, drugs/alcohol, self-image)
line depending on their answer. In doing so, student

Character Education and Identity Development 17

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 Session 5: Individual voice and group
voice—managing an individual agenda
and a larger group goal
How do you help a group of kids, many of whom may
not like each other, cohere and work together? We
began this process in the second session with the maze
activity. In the fifth session, we more explicitly pursued
this question of teamwork and intra-group cooperation,
and added in the theme of the role and identity of the
individual in the context of the group. We started with
the following well-established psychological principle:

[One can use] the power of a common mission (the

psychological term is 'superordinate goal') to make
a group cohere and to help it chart a new course
and a new identity. Instead of using a scapegoat and
defiance of authority to declare their cohesion as a
group, they use the superordinate goals. ... When
groups think of themselves as very different, simply
bringing them together is not sufficient. They
have to have a common goal, a common mission.
(Thompson & Grace, 2001,. pp. 95-96)

This idea of the power of the superordinate goal to bring

far-flung groups together was initially established, as
noted previously, in Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood, and
Sherif's classic (1961) "Robber's Cave" study.
During this session, we sought not only to bring
the group together by giving them a superordinate goal
of successfully building a wall out of cups (one that
would stay standing), but we also challenged individual
participants to balance this group goal with an
individual goal that they were assigned. The "catch" was
Overcoming
Overcoming labels
labels
to cooperate
to cooperate
in seeking
in seeking
a shared goal
a shared
can help
goal
students that
can help students the participants were told they could not explicitly
expand
expandtheir
theirdefinitions of similarity,
definitions photo by
of similarity, Atan gAo
photo by Alan Geho share their agenda with their fellow wall builders (i.e.,
they could not say it); however, for the group to succeed,
everyone's individual agendas, as well as the overall wall

participants were able to see a visual representation building goal, had to be met.
Following this activity, we asked students to connect
of similarity and difference with their peers. To the
their wall-building experience to their social worlds,
extent that they were surprised with what they saw,
we expected that this might open them to the possibility
where they often battled to balance group goals and
desires with individual identities, values, and needs.
of finding commonality with those with whom they
Students were often able to make the connection that,
might have previously assumed that they shared little. In
like the "hidden agendas" of the game that they could
other words, we sought to expand their definitions of
not disclose, individual needs and identities were often
similarity. Students were also asked to brainstorm lists
subverted, though not absent, within the context of
of similarities in small groups, again with the goal of
the group. As in other sessions, our goal was to provide
stretching their current conceptions and discovering
a frame and the language to label and discuss the
similarity even in the midst of perceived difference.
experience of the individual in the context of the group,

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which is certainly a major theme in the lives of p. 125), we felt that these were especially critical topics to
middle schoolers. address with seventh graders and provided an important
note on which to conclude the program.
Session 6: Conflict resolution role-play skit We presented the students with two scenarios, one
In the final session, we sought to give voice to one in which two friends are having conflict, and one is
talking behind the other's back, and another in which
further important reality of middle school life—conflict.
Simmons (2002) was eloquent in describing this two seventh graders who had been good friends in grade
inevitability: "Every child wants three things out of school
life: are drifting apart as one friend joins a new social
connection, recognition, and power. The desire for group. We decided not to presume a "happy ending" for
connections propels children into friendship, while these
the scenarios and asked the groups of participants
to
need for recognition and power ignites competition and discuss and act out both a "positive" and "negative"
outcome for each scenario.
conflict" (p. 9). Our starting point for this final session
was the recognition that, while our culture (and, more In discussing the scenarios after the students did
their skits, we tried to help students identify the ways
specifically, our schools) certainly addresses and rewards
in which the group often encourages them to be cruel
children's desire for connection, it rarely speaks to these
"darker" drives for recognition and power which spawn to one another, asked them to be creative in imagining
solutions, and highlighted for them that the roles (of
conflict. A main goal for this session, then, was to label
victim and bully) are often fluid and changing. Again, it
and expose these drives and the accompanying conflict
and, in doing so, to demystify them. was Simmons (2002) who advanced the contention that
bullying is really a group phenomenon:
The popular press and the scholarly literature has
long attended to the dangers of boys' physical bullyingThe group is responsible for creating a climate
(e.g., Carlyle & Steinman, 2007; Feder, Levant, & in which bullying takes place. It is the group that
Dean, 2007), and ongoing investigations continue to licenses the bully to act the way he does. ... In fact, it
document the deleterious effects of such bullying on is difficult to identify which children are the bullies
because social situations are much more fluid than
the psychosocial development of boys, with evidence
that adolescent male victims of bullying show poorer the static names "bully" and "victim" imply, (p. 121)

psychosocial health, worse attitudes toward school, We helped the participants to understand that any of
more problem behaviors, and are at risk for more them, given the right circumstances, could become either.
physical injury than their peers (Stein, Dukes, & Warren,
2007). However, it has only been in recent years that Concluding thoughts
attention has also been drawn to the insidious nature of
For us, conducting this program with groups of seventh
aggression among pre-teen and teenage girls, aggression
graders has underscored the difficult developmental task
that is not physical, but rather relational in nature: young adolescents have in negotiating the challenging

There is a hidden culture of girls' aggression terrain of being both an individual and a member of a
in which bullying is epidemic, distinctive, and group. Of course, this is no small task even for adults, but
destructive. It is not marked by the direct physical
developmental pressures around identity development
and verbal behavior that is primarily the province
make this an especially urgent topic to address with
of boys. Our culture refuses girls access to open
middle schoolers.
conflict, and it forces their aggression into
At the conclusion of these sessions, the participants,
nonphysical, indirect, and covert forms. Girls use
as could be expected, had a broad range of reactions to
backbiting, exclusion, rumors, name-calling, and
manipulation to inflict psychological pain on and comments about the impact of the program. The
targeted victims. (Simmons, 2002, p. 3) most frequently encountered comments suggested that
students found it relieving to discuss issues that, while
Because this sort of dynamic is still not as widely pervasive in their experience, were rarely explicitly
acknowledged as physical aggression, and because addressed in conversation, either with peers or adults.
"bullying behavior in general becomes more intenseStudents also reported that the format of doing an
starting in sixth grade and continues to be so up activity and then having discussion really brought
through around tenth grade" (Thompson & Grace, 2001,

Character Education and Identity Development 19

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 abstract ideas to light so that they could be clearly
considered. Many students specifically commented
on the impact of the label activity in the third session
and the wall of cups in the fifth session, noting that
these activities really got them thinking about how they
defined themselves and others in group settings.
Why are these questions of individual identity in the
context of a group worthy of particular attention with
a seventh grade population? Lannegrand-Willems and
Bosnia (2006) put it most eloquently by highlighting
particular societal pressures on adolescents in
society today:
Feder, J., Levant, R., & Dean, J. (2007). Boys and violence: A
gender-informed analysis. Professional Psychology: Research &
Practice, 38(4), 385-391.
Greenberg, M. T., Weissberg, R. P., O'Brien, M. U., Zins, J. E.,
Fredericks, L., Resnik, H., & Elias, M.J. (2003). Enhancing
school-based prevention and youth development through
coordinated social, emotional, and academic learning.
American Psychologist, 5#(6/7), 466-474.
Lannegrand-Willemns, L., & Bosma, H. A. (2006). Identity
development-in-context: The school as an important context
for identity development. Identity: An international journal of
theory and research, 6(1), 85-113.
Marcia, J. E. (1993). The ego identity status approach to ego
identity. In j. E. Marcia, A. S. Waterman, D. R. Matteson, S.
L. Archer, & J. L. Orolofsky (Eds.), Ego Identity: A handbook for
psychosocial research (pp. 3-21). New York: Springer-Verlag.

The combination of having a broad range of choices Nichols, M. P., & Schwartz, R. C. (1995). Family therapy: Concepts and
methods. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
without having a clear basis for making them has
Pugh, M. V., & Hart, D. (1999). Identity development and peer
made adolescence particularly difficult to negotiate.
group participation. New Directions for Child and Adolescent
Today, adolescence is characterized by uncertainty Development, 84, 55—70.
and indecision; that is why the adolescent identity Sherif, M., Harvey, O.J., White, B.J., Hood, W. R„ & Sherif, C. W.
crisis constitutes a modern problem, (p. 107) (1961). Intergroup cooperation and competition: The Robbers Cave
experiment. Norman, OK: University Book Exchange.
They further argue: "in Western societies, developing Simmons, R. (2002). Odd girl out: The hidden culture of aggression in
a sense of identity has become a difficult and often girls. New York: Harcourt.
Stein, J., Dukes, R„ & Warren, J. (2007). Adolescent male bullies,
impossible task. Consequently, individuals require more
victims, and bully-victims: A comparison of psychosocial and
personal resources for the development of their identity" behavioral characteristics. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 52(3),
32(3),
273-282.
(p. 109). It is our hope that the program outlined here
can be one such resource for developing adolescents. Stern, M. B. (2002). Child-friendly therapy: Biopsychosocial innovations
for children and families. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
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Benjamin Gorvine is a lecturer at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. E-mail: b-gorvine@northwestern.edu

Eli Karam is an assistant professor in the Marriage and Family Therapy program in the Kent School of Social Work at the University of Louisville,
Kentucky. E-mail: eli.karam@louisville.edu

Marina Eovaldi is a senior staff therapist in the Family Institute at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. E-mail: m-eovaldi@northwestern.edu

Entry Deadline —February 27, 2009

Teams that Make a Difference is an awards program recognizing those who work to improve

the education and well-being of young adolescents. Sponsored by Pearson and National
Teams That Make A
Middle School Association, this annual program recognizes teams of any kind ... teachers,

Difference administrators, parents, community members, or any combination of these individuals.

Apply online today at www.nmsa.org/awards/ttmad

20 Middle School Journal November 2008

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