European inventory of
societal values of culture

Côté - Sociological perspectives on identity formation

Côté, J. E. (1996). Sociological perspectives on identity formation: the culture–identity link and identity capital. Journal of Adolescence, 19(5): 417–428.

This paper addresses the problem of how culture and identity are interrelated. The author proposes to resolve this problem by framing the ‘culture-identity link’ with concepts representing three social-structural periods at three levels of analysis (the macro, micro, and psychological). From this framework, the author derives the concept of ‘identity capital’, with the help of which individuals can negotiate life passages in an increasingly individualistic, complex, and chaotic world. He places his reflections into the wider context of existing research and suggests avenues for future work. The chapter is a good example of how to deal with the topic from an interdisciplinary perspective.