4  The Social Identity Wheel

People have many social identities. Your gender is one. But there are many others like your ethnicity, sexual orientation, age and class that are also examples of the multiple identities a person may have. A social identity is one you get from being part of a group and we are all part of many groups. These are not necessarily within our control.

The Social Identity Wheel is a resource developed by the University of Michigan that helps you reflect on how your identities impact the ways in which you experience the world and how others might see and treat you.

You will come across the Social Identity Wheel in each unit to consider the relevance of social identity on each of the topics you will explore. It will help you gain insight into how privilege can normalise some identities over others. For instance, in a meeting with colleagues from different countries, if you are someone who speaks English as your first language you probably don’t often have to think about that as being part of your identity. However, colleagues for whom English is a second language will likely be very aware of it.

Introducing the Social Identity Wheel

To begin, click on each segment of the wheel to reveal a description of each identity.

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The Social Identity Wheel interactive graphic has 11 social identity segments that make up the wheel and the following text is revealed in the centre of the wheel when you click on each of the identities:

  • Gender – woman, man, nonbinary, transgender
  • Sex – female, male, intersex
  • Race – Black, White, bi/multiracial
  • Ethnicity – Arab, Chinese, Irish, Italian, Jewish
  • Sexual orientation – bisexual, gay, heterosexual, lesbian, queer
  • Religious or spiritual affiliation – Agnostic, Atheist, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Humanist, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan
  • Physical, emotional, or developmental (dis)ability – e.g. visual impairment, mobility challenges, mental health, neurodiversity, etc.
  • First language – language learned as child such as English, Welsh, Icelandic, German, Spanish, Catalan, Urdu, Mandarin, etc.
  • Social economic class – working, middle, upper
  • Age – childhood, adolescence, youth, adulthood, older adult, elderly adult
  • National origin – country of birth or family background
Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Activity icon Activity 1  Who are you?

Timing: Allow around 10 minutes

Now you’ve encountered the Social Identity Wheel and thought about the different identity groups, answer the questions below.

By signing in and enrolling on this course you can view and complete all activities within the course, track your progress in My OpenLearn Create. and when you have completed a course, you can download and print a free Statement of Participation - which you can use to demonstrate your learning.

3  How is the course organised?

Unit 1 conclusion