What is it about?
Every person falls into multiple identity categories (e.g., race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.), but not everyone who shares the same set of categories experiences the world in the same way. This paper offers a model for understanding how individuals may form unique identities of their own even when compared to others with similar identity categories.
Featured Image
Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Category level labels (e.g., Black, male, heterosexual, etc.) are useful for exploring certain subsections of human experiences. However, they often flatten those within the categories to a single, or only a handful of perspectives. Intersectionality provides a way of understanding how those various categories may overlap to create unique experiences at the category level (e.g., Black heterosexual men). While this provides a refinement over using a single category, there may still be ways that individuals who share multiple categories experience themselves and the world around them in differing ways. By looking at identity (an internal process) rather than category (an external label), this model may further refine our ability to understand how individuals experience the world in their own unique ways.
Perspectives
This model was born through conversations with mentors and peers who all pushed my thinking in various ways, both theoretically and how I practically understand myself and others. I hope it will be useful to you in similar ways.
Kahlil DuPerry
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A framework for integrated intersectional identity development., Practice Innovations, September 2026, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/pri0000345.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
