When Politics Gets Personal: Students’ Conversational Strategies as Everyday Identity Work
Political polarization in the United States has made conversations across ideological divides increasingly difficult to navigate. This study explores how students at a regional university in the southern U.S. experience and manage these challenges. Based on in-depth interviews with 30 students from...
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| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Behavioral Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/15/6/835 |
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| author | Toralf (Tony) Zschau Hosuk Lee Jason Miller |
| author_facet | Toralf (Tony) Zschau Hosuk Lee Jason Miller |
| author_sort | Toralf (Tony) Zschau |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Political polarization in the United States has made conversations across ideological divides increasingly difficult to navigate. This study explores how students at a regional university in the southern U.S. experience and manage these challenges. Based on in-depth interviews with 30 students from diverse social and political backgrounds, we identify four key conversational strategies: disengagement, negotiation, context adaptation, and information processing. Rather than viewing these as surface-level techniques, we argue they represent deeper identity management processes aimed at reducing the social and cognitive risks of political disagreement. Drawing on Self-Categorization Theory and Identity Control Theory, we show how these strategies reflect efforts to maintain identity coherence and manage relational stakes when political identity becomes salient. Our findings suggest that while these strategies may help students avoid conflict in the moment, they may also limit deeper engagement across divides. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for dialog practice, highlighting the importance of fostering tolerance for identity discomfort and helping students rediscover the common bonds that unite them across political differences. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-2e602bf8a85d406f8cf504390eee72fe |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2076-328X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Behavioral Sciences |
| spelling | doaj-art-2e602bf8a85d406f8cf504390eee72fe2025-08-20T02:24:18ZengMDPI AGBehavioral Sciences2076-328X2025-06-0115683510.3390/bs15060835When Politics Gets Personal: Students’ Conversational Strategies as Everyday Identity WorkToralf (Tony) Zschau0Hosuk Lee1Jason Miller2Department of Sociology & Human Services, University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, GA 30597, USAInstitute for Environmental & Spatial Analysis (IESA), University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, GA 30597, USADepartment of Psychological Sciences, University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, GA 30597, USAPolitical polarization in the United States has made conversations across ideological divides increasingly difficult to navigate. This study explores how students at a regional university in the southern U.S. experience and manage these challenges. Based on in-depth interviews with 30 students from diverse social and political backgrounds, we identify four key conversational strategies: disengagement, negotiation, context adaptation, and information processing. Rather than viewing these as surface-level techniques, we argue they represent deeper identity management processes aimed at reducing the social and cognitive risks of political disagreement. Drawing on Self-Categorization Theory and Identity Control Theory, we show how these strategies reflect efforts to maintain identity coherence and manage relational stakes when political identity becomes salient. Our findings suggest that while these strategies may help students avoid conflict in the moment, they may also limit deeper engagement across divides. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for dialog practice, highlighting the importance of fostering tolerance for identity discomfort and helping students rediscover the common bonds that unite them across political differences.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/15/6/835identity discomfortinterpersonal communicationstudent political discourseidentity verificationpolitical polarization |
| spellingShingle | Toralf (Tony) Zschau Hosuk Lee Jason Miller When Politics Gets Personal: Students’ Conversational Strategies as Everyday Identity Work Behavioral Sciences identity discomfort interpersonal communication student political discourse identity verification political polarization |
| title | When Politics Gets Personal: Students’ Conversational Strategies as Everyday Identity Work |
| title_full | When Politics Gets Personal: Students’ Conversational Strategies as Everyday Identity Work |
| title_fullStr | When Politics Gets Personal: Students’ Conversational Strategies as Everyday Identity Work |
| title_full_unstemmed | When Politics Gets Personal: Students’ Conversational Strategies as Everyday Identity Work |
| title_short | When Politics Gets Personal: Students’ Conversational Strategies as Everyday Identity Work |
| title_sort | when politics gets personal students conversational strategies as everyday identity work |
| topic | identity discomfort interpersonal communication student political discourse identity verification political polarization |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/15/6/835 |
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