Lesson 3 — Activity 1: Clothing and Group Identity

In the last lesson, you may have done some thinking about how traditional clothing contributes to your cultural identity.

Here are some examples from different cultures:

• The kilt is a traditional piece of clothing for Scottish people.
• Many articles of Ukrainian clothing include embroidered patterns.
• Brightly coloured sashes are an important part of the Metis culture.
• Many Sikh men wear a turban around their heads.

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Clothing can also be worn to show the collective identity of a social group.

 

In this lesson, you will think more about how clothing may contribute to a person's identity within a group.

Each member of your family wears different clothing according to his or her gender, profession, hobbies, and age. If you look at a traditional family with a mother, father, and two children, each person will be wearing different clothing. The mother and father may both have jobs in which they wear certain types of clothing. The father may be able to wear casual clothing to work, while the mother may have to dress in more formal clothing. The children, depending on their sex, will also have clothes that help them to "fit in" or feel comfortable in certain situations.

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Clothing can be used to show the collective identity of social groups. People who belong to sports teams sometimes wear team jackets. Fans of hockey teams might wear team jerseys. Motorcycle club members wear distinctive crests and colours. Even street gangs in large cities have distinctive clothing styles and colours.

         

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Have you noticed that many people wear baseball caps? Can a baseball cap show the collective identity of a social group?

 They can, depending upon how they are worn. Some people might choose to wear their cap backward or off to one side. Others may choose to wear the cap like a baseball player. Caps may also represent different things. Some may have crests of major league baseball teams; others might advertise certain products. Many caps also have the names of popular bands on them.

Self-check!

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