Psychosocial and Leadership Identities Among Leaders of Identity-Based Campus Organizations

In this article, we describe a qualitative study of identities of 18 college students leading identity-based campus organizations at 1 large public institution. Identity-based organizations are those registered student groups whose mission includes serving the educational, cultural, social, or other needs and interests of students from a given psychosocial identity (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation). We observed 2 paths that students followed through their leadership experience: (1) A “parallel” path in which students experienced their psychosocial identity and their leadership identity separately, and (2) a “merged” path in which students merged these identities into a sense of being, for example, a “gay leader” or a “Latina activist.” Based on our findings that student leaders in identity-based organizations experience both psychosocial identities and leadership identities as salient—whether parallel or merged—we make recommendations for higher education practice, policy, and research.