Cultural Identity, Stages of

The stages of cultural identity is a conceptualization developed by James A. Banks to help teachers, practitioners, and scholars conceptualize and observe the diversity within ethnic and cultural groups. This typology was called the Stages of Ethnicity when Banks first conceptualized it in 1976. He later renamed it the Stages of Cultural Identity when he expanded the typology to be inclusive of groups other than ethnic groups, such as groups categorized by culture, class, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. Banks developed the typology because his teaching experiences, readings, and observations of ethnic behaviors caused him to seriously question theories, concepts, and paradigms that described ethnic groups such as African Americans, Asian Americans, Puerto Ricans in the United States, and American Indians as monolithic, static, and ...