Abstract

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Keywords:: social identities; intersectionaltiy; intersectional studies; research paradigm

Abstract:: Originated in the Second Women’s Movement, intersectionality has recently become a new research paradigm in psychology. As a normative theory, intersectionality focuses on multiple marginalized identities or all identities, assuming that power is relational and social identities are socially constructed, and therefore values the non-additive but multiple intersecting effect and the use of multi-methodology. Integrating intersectionality into psychology can substantially inform the theory and methods in psychology: Intersectional perspectives can improve psychologists’ ability to theorize and empirically investigate the ways that social categories structure individual and group experiences, reveal the complexity of individual and group’s life and mechanisms of power and social inequality, and identify the relationship between knowledge and power, therefore providing a new lens for contextualized understanding of individual and group’s experiences and promoting methodological reform and social activism in psychology.