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Among various features of Ukrainian society that the world has started paying more attention to since the beginning of Russia's full-blown invasion in February 2022, many commentators have pointed to a surprisingly strong and encompassing national identity. However, scholars of Ukrainian language and identity matters had for years demonstrated an increased civic attachment of Ukrainian citizens, including Russian speakers, and its greater salience compared with ethnic, linguistic, and regional identifications. This article seeks to highlight the main accomplishments and challenges of research on Ukrainian ethnic and national identity. It focuses on a gradual shift from the essentialist understanding of ethnicity as embodied in bounded groups to the interest in individuals' contextually determined identifications by categories with a changing meaning. Another prominent part of the analysis is the relationship between Ukrainian ethnic and national identity and the amalgamation of these two apparently distinct phenomena into what I propose to call ethnonational identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether or not nationalism fuels terrorist violence by ethnic groups is an important yet underexplored research question. This study offers a theoretical argument, empirical analysis and a case study. When political leaders such as presidents and prime ministers use nationalism to shore up legitimacy, they threaten the existence of disfavored ethnic groups. In turn, those groups are more likely to respond with terrorist attacks. The author tests this argument using a sample of 766 ethnic groups across 163 countries from 1970 to 2009. The multilevel mixed-effects negative binomial regression results provide evidence that leader nationalism is a significant driver of ethnic terrorism. The detrimental effect of nationalism remains the same after using a generalized method of moments method to account for possible reverse causality. A case study of Sinhalese nationalist leaders versus Tamil Tigers also supports the nationalism and terrorism nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the relationship between identity fusion and the strength of ethnic and national identification in members of Lima's Jewish community. A set of questionnaires measuring levels of ethnic identification, national identification, and identity fusion were administered to 100 members of the Jewish community in Lima. The results showed that fused members of the Jewish community identified significantly more strongly with the Jewish community and the national categories than did their non-fused peers. However, despite stronger levels of national identification, fused members of the Jewish community also expressed a significantly higher preference for maintaining social distance towards non-Jewish Peruvians than did non-fused members, but only on matters relating to the immediate family such as marriage and having children. Furthermore, results showed fused members of the Jewish community tend to extol positive attributes of the Jewish ethnic category when comparing with the Peruvian national category. Discussion is focused on how a fused identity can provide the psychological security required to express more positive relations not only with the fusion category but also with other relevant non-threatening social categories, and how identity fusion can contribute to the establishment and maintenance of social distancing from ethnic out-groups as a function of characteristic in-group preservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three approaches to portraying ethno-racial and national identity for Iran are common: a discretizing approach that groups and conflates ethnicity, language and geography; a civic-territorial conception of nationalism as supra-ethnic Iranian-ness; and an ethno-nationalist approach that criticizes the former for privileging a state-centered, Persian-Shiite majority's culture and status. Instead of arbitrating between them, we propose a sociological approach that compares different forms of ethno-racial self-identification in modern Iran. Using the 2016 Iran Social Survey, which asks open-ended questions on ethno-racial self-identification, we find wide variation in how ethnic identity is expressed. On the one hand, the findings suggest that a sizable degree of mismatch exists, where concepts of ethnic groupness are confusing or not fully recognizable to many individuals. On the other hand, we also find that multi-ethnic self-identification is common, including across the ethno-racial boundaries often portrayed as closed and mutually exclusive groups in Western discussions on Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research looks more closely at national identity in ethnically and religiously diverse Nigerian secondary schools that were specifically designed with the purpose to enhance national unity (Federal Unity Colleges – FUCs). Using survey data from 643 students in eight diverse Nigerian secondary schools (FUCs and state schools), this research makes evident the importance of schools in reshaping one's relationship to the nation. The survey results demonstrate that as students progress through the system, particularly in unity schools, they shift from a more deterministic national identity belonging to a particular group (ethnic national identity) toward a more interconnected concept of civic national identity. These findings lend valuable insight into educational policy and efforts to reshape student relationship to the nation and peacebuilding efforts particularly as related to diverse schools and in developing contexts. • The survey findings indicate a relationship between schools and the shaping of national identity. • Older students have a lower national identity indicating that schools and/or the life experience of students shape their national identity. • Unity school students—particularly older students—surprisingly show a lower ethnic national identity on average than state school students. • Over time and particularly in unity schools, students identify less with the nation. • With a negative relationship between tolerance and national identity, students seem to be moving toward a more inclusive national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]