'A person like me': identity narratives, dual process theories, and subsistence related decision-making among young people experiencing homelessness.

Drawing on 39 in-depth interviews with young people experiencing homelessness in a large Canadian city this paper explores the identity processes at the heart of how young people make decisions about getting by on the street. The paper integrates insights from cognitive sociology and narrative theories of identity to highlight an active, complex, and socially situated decision-making process. In particular, it explores the role played by three types of dispositional processes identified in the dual process and cognitive sociology literature: cultured capacities, dispositions, and cultural scripts. The analysis shows how the young people in the sample used their identity narratives to engage with and underwrite these dispositional influences and connect them back to an internalized sense of self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]