Multicultural societies: Making sense of new environments and identities

This paper discusses theoretical issues linked to the study of identities a nd intergroup relations within multicultural societies. The issues discusse d concern how identities acquire meaning in contemporary societies where ev ents in the social context challenge identities and redefine the boundaries of the social groups. More specifically the processes involved in the form ation of new identity categorisations and the structure of identity are dis cussed. Two arguments are developed. Firstly that within multicultural soci eties one should study the systems of categorisation and the new psychologi cal boundaries within the wider theories about the world people elaborate a nd share. Secondly, it is argued that since people's identities reflect soc ial relationships, elements of the structure of common identities might be shared. Finally, the contributions of the papers of this special issue to t he above theoretical debate are presented. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.