Identity as a conceptual resource for the study of transitions

Relevant aspects of the theoretical concept Identity are treated in this paper, its origins, its possibilities in the postmodernism, and its actual situation. An integrative conceptual model, named Culture-Identity Framework is presented, which allow to incorporate dialectically both, the view of individuality and the view of collectivity. The model explains how culture reproduces itself, maintaining the structural stability, and how the factors related with the culture as well as the social structure do influence the transitions in the different life stages. Identity Capital and IdentityStyle concepts stem from the formulation made by James Marcia in the mid 60's, is expanded by James Côté and extended byMichael Berzonsky as their efforts to explain the social-psychological and the psychosocial processes -their emphasis, respectively- involved in the self-definition or identity. Both concepts permit the construction of a categorization framework which allow for the analysis of these processes in transition scenarios.