Identity Development Through the Lens of Communication Skills: Revisiting Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory in the 21st Century Classroom

Abstract

This theoretical and conceptual paper presents a revisiting approach to Erikson’s psychosocial theory through the lens of 21st-century communication skills. This paper also focuses on contemporary educational contexts, particularly International Baccalaureate schools, to examine how communicative agency and 21st-century communication skills can be used as a foundational ground for understanding how adolescent students express, negotiate, and reconstruct their identities. Drawing on Erikson’s concept of identity versus role confusion, and using recent theorizations on communicative agency, competence, digital communication, intercultural communication, and reflection, this paper conceptualizes communication skills as a developmental space rather than transferable skills in which learners externalize possible identities, face various situations, handle different opinions, reflect on how they represent themselves among social groups, and reconstruct their sense of self. This paper further introduces a communication-identity development framework in which communicative agencies serve a mediating role. Through illustrative classroom-based examples from IB international contexts, communication and reflection seem to play a fundamental role in supporting self-expression, belonging, cultural understanding, self-awareness, and linguistic identity development. Therefore, this paper concludes that understanding communication as an integral part of identity development extends Erikson’s framework to multicultural and digitally mediated learning environments, offering valuable implications for classroom practice and assessment.