Twenty years of group processes and intergroup relations research: A review of past progress and future prospects

The 20th anniversary of Group Processes & Intergroup Relations offers an opportunity to reflect on progress in research. We describe the changing context of research and the scope and progress in the field. This special issue includes reviews by distinguished scholars in the areas of social identity, ideology, crowds, intergroup contact, crossed and multiple social categorization, communication, majority–minority conflict, group-based emotion, group decision making, group performance, ostracism, and social-cognitive development. Achievements and current knowledge in all of these areas are raising significant new questions, challenges, and opportunities for future research, strongly demonstrating the growing scientific strength and societal relevance of research in group processes and intergroup relations.

Constructing nurses' professional identity through social identity theory

The profession of nursing continues to struggle with defining and clarifying its professional identity. The definitive recognition of nursing as a profession was the moving of training from the hospital apprentice model to the tertiary sector. However, this is only part of the story of professional identity in nursing. Once training finishes and enculturation into the workplace commences, professional identity becomes a complicated social activity. This paper proposes social identity theory as a valuable research framework to assist with clarifying and describing the professional identity of nurses. The paper outlines the key elements of a profession and then goes on to describe the main concepts of social identity theory. Lastly, a connection is made between the usefulness of using social identity theory in researching professional identity in nursing, recognizing the contextual nature of the social activity of the profession within its workplace environment.