Editor's Note: The Hope and Promise of Identity Theory and Research

International and multidisciplinary in scope, Identity is intended to provide a forum for identity theorists and researchers around the globe to share their ideas and findings regarding the problems and prospects of human self-definition. The unifying thread of these articles is identity in its various manifestations throughout the life course. The operating assumption is that people in many parts of the world are struggling with aspects of their identities and that many of these problems transcend national, political, and cultural boundaries-taking on global proportions.

In addition to a focus on substantive theoretical and empirical analyses, the journal also welcomes policy discussions, program recommendations, and evaluation studies. We especially want to provide a forum in which theoretical analyses find practical applications in dealing with these global problems. Submissions are invited from all fields and from the full range of methodologies. In these respects, the journal provides multiple bridges, across nations and disciplines, as well as between theory and research, and subjectivist and objectivist epistemologies. Our intention is to provide a nonpartisan forum within which researchers from the various areas concerned with identity can communicate their findings and stay apprised of the findings of other researchers, especially among those who use different technical languages.