Advancing the Understanding and Practice of Identity Formation
Identity formation shapes how people understand themselves, how they make decisions, how they build relationships, and how they contribute to the world around them.
At Imago Dei Institute, we exist to advance both the understanding and the practice of identity formation. We believe identity deserves the same intentional attention that societies already give to education, leadership, and human development.
Our work is therefore designed to deepen understanding, strengthen practice, and create pathways for lasting impact across individuals, families, institutions, and communities.
At Imago Dei Institute, we describe this interconnected approach as the Identity Formation Ecosystem, a model that recognizes that understanding, application, collaboration, and practice continually strengthen one another.
Programs
Flourishing
Families
Communities
Research, education, frameworks, partnerships, and transformative programs move in a continuous sequence, each strengthening the next. The outer ring represents the outcomes that emerge as knowledge is translated into practice across individuals, families, institutions, and communities.
Research
Healthy practice begins with sound understanding.
We pursue research that deepens our understanding of identity formation and its influence on human flourishing, leadership, resilience, relationships, and social outcomes.
Our research seeks to explore how identity develops, the environments that shape it, and the conditions that help people flourish across different stages of life.
Through thoughtful inquiry and interdisciplinary engagement, we aim to contribute knowledge that serves families, educators, practitioners, institutions, and communities.
Research provides the foundation upon which all other areas of our work are built.
Education
Making Identity Formation Understandable and Practical
Knowledge creates possibilities when it can be understood and applied.
We develop educational resources, learning experiences, publications, and teaching materials that make identity formation accessible and practical for diverse audiences.
Our educational work seeks to translate research into language, tools, and insights that can support parents, mentors, educators, leaders, and institutions in their everyday work.
Education equips people to move from awareness to intentional practice.
Frameworks
Creating Practical Models for Application
Ideas become transformative when they can be applied consistently and intentionally.
We design frameworks, models, and practical tools that help individuals and organizations cultivate healthy identity formation within their own contexts.
These frameworks provide structure, language, and pathways that support implementation across different environments, including families, schools, churches, universities, community organizations, and workplaces.
Frameworks help translate principles into practice.
Transformative Programs
Programs provide opportunities for identity formation to move from theory into lived experience.
We develop and support programs that cultivate identity, character, resilience, purpose, leadership, and lifelong flourishing through structured learning and trusted relationships.
These programs serve as practical expressions of the Institute’s broader mission and provide opportunities to observe, refine, and strengthen identity formation in real-world settings.
Our flagship initiative is the Adolescent Girls Identity Development Framework, a structured identity formation journey designed for girls aged 12 to 19.
Insights gained through practice continue to strengthen and inform every area of our work.
Partnerships
Identity formation is strengthened through communities and institutions working together.
We collaborate with schools, churches, universities, governments, organizations, researchers, practitioners, and community groups that share a commitment to human flourishing and purposeful leadership.
Partnerships enable knowledge, experience, and resources to be shared in ways that strengthen both local impact and long-term sustainability.
The challenges surrounding identity are larger than any single institution can address alone. Meaningful progress is built through collaboration.
We call this operating cycle The Formation Loop.
The Identity Formation Ecosystem is designed as a continuous cycle of learning, application, collaboration, and practice. Research deepens understanding. Education translates knowledge into accessible learning. Frameworks create pathways for implementation. Partnerships extend reach and strengthen collective impact. Transformative programs bring these ideas into lived experience while generating new insights that return to research, beginning the cycle again.
Imago Dei Institute operates as an integrated identity formation system that generates knowledge, translates it into understanding, applies it through practical frameworks, extends it through collaboration, and continually strengthens it through practice, reflection, and learning.
Research → Education → Frameworks → Partnerships → Transformative Programs → Research
Identity formation touches every stage of life and every part of society.
Identity formation is one of the defining opportunities of our time. As understanding continues to grow, it will play an increasingly important role in human flourishing and the development of future generations.
Imago Dei Institute exists to contribute to that future by helping establish identity formation as a recognized field of study and practice.
The Adolescent Girls Identity Development Framework
Our first practical expression of this work is the Adolescent Girls Identity Development Framework, a structured identity formation journey designed to help girls develop a secure sense of identity that shapes healthy choices, purposeful leadership, and lifelong flourishing.
Explore the Framework →