  We show that, for a certain class of partitions and an even number of
variables of which half are reciprocals of the other half, Schur polynomials
can be factorized into products of odd and even orthogonal characters. We also
obtain related factorizations involving sums of two Schur polynomials, and
certain odd-sized sets of variables. Our results generalize the factorization
identities proved by Ciucu and Krattenthaler (Advances in combinatorial
mathematics, 39-59, 2009) for partitions of rectangular shape. We observe that
if, in some of the results, the partitions are taken to have rectangular or
double-staircase shapes and all of the variables are set to 1, then
factorization identities for numbers of certain plane partitions, alternating
sign matrices and related combinatorial objects are obtained.
