Chapter 4 Textbook Outline PDF

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Chapter 4 

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Socialization: the lifelong process of learning the norms, values, behavior, & social skills appropriate to your social position, such as age, gender, or social class; the social process through which children develop an awareness of social norms & values & achieve a distinct sense of self, but also continues to some degree throughout life A core aspect of socialization is that the lessons one learns must be appropriate to one’s level of maturity The lessons that parents deem essential for their children also very over historical time Socialization reflects not only the social position that a child has, but the positions that a child will someday occupy Socialization is the process whereby the helpless infant gradually becomes a selfaware, knowledgeable person, skilled in the ways of his/her culture Vast majority of social roles we hold in life seem “natural” but actually involves intense socialization, or learning how to successfully navigate one’s roles & relationships throughout the life course Social reproduction: the process of perpetuating values, norms, & social practices through socialization, which leads to structural continuity over time During socialization, esp. in early years, children learn the ways of their elders, thereby perpetuating their values, norms, & social practices All societies have characters that endure over time, even though the individuals change Socialization connects different generations to one another  birth of a child alters the lives of the parents, leading to new learning experiences Although cultural learning is much more intense in infancy, & early childhood than later in life, learning & adjustment continue through the life course

Basic Concepts Agents of Socialization  Socialization occurs in two phases, involving numerous agents of socialization  Agents of socialization: groups or social contexts within which processes of socialization take place  Primary socialization: o Occurs in infancy & childhood o Most intense period of cultural learning o The time when children learn language & basic behavioral patterns that form the foundation for later learning o Family is main agent of socialization  Secondary socialization o Occurs later in childhood & in maturity o Other agents of socialization, such as schools, peer groups, organizations, media, & workplace become socializing forces o Social interactions in these contexts help people learn the values, norms, & beliefs of their culture  Family systems vary widely, so infant’s range of family contacts is not standard across cultures  In modern societies, most early socialization occurs within a small-scale family context  Most Americans grow up with a domestic unit containing mother, father, & siblings, while in other cultures, aunts, uncles, & grandparents are part of a single household & serve as caretakers

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Despite variations, the family normally remains the major agent of socialization from infancy to adolescence & beyond, in a sequence of development connecting the generations In premodern societies, the family determined the individual’s lifelong social position In modern societies, social position is not inherited, yet the region & social class of the family have a distinct effect on patterns of socialization  children pick up ways of behavior of their parents or others in their community Varying patterns of child rearing & discipline, together with contrasting values & expectations, are found in different sectors of large societies The very existence of a range of socializing agents in modern societies leads to divergences among the outlooks of children, adolescents, & parents Schools are agents of socialization in subtler respects (punctuality, discipline, accepting authority)  reactions of teachers affect the expectations children have of themselves Peer group: a friendship group composed of individuals of similar age & social status; traditionally formalized as age grades with ceremonies or rites that mark the transition from one age-grade to another Age-grades: the system found in small traditional cultures by which people belonging to a similar age group are categorized together & hold similar rights & obligations  those within a particular age-grade generally maintain close connections throughout their lives Gender Play (1993) – sociologist Barrie Thorne explores how children learn what it means to be male or female & examined how children actively create & re-create the meaning of gender in their interactions with one another Thorne spent two years observing fourth- & fifth-graders at two schools in Michigan & California, sitting in the classroom with them & observing their activities outside the classroom She watched their games to learn how children construct & experience gender meanings in the classroom & on the playground Thorne found that peer groups greatly influence gender socialization, particularly as children talk about their changing bodies Peer relations have a significant effect beyond childhood & adolescence Informal groups of people similar ages, at work & in other situations, are usually of enduring importance in shaping individuals’ attitudes & behavior Thorne’s research is a powerful reminder that children are social actors who help create their social world & influence their own socialization Mass media: forms of communication, such as newspaper, magazines, radio, & television, designed to reach mass audiences  important influence on socialization in all forms of society Most commonly researched topic is the effect of TV on propensities toward crime & violence George Gerbner (1986) analyzed samples of prime time & weekend daytime TV for all major American networks each year since 1967 o They charted the number & frequency of violent acts & episodes for a range of programs, defining violence as physical force directed against the self or others by which physical harm or death occurs o Database included observations on 2,816 television programs; they also coded 34,882 characters according to mathematic, demographic, & activity categories o On average, 80% of programs contained violence, w/ a rate of 7.5 violent episodes/hour o Children’s programs showed even higher number of violent acts & episodes of any type of television program

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Robert Hodge & David Tripp (1986) emphasize that children’s responses to TV involve interpreting, or reading, what they see, not just registering content o They suggest that most research has not considered the complexity of children’s mental processes o Children read programs by relating them to other systems of meaning in their lives o It is not the violence alone that affects behavior but rather the general framework of attitudes w/in which the violence is both presented & read 60% of Americans regularly play computer or video games w/ average age of 31 Video Kids (1991) by Eugene Provenzo analyzes the effect of Nintendo o He concludes that video games have become a key part of the culture & experience of childhood today o Nearly 55% of parents believe playing video games helps families spend time together It is doubtful that a child’s involvement w/ Nintendo harms their achievement at school Research shows that video games may have positive consequences, such as helping young people hone skills that are relevant both to formal education & to wider participation in a society that depends on electronic communication Marsha Kinder (1993 media scholar) noticed that her son’s adeptness to Nintendo transferred to other spheres Recent work by neuroscientists also shows that young people who play fast, actionpacked video games have better vision, attention, & concentration that those who don’t & these benefits – esp. attention – help to enhance young people’s learning However, when these rapid-action games have very violent imagery, they may desensitize players to violence Work is, in all cultures, an important agent of socialization, although only in industrial societies do large numbers of people go to places of work separate from the home In industrialized countries, the work environment often poses unfamiliar demands, perhaps calling for major adjustments in the person’s outlook or behavior As individuals learn the specific tasks they will perform on the job, general skills that can be translated to a wide range of work settings, & cultural norms that guide appropriate professional behavior Sociologists have explored in-depth how individuals learn to manage their emotions in the workplace, focusing on ways that workers learn to hide negative emotions in order to foster good relationships with customers or how to manage the emotional distress they feel when they encounter sad to gruesome experiences on the job Individuals are socialized into varied & complex skills required to be successful in the workplace

Social Roles  Social roles: socially defined expectation of an individual in a given status/social position; learned through socialization  Some sociologists, particularly assoc w/ the functionalist school, regard social roles as unchanging parts of a society’s culture; they are social facts o Individuals learn the expectations for social positions in their culture & perform these roles as largely as they have been defined o Through socialization, individuals internalize social roles & learn how to carry them out  this view is MISTAKEN  Socialization is a process in which humans can exercise agency; they are not passive subjects waiting to be instructed or programmed  individuals come to understand & assume social roles through an ongoing process of social interaction Identity

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The cultural settings in which we grow up influence our behavior, but that does not mean that humans lack individuality or free will  from birth, our interactions condition our personalities, values, & behavior, but socialization is also at the origin of our individuality & freedom In the course of socialization, each of us develops a sense of identity & the capacity for independent thought & action Identity: the distinctive characteristic of a person’s or group’s character that relate to who he is & what is meaningful to him; main sources of identity include gender, sexual orientation, nationality, ethnicity, & social class Social identity: the characteristics that are attributed to an individual by others – markers that indicate who, in a basic sense, that individual is o These characteristics place that individual in relation to others who share the same attributes o All individuals have more than one social identity, thereby reflecting the many dimensions of their lives o Involves a collective dimension – they mark ways that individuals are the same as others o Shared identities, aside from forming an important base for social movements, serve as a powerful source of personal meaning or self-worth Self-identity: the ongoing process of self-development & definition of our personal identity through which we formulate a unique sense of ourselves & our relationship to the world around us o It is our constant negotiation with the outside world that shapes our sense of self, linking our own personal & public worlds o People’s identities are more multifaceted & less stable owing to urban growth, industrialization & the breakdown of earlier social formations o Individuals have become more socially & geographically mobile We are our own best resource in defining who we are, where we come from, & where we’re going The decisions we make in our everyday lives – about what to wear, how to behave, & how to spend our time – help make us who we are Through our capacity as self-conscious, self-aware human beings, we constantly create & re-create our identities

Socialization through the Life Course  The stages of the human life course are social as well as biological; they are influenced by cultural differences & material circumstances in various types of societies     

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Childhood is a distinct stage of life b/w infancy & teen years In earlier societies, the young moved directly from a lengthy infancy into working roles w/in the community Philippe Aries (1965) has argued that childhood did not exist in medieval times Right up to the 20th century, the U.S. & most other Western countries, children were put to work at what now seems a very early age The ideas that children have rights & that child labor is morally repugnant are recent developments  societies now are in some respects more child-centered than traditional ones Child-centered society is NOT one in which all children experience love & care from parents; in fact, physical & sexual abuse of children is a commonplace feature of family life in present-day society Roughly 3 million reports of child abuse are made to law enforcement authorities each year; roughly 78% of these cases involve neglect, followed by physical abuse (18%), sexual abuse (9%), & emotional abuse or mistreatment (9%)

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It is possible that as a result of changes in modern societies, the separate character of childhood is again diminishing Children today grow up fast b/c small children may watch the same television programs as adults, thereby becoming much more familiar early on w/ the adult world than did preceding generations The biological changes involved in puberty are universal, but the teenage phase didn’t exist till recently Yet, in many cultures, these do not produce the turmoil & uncertainty often found among young people in modern societies In cultures that foster age-grades, which hold ceremonies that signal a person’s transition to adulthood, the process of psychosexual development seems easier to negotiate  adolescents in such societies have less to “unlearn”, or break w/ childish pursuits In traditional cultures, in which children already work alongside adults, this process of unlearning is much less jarring In Western societies, teenagers are betwixt & between: they often try to act like adults, but they are treated by law as children Teenagers in the West live in between childhood & adulthood, growing up in a society subject to continuous change

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Young adulthood seems increasingly to be a stage in personal & sexual development in modern societies

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Scholars have observed a “delayed transition to adulthood” among young people in the late twentieth & early twenty-first century Sociologist Frank Furstenberg has identified five tasks that are considered critical to the adulthood transition: leaving the home of one’s parent, finishing school, getting married, having a child, & being financially independent In 1960, fully 65% of men & 77% of women had achieved all five milestones by age 30 In 2010, only 25% of men & 39% of women had done all five by age 30 Young adults today have the opportunity to pursue education & “try out” many professions & romantic partners before settling on one career or one spouse  this period of exploration allows young people to figure out a life that works best for them in the long term Young people today also have the option not to make particular transitions, w/out fear of stigma Young people themselves also adhere to a much broader view of what “adulthood” is, defining it in terms of abstract traits like self-reliance & happiness, rather than the attainment of particular milestones like homeownership

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Most young adults in the West can expect to live well into old age Death through sickness or injury was much more frequent among all age groups than it is today, & women faced a high rate of mortality in childbirth In current times, major uncertainties must be resolved in marriage, family life, & other social contexts The creation of sexual & marital ties now depends on individual initiative & selection rather than being fixed by one’s parents  this represents greater freedom for the individual, but the responsibility can also impose difficulties Keeping a forward-looking perspective in middle age has become particularly important in modern societies

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The midlife crisis is very real for many middle-aged people  a person may feel that she has thrown away the opportunity that life had to offer or that she will never attain goals cherished since childhood Growing older need not lead to resignation or despair; a release from childhood dreams can be liberating In traditional societies, older people were accorded with great respect  elders had a major say in matters of importance to the community & w/in families the authority of both men & women increased w/ age In industrialized societies, by contrast, older people tend to lack authority within both the family & social community There has been a great increase in the proportion of the population over 65 (4%  14%) Transition to the age-grade of elder in a traditional culture often marked the pinnacle of an individual’s status In a society in which many are physically healthy in old age, an outward-looking view will become more prevalent  those in retirement might find renewal in “third age”, in which a new phase of education begins

Theories of Socialization  One of the most distinctive features of human beings is that they are self-aware  During the first months of life, the infant possesses little or no understanding of differences b/w human beings & material objects & has no awareness of self  The problem of the emergence of self is much debated among contrasting theoretical perspective  American philosopher & sociologist George Herbert Mead mainly considered how children learn to use the concepts of “I” & “me”  Jean Piaget, the Swiss student of child behavior, studied many aspects of child development, but his best-known writing concern cognition  Cognition: the ways in which children learn to think about themselves & their environment; human though processes involving perception, reasoning, & remembering G.H. Mead & the Development of Self  Because Mead’s ideas underlie a general tradition of theoretical thinking, symbolic interactionism, they have a broad impact in sociology  Symbolic interactionism emphasizes that interaction b/w human beings occurs through symbols & the interpretation of meanings  Mead’s work also describes the main phases of child development, concentrating on the emergence of a sense of self  Infants & young children develop as social beings by imitating the actions of those around them  Children’s play evolves from simple imitation to more complicated games in which a child of four or five will act out an adult role  at this stage, children acquire a developed sense of self & achieve an understanding of themselves as separate agents – as a “me” – by seeing themselves through the eyes of others  We achieve self-awareness when we learn to distinguish the “me” from the “I”  “I” is the unsocialized infant, a bundle of spontaneous wants & desires  “Me” is the social self: the identity conferred upon an individual by the reactions of others  Individuals develop self-consciousness: awareness of one’s distinct social identity as a person separate from others  A further stage is at 8-9 yrs old, when children take part in organized games rather than unsystematic play & begin to understand the values & mortality that govern social life

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Children at this stage also learn generalized other: a concept in a theory that suggests that the individual comes to understand the general values of a given group or society during the socialization process

Jean Piaget & the Stages of Development  Piaget emphasized the child’s active capabilities to make sense of the world  children do not passively soak up information, but instead select & int...