SOCIALIZATION: Becoming

SOCIALIZATION: Becoming
Human; Becoming Culturally Competent
“Born this way” (Lady Gaga)
”It matters not what
someone is born, but
what they grow out to
be” (J.K. Rowling)
The Nature – Nurture War
• “While some general behavioural
propensities may be shaped by our
genes, their manifestation is
dependent upon socialization and
cultural context” (Witt and Hermiston
2010, p. 69).
–Examples of “general behavioural
propensities”are walking, speech,
and sex.
The Nature – Nurture War
• Genes, in making possible the
development of human consciousness,
have surrendered their power both to
determine the individual and its
environment. They have been replaced by
an entirely new level of causation, that of
socialization (R.C. Lewontin 1991)
The Nature – Nurture War
• NURTURE MATTERS MORE THAN NATURE.
• According to sociology, socialization rather than
DNA or biological maturation makes people human
beings.
• This is in contrast to the view of SOCIOBIOLOGY
• The ego and superego develop through the process of
socialization to override the ID.
• In other words, human behavior is not instinctive but
learned. Nature endows people with the capacity to
learn: However, what people learn, when, where, and
how much they learn are determined by
SOCIALIZATION PROCESSES initiated and
implemented by AGENTS of Socialization.
• DEFINITION OF SOCIALIZATION
– Vertical sharing of culture; not horizontal
sharing of culture (acculturation)
DEFINITION OF SOCIALIZATION =
Transmission of Culture Inter-generationally
1. Gender Socialization
2. Racial/Ethnic Socialization
3. Class Socialization
4. Sexuality Socialization
5. Age Socialization
6. Counter-cultural Socialization
BECOMING CULTURALLY COMPETENT
AND/OR INCOMPETENT
• 1. OVERSOCIALIZATION:
– Acquiring enough of the material and
nonmaterial elements of your culture.
• 2. UNDERSOCIALIZATION:
– Not having enough of the material
and nonmaterial elements of your
culture
BECOMING CULTURALLY COMPETENT
AND/OR INCOMPETENT
• 3. RESOCIALIZATION:
• RESOCIALIZATION is a process of
replacing the individual’s existing culture
with a new one.
• Examples:
– 1. Voluntary resocialization: change of career,
retraining, marriage, divorce, remarriage, etc.
– 2. Involuntary resocialization: usually
takes place within Total Institutions such
as old peoples home, prison, foster home,
hospital, residential schools in Canada,
MAJOR CONCEPTS OF SOCIALIZATION
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Oversocialization
Undersocialization
Resocialization
Agents of Socialization
Life Course
Primary Socialization
Secondary Socialization
Anticipatory Socialization
UNDERSTANDING THE SOCIALIZATION PROCESS
SOCIALIZATION
EFFECTS
OBJECTIVES
1.
Social Control
and social inequality
Social Conflict &
Feminist Paradigms
2. Conformity to norms for
homeostasis
-Functionalist Paradigm
3. Acquisition of Knowledge,
skills, attitudes, values
beliefs, language
- Functionalist Paradigm
4. Development of the self
-Interactionist Paradigm
AGENCIES
FAMILY
SCHOOL
PEER GROUP
WORKPLACE
MEDIA
RELIGION & COMMUNITY
LIFE
COURSE
PRE-NATAL
INFANCY
CHILDHOOD
ADOLESCENCE
ADULTHOOD
OLD AGE
PRODUCT
MAKES THE SELF:
MAKES PEOPLE HUMAN BEINGS BY PUTTING CULTURE
IN THEM and CONTRIBUTES TO HOMEOSTASIS:
Interaction
Experiences
Emotions
Thinking
Image
Identity
Aspirations
Dreams
Status
AGENTS & TYPES OF SOCIALIZATION
FAMILY
Primary
socialization
PEER GROUP
Secondary
socialization
INDIVIDUALS
WORKPLACE
Secondary
socialization
COMMUNITY
Secondary
socialization
SCHOOL
MEDIA
RELIGION
Anticipatory &
Secondary
socialization
Secondary
socialization
Secondary
socialization
AGENTS & TYPES OF SOCIALIZATION
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
THE FAMILY:
Primary socialization agent.
Initial or basic language and thinking skills
Emotions
Attitude
Morals
Spirit
Ascribed statuses and roles (gender, race,
ethnicity).
• Social class status and roles.
• Initial image and identity
AGENTS & TYPES OF SOCIALIZATION
• 2. SCHOOL:
• Reinforces or disrupts initial self-image, beliefs,
and values.
• Reinforces or disrupts initial statuses
• 3. PEER GROUP:
• Reinforces or disrupts initial attitudes, emotions, values,
beliefs and self-worth
• Reinforces or disrupts initial language and dress
code.
AGENTS & TYPES OF SOCIALIZATION
• 4. WORKPLACE:
• Reinforcement and/or disruption of acquired knowledge
and skills
• 5. MASS MEDIA:
• Reinforces and/or disrupts conformity, consumerism,
aggression, crimes, and stereotypes (racial, ethnic, class
and gender).
• 7. RELIGION:
• Reinforces and/or disrupts Morals and Beliefs
• 8 COMMUNITY
• Reinforces conformity and stereotypes.
AGENTS & TYPES OF SOCIALIZATION
AND LIFE COURSE
•
The influence of socialization agents and types of socialization differ
from one stage of the life course to another not because of biological
imperatives, but rather the demands of social forces:
AGENTS OF SOCIALIZATION
FAMILY
FAM, SCH,
PG, CM
PG, SCH’
M, WKPL
WKPL, CM,
SCH, FAM, R
Adolescence
Early
Adulthood
WKPL,
FAM, R
FAM, R
TI, R
FA
LIFE COURSE
Prenatal &
Infancy
Childhood
Middle
Old
Dying
Adulthood Adulthood
TYPES OF SOCIALIZATION
PRIMARY SOCIALIZATION
ANTICIPATORY
SOCIALIZATION
ANTICIPATORY
& SECONDARY
SOCIALIZATION
SECONDARY
SOCIALIZATION
RESOC
•QUIZ
QUIZ 12
• A mother, after observing her child developing
from infancy to adulthood, concludes that as
children age and interact with more and more
persons, the self begins to grow. What causes
the self to grow, according to sociology?
• A) Interaction between biological maturation and
cultural processes.
• B) Interaction with agents of socialization
• C) DNA
• D) Parents
• THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SOCIALIZATION
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SOCIALIZATION
• Are we are prisoners of socialization: YES
• 1. Effects of social isolation on nonhuman
primates:
– physical development occurred within normal
limits, but emotional and social growth failed to
occur (Harlow research on monkeys).
• 2. Effects of social isolation on children:
– The cases of Anna, Jeffrey, Isabelle,
Victor, and Genie show that extreme social
isolation results in irreversible damage to
normal personality development
(http://www.world-mysteries.com/sci_feralc.htm.)
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SOCIALIZATION
• Are we prisoners of socialization: YES
• 3. Socialization turns people into
conforming members of a dominant
culture, subculture or counterculture.
– Individuals cannot help what they do,
think, or feel, for everything is simply a
result of their exposure to socializing
agents
• MACRO-SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE or
SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION:
– Functionalism
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SOCIALIZATION
• Are we Prisoners of Socialization: NO
• The self is dynamic. It is not a sponge that
passively absorbs influences from the
agencies of socialization but a vigorous,
essential part of our being that allows us to
act upon our social environment (Wrong
1961; Meltzer et a. 1975; Couch 1989).
• MICRO-SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE or
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY.
– Interactionism
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SOCIALIZATION
• SOCIOBIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY: The life course
plays an important role in socialization:
BIOLOGICAL STAGES OR
GENETIC PROCESSES
CULTURAL PROCESSES,
INCLUDING SOCIALIZATION
SOCIOLOGY: The life course plays an insignificant role in socialization
SOCIO-STRUCTURAL
PROCESSES
CULTURAL PROCESSES,
INCLUDING SOCIALIZATION
•E.g., The teen years emerged as an adolescence stage on the life course in
the 20th century in industrialized societies.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SOCIALIZATION
• Forms of socialization at the
various stages of the life
course and the pattern of
the life course itself are not
determined by biological
imperatives but by social
forces or constructs such as
gender, social class, race,
ethnicity, age, sexuality,
the economy and cultural
values.
• THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIALIZATION
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIALIZATION
• FUNCTIONALIST PERSPECTIVE: Oversocialization
and Undersocialization are functional for the social
structure because they help produce Homeostasis:
• Socialization is functional when it contributes to
HOMEOSTASIS, that is, when it helps
– 1. society to survive by training its members to occupy
social positions and perform their roles
– 2. Society to motivate people to take up difficult and/or
unattractive tasks/jobs.
– 3. Society to maintain social solidarity
• Deviants, including criminals, are victims of undersocialization,
but undersocialization is not necessarily dysfunctional. It
contributes to homeostasis
• Individuals are passive receptacles of the
socialization process: Self-fulfilling Prophesy?
(SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION).
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIALIZATION
• SOCIAL CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE:
Reproduction of inequalities.
– Socialization is a process of social channeling by
which children of the rich are prepared and
directed into existing positions of privilege, and
children of the poor are prepared and directed
into existing positions of subservience.
• Individuals generally “cooperate” with the
socialization process because of false
consciousness or fear of coercion
(SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION)
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIALIZATION
• INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE:
Development of the self through the process of
Looking Glass-Self:
• People develop a sense of self through
interaction with those they define as significant
others and generalized others
• Labeling and self-fulfilling prophesy?
• Individuals as active agents of their socialization.
They conform, subvert, resist, and/or overlook
messages transmitted by agencies of socialization
(SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY).
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
SOCIALIZATION
• FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE: Reproduction of
Gender Inequality & Oppression
– Boy children are given the culture that prepares
and directs them into positions of privilege while
girl children are given the culture that prepares
and directs them into positions of subservience.
• Individual girl children are generally passive
receptacles of the socialization process: Selffulfilling Prophesy?
(SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION).
•QUIZ
QUIZ #13
• Imagine that you are sitting with two friends in a
cafeteriaon your campus. An openly gay student you
know walks by on his way to out of the door and you
wave to him. As he exists the room you hear some one
at the table behind you utter an antigay remark. Angered
by this slur, you feel that you need to say something, but
you also are not ordinarily the type of person to raise a
ruckus. From the functionalist perspective of culture,
what explains the behaviors involved in this scenario?
–
–
–
–
A) High unemployment rates among the youth
B) Socialization
C) Role Conflict
D) Sociobiology
QUIZ #14
• “We see ourselves when we interact with other
people and through this process we develop our
self-image” (Steven Barkan 2012, p. 76). What
concept best represents this interaction process,
according to the classical sociologist Charles
Horton Cooley?
–
–
–
–
A) Human Agency
B) Definition of the Situation
C) Looking-glass Self
D) Self-Identity
• SAMPLE MID-TERM EXAM
SAMPLE MID-TERM EXAM
• 1. After reading C. Wright Mill’s (1959)
concept of ‘sociological imagination’, an
introductory sociology student concludes
that this concept implies that individuals do
not shape their particular life experiences.
This student is …………about this
conclusion.
• a) right
• b) wrong
• c)
dysfunctional
• d) functional
SAMPLE MID-TERM EXAM
• 2. For many of the social issues confronting humanity today such as
hate crimes, other crimes, violence against women and minorities,
sexism, racism, etc., it might not be an exaggeration to say that new
patterns of socialization are ultimately necessary if our society wants
to be able to address these issues effectively. Parents and teachers
of young children and adolescents bear a major responsibility for
making sure our children do not learn to hate and commit harm to
others, but so do our schools, mass media, and religious bodies. No
nation is perfect, but nations like Japan have long been successful
than the United states in raising their children to be generous and
cooperative (Steven Barkan 2012, p. 75). What is the Independent
Variable in this scenario?
–
–
–
–
A) Humanity
B) New Patterns of Socialization
C) Parents and Teachers
D) School, mass media and religious bodies