SOCIALIZATION

1. SOCIALIZATION What makes us “human”?

2. Heredity or Environment? • The Case of Oskar and Jack, Identical twins. • Both heredity and environment seem to play a part in social development

3. What is human nature • Studies of feral, isolated, and institutionalized children indicate that social interaction is indespensible to human development and is what makes us human • Feral (wild) children are those children who are either abandoned or lost by their parents and raised by animals or raised by parents as infants and then left to fend for themselves.

4. Language is the key to human development • This case of Isabelle illustrates the point that humans have no “natural language.” • Isabel was hidden away in an attic and neglected; when found she could not speak and scored extremely low on intelligence tests. • After a few short months of intense training she was able to speak in short sentences.

5. Institutionalized Children • Research done by Skeels and Dye demonstrated that orphaned infants who are provided nurturing care benefit socially and intellectually, even when the people providing this care are mentally impaired. • Their study demonstrates that the family or the primary caregiver’s ability to establish close social and emotional bonds with a child is more important to a child’s healthy human development.

6. The Harlow Experiment • A series of experiments conducted by Harry and Margaret Harlow found that monkeys raised in isolation (socially cut off from other monkeys) had a difficult time adjusting to “monkey life”. • Babies do not “naturally” develop into human adults. The concepts that language, social stimulation, interaction, and bonding are all prerequisites to healthy human development.

7. Socialization into the Self, Mind, and Emotions • Charles Horton Cooley coined the term “looking glass self” to describe the process by which a person’s sense of self develops from interactions with others • The “looking glass self” involves 3 steps: 1) we imagine how we appear to those around us 2) we interpret others’ reactions 3) we develop a self-concept If a person perceives other peoples’ thoughts and reactions are favorable, he or she will develop a positive self-concept; if perceived as less favorable, he or she will develop a negative self-concept

8. George Herbert Mead and role-taking • Felt that role-taking is critical to the development of self • In order to “take on the role of the other,” a person needs to put him or herself in another person’s shoes to understand how that person thinks and acts and then anticipate how they will think or act. • This ability to take on the role of others develops during childhood

9. Stages of Role-playing • 1) imitation—children under 3 can only mimic the gestures and words of others • 2) play—from the age of about 3-6, children pretend to take the roles of specific others • 3) games—during their early school years, children begin to play organized games that further require them to take multiple roles

11. Jean Piaget’s Theory on Reasoning • Jean Piaget spent years observing and testing children and concluded that children go through 4 stages: • 1) sensorimotor (0-2) Understanding is limited to direct contact with infant’s environment • 2) preoperational (2-7) Children develop the use of symbols • 3) concrete operational (7-12) Reasoning skills become more developed though they may stay concrete • 4) formal operational stage (after 12) children are capable of abstract thinking

12. Lawrence Kohlberg’s Theory on Moral Development • Determined that children develop morality through a sequence of stages: • 1) amoral stage (0-7)—Children focus on immediate gratification • 2) preconventional stage (7-10)—Children learn rules that they follow to stay out of trouble and avoid punishment • 3) conventional stage (after 10)– children are able to grasp the concept of morality • 4) postconventional stage (Kohlberg feels most people never reach this stage)—people are not only able to understand morality in terms of right or wrong, but are also able to reflect on the abstract principles used to establish different behaviors as right or wrong

13. Psychologist Carol Gilligan • Examined how gender affects the development of morality. She concluded that women are more likely to evaluate morality in terms of personal relationships, while men tend to define right and wrong in terms of abstract principles.

14. Sigmund Freud • Formulated personality in terms of the Id,the ego and the superego. • Id: inborn drives for self-gratification • Ego: balancing force between the id and demands of society that suppress it. • Superego: the conscience, representing culture within us; the internalization of social norms.

15. Socialization and the development of emotions • Anthropologist Paul Ekman concluded that everyone experiences 6 basic emotions: • Anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. • According to Ekman, people everywhere display the same facial features when they have these emotions.

16. “Society Within Us” • Through social contact and interaction with others, we develop a self, mind, and personality that shapes our thinking and emotions according to cultural standards. • Socialization is essential for our development as human beings.

17. Socialization into Gender • The ways in which society sets children onto different courses in life because they are male and female is gender socialization. • Through gender socialization, men and women are socialized into gender roles—the behaviors and attitudes considered appropriate because one is male or female. • Begins with the family—parents consciously or unconsciously pass their own gender orientations onto their newborn children.

18. Gender Messages From Peers • Girls and boys teach one another what it means to be male and female. • Girls reinforce appearance and behavior • Boys reinforce culture expectations of gender.

19. The Mass Media • Teaches and reinforces appropriate gender behavior through: • 1) advertising—directed at children typically depicts boys as more dominant, active, and aggressive than girls • 2) movies and prime time—male characters outnumber female • 3) studies show that video games’ affect on gender socialization is unknown • 4) In her study on Jr. High boys, Melissa Milkie came to the conclusion that boys learn that to be male means to be obsessed by sex and violence. (through TV and movies)

20. Agents of Socialization • Those people or groups that influence our self-concept, attitudes, behaviors, or other orientations toward life. • Major agents of socialization include the family, religion, day care, school, peer groups, sports, and the work place.

21. Family • The first to have a major impact on children. • Variation in family structure has significant impact on the socialization process. • Not all families socialize their children the same way. • Kohn found that the “type of work that parents did” was the critical variable.

22. The Neighborhood Varies according to social class Studies show that children in poorer neighborhoods are more likely to get in trouble with the law, get pregnant, drop out of school, and end up facing a disadvantaged life.

23. Religion • Plays a major role in the socialization of most Americans. • 70% belong to a local congregation. • During a typical week 40% attend a religious service.

24. Day Care • The growth of day care has increased with the increase of single-parent families and the increase of both parents working outside the home. • Research is mixed about the effects of daycare. • The weaker the bonds between the mother and children the greater the child’s behavioral problems. • Other findings note that the more hours children spend in daycare, the higher they score on language tests, especially for children from low-income homes and/or dysfunctional families.

25. SCHOOL

26. School • Schools serve manifest (intended consequences) for society; reading, writing, arithmetic. • At the same time schools also have a number of latent functions (unintended consequences), such as showing children that when they are outside of their homes, they will not always be at the center of attention. Once in school, children are forced to learn universality—that the same rules apply to everyone. • Sociologists have identified a “hidden curriculum” in schools—values that, though not explicitly taught, are part of a school’s “message”. (patriotism, democracy, justice, and honesty through school activities, assignments, and/or exercises).

27. Peer Groups • Peer groups provide a setting for boys and girls to “practice” resisting the socializing influences of their parents and schools. • Peer groups significantly influence their members’ interests, tastes, attitudes, behaviors, and priorities.

28. Sports • Sports tend to reinforce gender socialization, with boys learning that masculinity is related to success in sports. • Jury is still out on how sports affect the formation of female identities.

29. The Workplace • Teaches a set of skills and also a perspective on the world. • Through “anticipatory socialization” people learn parts of their future role before actually entering that role. • The more one participates in a line of work, the more that work becomes a part of the person’s self-concept.

30. Resocialization • The process of learning new norms, values, attitudes and behaviors. • People experience this when they enter new roles: a new job, a new school, marriage, etc. • Erwing Goffman coined the term “total institution”: 1) boot camps, prison, etc. where people are cut off from the rest of society and are totally controlled by the official in charge of the institution. 2) degradation ceremonies occur when person first enters institution.

31. Socialization Through the Life Course • Socialization is a lifelong process • There are different needs and responsibilities that go along with each stage. • An historical perspective on the different stages of life—childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle years and older years—show that the attitudes and expectations that accompany these stages are influenced by social factors.

32. Childhood(birth to 12 years) • In earlier times children were seen as miniature adults. • Industrialization changed the way American society sees children as needing more guidance. • Modern technology changed the nature of childhood.

33. Adolescence(ages 13-17) • Like childhood, adolescence is not a “natural” age of division. • With industrialization, for the first time in history, millions of 13-17-year-olds were able to remain outside the labor force just as education was becoming more important for success. • Considered neither children nor adults, this is often a period of confusion and turmoil. • Adolescence is a social creation, not a biological category.

34. Transition Adulthood( ages 18-29) • This is a time of life in which adult responsibilities are postponed for millions of young people through higher education. • During this period of “extended youth”, young people are neither psychological adolescents nor sociological adults and gradually ease into adult responsibilities. (finishing school, taking on fulltime jobs, etc.)

35. The Middle Years( ages 30-65) • These can be separated into 2 distinct periods: the early middle years and the later middle years. • During the early middle years (30-49), most people are much surer of themselves and their goals in life. • In the later middle years (50-65), health and mortality become large concerns as people feel their bodies change, see their parents become frail, etc. • The later middle years can be a very comfortable period in many people’s lives due to job security and a higher standard of living. But it can also be a time of large burdens, such as having to provide care for children and parents, while worrying about the next stage of life.

36. The Older Years(about 65 on) • Can also be separated into 2 periods: the early older years and the later older years. • For people in good health, the early older years are often experienced as an extension of the middle years. • The later older years are marked by the inevitability of death. Physical decline varies from person to person.

37. Sociological Significance of the Life Course • The sociological significance of the life course is that it is influenced by social factors. The stages are not fixed; changing times and situations can alter how a society envisions different paths of the life course.

38. Are We Prisoners of Socialization? • Although socialization has a tremendous influence on how people think and act, human beings are not prisoners of socialization. We make choices.

39. Are we Prisoners of Socialization?Cont’d. • People have a considerable degree of freedom of choice, to choose which agents of socialization to follow and which messages to accept or reject from those agents of socialization that they do choose to follow.