 People
and groups that influence our
self-concept, emotions, attitudes, and
behavior
 Agents of socialization prepare us for our
place in society
 The
most important socializing agent
 Studies show that warm, supportive
moderately restrictive family
environments usually produce happywell behaving children
 Cold, rigid, and overly restrictive families
tend to cause kids to be rebellious,
resentful and insecure
 Lower-class
families tend to be more
authoritarian and strict than middle-class
families
• Parents tend to train children to respect and obey
parental authority
 Middle
class parents are more permissive
and lenient, emphasizing the value of
independence
• More child centered and sensitive to the child’s
feelings
 Some
neighborhoods are better for
children than others
 research shows that children from poor
neighborhoods are more likely to get in
trouble with the law, get pregnant, drop
out of school or end up disadvantaged
 Religion
plays a major role in
socialization of most Americans
• 70% of Americans belong to a local
congregation and 2 in every 5 Americans attend
a religious service weekly
 Religious
especially influences morality
but also ideas about dress, speech, and
manners that are appropriate
•
•
With more mothers working, day care has become
a significant agent of socialization
Research finds that the effects of day care largely
depends on the child’s background and quality of
care
– Children from poor households or dysfunctional families
appear to benefit from day care
– Children in higher quality day care centers interact better
with children and have fewer behavioral problems
•
•
The more hours a child spends in day care, the
weaker the bonds between mothers and children
and the more negative their interactions
Children who go to day care score higher of
language tests
 One
of the first tasks at school is to learn
to fit in by getting along with others
• School provides children with their first training
in how to behave
 School
contribute to uniformity
• Expected to both help children develop their
potential and mold them into social conformity
• The hidden curriculum- trains students to be
patriotic, to believe in their country’s cultural
values and obey its laws
 Teaches
it’s members several things:
• Independent of adult authority
 Create distinct subcultures with own values, jargon,
music, dress, and heroes
• Social skills and group loyalty
• The value of friendship and companionship
• Can also teach members to disobey authorities
 Research
by Patricia and Peter Adler
demonstrates how peer groups influence
behavior
• For boys, norms that make them popular are:
athletic ability, coolness, and toughness
• For girls, norms are: family background, physical
appearance, and the ability to attract boys
•
Its almost impossible to go against peer
groups; children who do become labeled
as outsiders, nonmembers or outcasts.
 Sports-
teaching social skills and values
 Workplace- learn a set of skills and a
perspective on the world
•
What does a woman who has just become
a nun have in common with a man who
has just divorced?
•
Resocialization is the process of learning
new norms, values, attitudes, and
behaviors to match new situations in life
– Occurs each time we learn something that is
contrary to our previous experiences, such as
going to work in a new job
•
Erving Goffman coined the term to refer to a
place where people are cut off from the rest of
society and are under almost total control of
agents of the institution
– boot camp, prisons, concentration camps, convents, some
religious cults and some boarding schools
•
•
A person entering the institution is greeted with
a degradation ceremony through which current
identity is stripped away and replaced
Total institutions are effective b/c they isolate
people from outside influences and information