Socialization
Chapter Outline
 Social Isolation and Socialization
 Theories of Childhood Socialization
 Agents of Socialization
 Socialization Across the Life Course
Socialization
 The process by which people learn their culture.
 They do so by:
1. entering and disengaging from a succession of
roles (behaviors expected of a person occupying a
particular position in society).
2. becoming aware of themselves as they interact
with others.
Sense of Self
 Social interaction enables infants to begin developing
a self-image or sense of self—a set of ideas and
attitudes about who they are as independent beings.
 This process continues into adolescence
Freud
 Proposed the first social-scientific interpretation of
emergence of the self
 Noted that only through social interaction can a
person’s sense of self emerge
Cooley: “looking-glass self”
 When we interact with others, they gesture and react
to us.
 We can imagine how we appear to them.
 We judge how others evaluate us.
 From these judgments we develop a self-concept.
Mead: 4 Stages of Role Taking
Children learn to use language and other symbols
by imitating significant others
2. Children pretend to be other people.
3. Around age 7, children play games that require
them to take the role of other people.
4. Once a child can think in this way, she can begin
the fourth stage which involves taking the role of
the generalized other.
1.
Gilligan: Gender Differences
 Demonstrated that sociological factors help explain
differences in the sense of self that boys and girls
usually develop.
 Parents and teachers pass on different cultural
standards to boys and girls.
 Research shows that girls develop lower self-esteem
than boys.
Approaches to Socialization
 Functionalists emphasize how it helps to
maintain orderly relations
 Conflict and Feminist Theorists stress the
discord based on class, gender, etc.
 Symbolic Interactionists highlight the creativity
of individuals in attaching meaning to their social
surroundings
Kinds of Socialization
 Primary socialization
 The process of acquiring the basic skills needed to
function in society during childhood. Usually takes
place in a family.
 Secondary socialization
 Socialization outside the family after childhood.
Family as socialization
 The family is the most important agent of primary
socialization
 A small group providing careful, intimate attention
 Teaches children everything from language to their
place in the world
Schools as socialization
 Schools train children in the hidden curriculum:
what will be expected of them in the larger society
once they graduate
 Schools teach children to be good citizens
 Students are led to believe that they are evaluated
solely on the basis of their performance on
impersonal, standardized tests.
Self-fulfilling Prophecy
 An expectation that helps bring about what it predicts.
 Thomas theorem
 “Situations we define as real become real in their
consequences.”
Peer group
 Composed of people who are not necessarily friends
but are about the same age and of similar status as the
individual.
 Status refers to a recognized social position that an
individual can occupy.
Mass Media
 People are more likely to choose influences from the
mass media that fit existing cultural standards
 An example is gender roles: widely shared expectations
about how males and females are supposed to act that
we learn in part through consuming mass media
Polling Question

Which media source do you think has the strongest
impact on attitudes and behaviors of your
generation?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Advertising
Television
Music and music videos
The Internet
Magazines
Resocialization
 Occurs when powerful socializing agents
deliberately cause rapid change in one’s values,
roles, and self-conception.
 Three-stage ceremony:
1) separation from one’s old status and identity (ritual
rejection)
2) degradation, disorientation and stress (ritual death)
3) acceptance of the new group culture and status
(ritual rebirth)
Total Institutions
 Settings where people are isolated and under the
control and supervision whereby participants abandon
old self-perceptions and assume new identities
 Examples: asylums and prisons
 Resocialization is often rapid and thorough, even in
the absence of initiation rites
Adult Socialization
 The development of our self is a lifelong process as we
enter new roles and learn new expectations
 To help us learn new roles, we often engage in
anticipatory socialization whereby we begin to take
on the norms and behaviors of the roles to which we
aspire
The Flexible Self: Factors
 Globalization- people are less obliged to accept the
culture into which they are born.
 The ability to change one’s body if you can afford it.
 The internet allows people to create virtual
communities that allow interaction using concealed
identities.
Dilemmas of Childhood and
Adolescent Socialization
 Declining adult supervision and guidance.
 Increasing media influence.
 Declining extracurricular activities and increasing
adult responsibilities.
 Vanishing Adolescent: are childhood and
adolescence disappearing as their experience and
meanings are changing so radically
1. The process by which people learn their culture by
entering and disengaging from a succession of roles
and becoming aware of themselves as they interact
with others is:
a.
b.
c.
d.
roles
socialization
identity development
maturity
Answer: b
 Socialization is the process by which people learn
their culture
2. Charles Horton Cooley introduced the idea that
when we interact with others, they gesture and
react to us, which allows us to imagine how we
appear to them. This concept is called:
a. resocialization
b. relating with others
c. looking-glass self
d. development of “me”
Answer: c
 Looking-glass self is Cooley’s description of the way
our feelings about who we are depend largely on how
we see ourselves evaluated by others.
3. Which of the following do sociologists not regard
as agents of socialization?
a.
b.
c.
d.
the family
schools
peer groups
the generalized other
Answer: d

Sociologists do not regard the generalized other
as agents of socialization.
4. Resocialization occurs when:
a.
b.
c.
d.
powerful socializing agents deliberately cause
rapid change in one’s self-conception
teachers develop expectations that turn into selffulfilling prophecies
peer groups help adolescents develop
independent sources of identity
the process of mastering the basic skills required
to function in society is complete
Answer: a.

Resocialization occurs when powerful
socializing agents deliberately cause rapid
change in one’s self-conception.