CULTURE, IDENTITY, AND
SOCIALISATION
INTRODUCTION
What is the relationship between the
individual and society?
Culture, norms, values. roles and beliefs.
• This section examines the social constructions of culture. norms,
values, roles and beliefs and how these influence human
behaviour.
• There is no agreed definition of the term culture but it is used in
two main ways. In everyday speech it usually refers to things like
art, music and literature.
• Sometimes it also refers to things such as the media, fashion and
advertising - which are sometimes called popular culture.
• In this unit we are using the term in a broader way to mean the
whole way of life of a society.
• In this sense every aspect of human life is influenced by culture
because we constantly refer, consciously or unconsciously, to our
society or social group for guidelines about how to think and
behave.
Culture includes:
-what you eat and drink, with whom and when
-how you dress and the care you take over your
appearance
-the language, spoken and unspoken, that you use
to communicate with others.
-the way you spend your leisure time
-the kind of home and family you live
-religious and spiritual beliefs and practices
-festivals and celebrations.
Discuss the elements of culture.
Elements of Culture
1.Symbols.
2.Language
3.Values.
4.Beliefs
5.Norms
Conformity and non-conformity: the agencies and
processes of socialisation.
The rewards and sanctions applied in different
societies and organisations.
• Rewards: a positive sanction so that someone
is praised or is better off.
• Sanctions: ways of rewarding or punishing
acceptable or unacceptable behavior, usually
used example the sense of punishment ,
(negative sanctions).
Some types of informal social control
are:
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shame
ridicule
sarcasm
criticism.
Ostracism: excluding someone from the
community or group
Agencies of social control or agencies
of socialisation.
-Families. It is through primary socialisation in the family that children absorb norms and values. The
strong bonds between parents and children and the impressionability of young children make this the
most important period of socialisation. Children learn to regulate their own behaviour so as not to
offend others. They internalise values so that they feel guilt and remorse if they break norms that are
based on them.
-Schools. In the school system children are controlled in many ways. They are told what to do and when,
most of the time. Unit5 explores the idea of the hidden curriculum, which suggests that at school
learning to obey the rules and conform to education is as significant for children as learning knowledge
and skills.
-Religion. For those with religious beliefs, religions offer guidelines and laws for how to behave and offer
both rewards and punishments for behaviour. The values of a society are often based on the main
religion.
-The media. The media offer role models as well as constant messages about how to behave and
reminders about rewards and punishments through offering examples of good and bad behaviour, both
in factual news reporting and in fiction.
-Workplaces. There are rules and regulations at places of work and other norms that people may need
to learn as they settle into a new job.
-Peer groups. These are powerful agencies of social control because people feel the need to belong to
groups. The threat of being rejected is often a powerful one. When we feel we have been pushed into
behaving in ways that our peers will approve of, this is called peer pressure.
Functionalists and Marxists view of
social control.
Functionalists view of social Control
-For functionalists like Emile Durkheim societies need a set of shared
values to hold them together as functioning societies and in order to
prevent anomie.
-Anomie happens when individuals lack the guidance of norms and
values and are unable to regulate their behaviour so that the bond
between the individual and society breaks down.
-Durkheim argued that societies need a collective conscience, shared
by all or nearly all. In the traditional societies in Australia studied by
Durkheim, the clan or tribe joined together in worshipping a totem
and this gave them a sense of shared identity.
-The clan's values were their own. In modern societies, and especially
during periods of rapid social change, there is a risk that the bonds
that hold society together will break down.
-The Marxist Louis Althusser referred to schools, the media and
religion as the ideological state apparatus, that is, institutions that
make people believe that it is right to conform.
-However, the norms and values they conform to are those that suit
the ruling class and help to keep the ruling class in power. For
example, working-class people might accept the belief that people
who are born into a high status deserve their status and should be
respected and obeyed.
-This is in effect a form of brainwashing and the working class
concerned is in a condition of false consciousness, by accepting
beliefs that are against its own interests.
-The state keeps in reserve the use of the repressive state apparatus
of the police, the criminal justice system and the armed forces when
the ideological state apparatus does not work.
Examples of Rewards and Sanctions in different types of
Societies and organisations
1.Schools
The rewards include;
-verbal praise.
- positive comments on written work.
-positive letters to parents.
-merit badges or stickers.
-positive points.
-certificates of achievement.
-success in exams.
Sanctions in schools include;
-disapproval by teachers.
-verbal comments by teachers.
-negative comments on written work.
-making students sit or work alone.
-sending them out of the classroom.
-keeping them in at break.
-lunchtime or after school (detention)
-making them write lines.
-contacting their parents to report their misbehaviour or concerns.
- confiscating their property such as cigarettes.
-In the past, and still today in some countries, students are given corporal punishment (beating).
2.Workplace
Rewards include;
-promotion to a better post.
-a pay increase.
-performance-related pay.
-bonus payments.
-commissions or being given shares in the company.
Sanctions include;
-loss of pay.
-having to face a disciplinary hearing.
-Being closely monitored at work.
-being demoted to a lower post.
-being given less pleasant work.
- and being fired.
3.Rewards and sanctions in traditional societies.
Sanctions
-putting the offender to death.
-put in the stocks where they were unable to move while the community showed its disapproval by throwing dirt or
rotten fruit at them.
-in the army (punishments for a whole army unit for the wrongdoing of one soldier).
-and in schools (keeping a whole class in detention when one or a few pupils have misbehaved).
-being shunned by the community.
-being expelled from the community (sent away).
-having your possessions taken away.
-being punished physically, including beatings.
-having your head shaved.
-being mutilated or killed or having to pay blood money (the murderer is made to pay the family of the victim).
Rewards
-include being given a position of responsibility in the community.
-respect.
-status.
- and gifts to show appreciation.
4. Rewards and sanctions in modem industrial societies.
-form of imprisonment.
-a police force or equivalent, courts and prisons are needed.
Sanctions In the UK today;
*there are four main types of sanctions;
a. Discharge. This is when individuals are found guilty but are not punished. If the discharge is
conditional they may be punished later for this offence if they committed further offences.
b. Fine. This is the most common sanction and is used for many minor offences.
The offender is punished financially according to the severity of the offence and their ability to pay.
Fines are often imposed for offences such as driving and traffic offences and criminal damage.
c. Community service. This covers a wide range of sanctions where offenders do not go to prison but
are required to do certain things or their actions are restricted in some way. They may have to do
unpaid work or get training or treatment, live in a particular place, be put under a curfew and be made
to avoid activities like attending football matches. They may have to report to a police station or see a
probation officer regularly. The purpose of these sanctions is to try to prevent reoffending and to
punish the offender.
d. Prison sentence. This is reserved for the most serious offences. Prison sentences can be for any
length of time or for life.
The UK bas used many other sanctions in the past that
are not considered suitable today. These include:
-Execution. The death penalty has been abolished. The
last execution by hanging was in 1964.Some modem
industrial societies, notably the USA and Japan, still have
the death penalty.
-Transportation. Offenders in the 19th century could be
transported to a colony (in the UK this was usually
Australia) as punishment. This is a form of exile. It was
considered a humane alternative to execution.
-The pillory and the stocks.
Sub-Cultures
-Sub-cultures are groups of people in a culture whose norms
and values are different in some ways from the overall culture.
-This may show in their different value systems, different
behaviour and different style of dress and appearance.
-The members of a sub-culture are influenced by the culture
of the society and their own position in it but they reject or
rebel against aspects of it in some way.
- In the eyes of the wider society the members of the subculture may appear not to be conforming but they do
conform to the norms and values of the sub-culture.
- Sub-cultures may even use informal social control to
regulate the behaviour of members, for example refusing to
accept them as members.
Youth sub-cultures
-The term youth sub-culture is mainly associated with groups of young
people who adopt a style and culture that is partly at odds with the
main culture. Some sub-cultures identified in the UK since the 1950s
are:
-beatniks
-mods and rockers
-skinheads
-hippies
-punks
-Goths
-emo.
*Clothing, music, appearance and speech can act as symbols of these
sub-cultures.
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• The existence of sub-cultures suggests that not everyone in a
society holds the same values and norms. However, there will be
dominant norms and values to which the sub-cultures are a
reaction.
• From a functionalist point of view, sub-cultures offer a kind of
safety valve. Growing up is a difficult period for many and a youth
sub-culture may help adolescents to manage this period.
• Young people need to develop a sense of autonomy and
independence from their parents and so they turn to the support
of their own age group. Within the strong peer groups of young
people the norms and values may be different to some extent
from those of the rest of society.
• This period, during which individuals are less dependent on their
parents than in childhood, is functional both for the individual and
society.
Some functionalists also use the idea of sub-culture to explain the higher
rates of crime among working-class boys.
-Forming a sub-culture is functional for some individuals whose route to
success seems to be blocked, for example because they have not done well at
school or cannot find a job.
- The sub-culture gives them a group in which they can win status and
respect. It gives such people an alternative opportunity structure.
- The members of the sub-culture may start by having the same values as
everyone else but it is because they cannot achieve their goals by socially
acceptable means that they form sub-cultures.
-Most people belong to sub-cultures for a limited period only. Employment,
marriage and adult responsibilities make people leave the sub-culture and
adopt mainstream norms and values.
-While too much crime and deviance is dysfunctional and can destabilise a
society, sub-cultures can therefore carry out valuable functions.
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While functionalists tend to talk about a youth culture, Marxists and interactionists refer to youth
sub-cultures. This is because the Marxist and interactionist theories of sub-cultures were formed in
the 1960s when it was dear that there was not one but many youth sub-cultures, all with very
different styles and often at odds with other sub-cultures.
Marxist approaches therefore tried to explain why different groups of young people adopted
different sub-cultures.
Marxists saw the youth sub-cultures as rebellions by working-class youth against capitalism. The
young people were reacting against a system that seemed to offer them little.
They had been failed by the education system and had no jobs (or dead-end jobs) and no
prospects. These young people could not try to defend themselves against the system through
trade unionism as their parents might have done.
Middle-class youth did not rebel in the same way because they could see that they could be
successful through getting academic qualifications and a career.
This approach is different from the functionalist one because it is not concerned with the
transition from childhood to adulthood generally, but with the place in which young people find
themselves in the economic system and class structure. Marxists therefore see youth sub-cultures
as one way in which deep conflicts within society become visible.
Other sub-cultures.
-As well as youth sub-cultures, there are other types of sub-cultures within societies. For a sub-culture
to be said to exist, it has to break away from the dominant norms and values so that from the point of
view of the main culture the sub-culture is deviant or eccentric. Some types of sub-cultures are:
a. Religious. Many religious beliefs and practices are into the main culture. Some, however, such as sects
that place strong demands on members, can be seen as sub-cultures.
b. Ethnic minority groups. The cultures of immigrant or indigenous groups that are markedly different
from the main culture can be seen as a sub-culture.
c. Class sub-cultures. Some sociologists have argued that the working class has a set of values and
norms that are sufficiently different from the main, middle-class culture for it to be considered a subculture.
d. Sub-cultures based on interests. These have to be strong enough to take up a considerable part of
members' time and become an important aspect of their identities. An example would be
bodybuilding. The interests can be social or political.
*The internet and the new media have allowed sub-cultures based on interests to grow stronger as it
has become much easier for geographically distant people to share their enthusiasms via online
communities, forums and chat rooms. These sub-cultures can now be global.
Diversity and cultural variation in
human behaviour
-This section deals with diversity and cultural variation and the issues related to cultural relativism or
multiculturalism.
-The debate about whether globalisation is creating a global culture is discussed.
- cultural diversity refers to the wide differences
between human cultures.
-Different societies around the world have developed different cultures, some in close contact with
each other and trading and marrying people of other societies, while others developed in relative
isolation for many thousands of years, such as the Australian Aborigines.
-Cultures are rooted in communities and in the past people learnt their culture in informal, everyday
situations in their home and community. Most cultures were always in contact with others but cultural
interactions have increased over the last 200 years.
-The increased contacts between peoples means that people around the world now have more
knowledge of other cultures.
-Human cultures are very diverse. What is considered normal in one culture may be considered
strange, deviant or offensive in another.
Areas of cultural variation include:
-language
-norms of dress and appearance
-food and drink
-traditions such as rituals and festivals
-ideas about morality.
some cultural variations in food:
-Cultures have different ideas about what people should and should not eat,
such as insects, and animals such as dogs and monkeys. Horse meat is eaten
in many countries in Europe but not usually in the UK.
-All the main world religions have some followers who keep to dietary rules.
For example, Muslims do not eat pork or drink alcohol. Jains follow beliefs
about the sanctity of all life and so do not eat meat, poultry, fish or eggs and
even avoid eating root vegetables, as the whole plant is killed when the root
is dug up.
-Meat and fish are usually cooked before eating, but there are exceptions
such as raw fish eaten in Japan and Rastafarians only eat lightly cooked food.
-There are cultural variations in meal times and in who should eat with
whom; for example, men and women may eat separately.
-Western cultures tend to avoid eating with their hands and use cutlery such
as knives, forks and spoons. East Asian cultures use chopsticks and in Africa
and South Asia eating with the hands is common.
Culture Relativism and
Multiculturalism
Culture relativism
-Sociologists often study and write about cultures other
than their own.
-When they do this, it is important not to be
ethnocentric; that is, the sociologists should not judge
other cultures by comparing them with their own.
-The sociologists should try to see how the other culture,
which may seem strange and different, will have some of
the same features as their own society.
-Cultural relativism involves not judging the other culture
as an outsider but on its own merits.
Multiculturalism and other responses to diversity
-The movement of groups of people between regions and countries
means that in many nations today there are different cultures.
-People and societies can adapt to cultures existing alongside each
other indifferent ways.
-Assimilation and integration take place when immigrant cultures or
others over time gradually lose their separate identity and become
part of the dominant culture.
-Many people felt that the assimilation of cultures in a melting pot
meant that important aspects of culture were lost. From this came
the idea of a multicultural society made up of many different cultures
existing alongside each other without losing their distinctive features.
-Each group would keep its own language and cultural practices and
would not have to abandon its heritage in order to be accepted.
Some aspects of this diversity are:
-their religions; while most Indian people are Hindus there are
followers of many other faiths, including Islam, Christianity,
Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism
-their regions; because of India's great size there are big
differences in culture between different states and regions
within India
-their languages; Hindi is the official language and English a
subsidiary official language but more than 30 native
languages are spoken by more than a million Indians and
there are hundreds of other languages too (several different
writing systems based on different languages are used).
Criticisms that have been made of multiculturalism include:
-It gives too many rights to minority communities; for example, if they
have the right for their children to be educated in their home language
this would be expensive to provide.
-Minority communities may stay too separate from the host
community, so there is insufficient integration.
-It is too idealistic. It is unlikely that very different cultures can exist
alongside each other in peace, harmony and equality.
-The host culture becomes just one of many cultures, when it should
provide the value system that holds the society together.
-It may lead to conflict between groups.
Other ways in which some countries have moved towards assimilation rather than multiculturalism
include the following:
-Citizenship tests, which were introduced in the UK for people wishing to live in the UK or become
naturalised British citizens. These tests are intended to ensure that people know about British history
and culture and can use the English language.
-Community cohesion. This refers to attempts to integrate minority groups by involving them in
community programmes.
-Acting against the expression of some aspects of minority cultures. For example, in 2010 France
banned the wearing in public of anything that covered the face. The effect of this was to prevent the
wearing of the niqab. An aspect of Muslim culture (though not necessarily of Muslim religion) was
banned.
-Increasing nationalism. In some countries nationalism has been based on asserting a single culture.
This happens when a region wants to break away from a country and the people are ethnically,
linguistically or religiously distinct from the national culture. Examples include the province of Quebec
in Canada (where French rather than English is spoken) and Catalonia in Spain (where Catalan rather
than Castilian Spanish is spoken). It can also take the form of opposing immigration and wanting to
expel minorities. This can result in ethnic cleansing, which means the expulsion of an ethnic group and
its culture (for example, by destroying its buildings) so as to create an ethnically pure state. Ethnic
cleansing often involves persecution and violence and in its extreme forms involves genocide (the
extermination of an ethnic group).
Globalisation and global culture
-Globalisation is a concept used by sociologists to
describe the process in which geography ceases to
be a limitation on human behaviour and people
become increasingly aware of this.
-It involves the feeling that the world seems to be
getting smaller because people and the cultures
around the world have more contact with each
other and are aware of each other.
-Described as involving changes in politics,
economics, and culture.
Examples of cultural globalisation include:
-world information systems such as satellite communications, the internet,
telecommunications and e-mail
-global mass media such as news, films, television programmes and recorded music
being available around the world
-global patterns of consumption and consumerism, where people have cosmopolitan
life styles and feel at home in different cultures
-global sport, such as the Olympic Games and the football World Cup
-world tourism, where people now travel long distances for tourism
-clothing and appearance; for example, people all around the world wear T-shirts,
jeans and baseball caps
-food; the types of food and styles of cooking from different places are available
everywhere.
-some brand names associated with cultural goods are global like McDonalds, Coca
Cota and Walt Disney.
Age group as an example of social
construction
Social construction
-Age, like gender, race and ethnicity, is socially constructed. Different
societies divide their members into age groups in different ways and
the roles assigned to them vary and are not always directly linked to
biological abilities.
-In modern Western societies children spend a long period relative to
most other societies undergoing socialisation into adult roles before
they enter the adult world.
-Elderly people enter a phase of retirement at a legally specified age.
In some other societies, children start working alongside adults at
much earlier ages and there is no formal retirement age: people work
as long as they are physically able.
Social construction of childhood
Children are physically immature people; this is biological. But the ways in
which children are thought of, the way they are treated and the ways they
are expected to behave vary between cultures and in different time periods,
so childhood is socially constructed.
-The way in which childhood is socially constructed has, according to
historical research, changed completely in the last 500 years.
-The French historian Philippe Aries went so far as to argue that childhood in
the modern sense did not exist in the medieval period in Europe. Children
were not seen as different from adults.
-They wore the same clothes, worked alongside adults and shared the same
recreations. Children learnt news as adults did, from travellers or from those
with access to information such as priests.
- Children were not protected from the adult world. They were aware early on
of violence, death and sex. There was no period of formal education for most
of them and no set age at which they became adults.
-This changed around 500 years ago. The invention of the printing press and the growth of formal
education created a new, separate world of childhood. ln this new period children were thought to be
different from adults and needed to be trained and taught to control their nature so as to behave in a
civilised way.
-They were protected from many aspects of the adult world. Many British children worked Jong hours
in harsh conditions during the Industrial Revolution but gradually new laws stopped this. More
children went to school and stayed there longer.
-Today, whole professions (including educational psychologists, paediatricians, teachers and child
psychiatrists) are based on the assumption that children are not yet fully developed people and that
they are vulnerable and need protection and guidance.
-Modern industrial societies have become child-centred, and children are considered to be at least as
important as adults and to deserve special attention and protection. Aries says that this idea of
childhood is a modern invention.
-Neil Postman has developed Aries's ideas and argues that childhood has been changed again by the
growth of television, computers and new technology. These mean that children are exposed to the
adult world at an early age (as they were in the past). They cannot be kept isolated and innocent any
more. Postman cites increases in crime by children and the tendency for children to dress and behave
sexually more like adults and at a younger age as evidence that childhood is changing as society
changes.
How do we learn to be human?
Primary and secondary socialisation
Primary socialisation, takes place mainly within the family and from birth to
infancy. This is when children learn the basics of interacting with other
people.
The main agencies of secondary socialisation are also the agencies of social
control discussed above.
-They are schools, religion, workplaces, the media and peer groups. Each time
a person faces a new situation, such as starting school, starting a new job or
getting married there are new roles and accompanying norms to be learnt,
and these are learnt through secondary socialisation.
-Some situations may require people to change their behaviour a lot: in
these situations re-socialisation takes place. Examples of re-socialisation are
joining the armed forces or being imprisoned.
Secondary socialisation (later Socialisation), usually involving earning more
specific norms for particular statuses and roles.
Processes through which children
learn social expectations
They ran through the following ways
a. Manipulation: how parents and others
encourage some behaviour and discourage
other behaviour
b. Exposure to the hidden curriculum.
c. Imitation. Learn from parents
d. Role modelling: acting as an example so that
this behaviour is copied by others.
The feminist sociologist Ann Oakley argued that children learn the social expectations
that go with their sex roles (that is, the behaviour expected of their sex) in four main
ways:
a. By manipulation. Parents encourage and praise some activities and discourage
others. For example, a boy may be praised for taking part in a hazardous physical
activity while a girl might be discouraged from even trying.
b. By canalisation. Parents channel their children towards activities they consider
appropriate. Boys may be encouraged to play football, girls to take up ballet dancing.
Girls may be encouraged to take greater care over their appearance than boys.
c. By verbal appellations. These are the ways in which parents address their children.
-For example, the word naughty may be used more often with boys than with girls:
pretty may be used for a girl and handsome for a boy.
d. Through different activities. These are the different activities that boys and girls take
part in; for example, girls helping their mother with cooking while boys help their
fathers with do-it-yourself tasks around the home.
Main agencies of socialisation
-The main agencies of socialisation include the family, education and the media. This
section looks at their impact on the individual and some of the consequences of
inadequate socialisation.
The family is usually the main agency of socialisation throughout childhood and
arguably beyond. There are many types of families so the experience of children can
be very different.
-The mother is normally the person who has most contact with and is most important
to the child, so the nature of the relationship between mother and child is crucial.
Many mothers now return to work when their child is old enough to be cared for by
others.
-In modern industrial societies, many children spend most of their early years in a
nuclear family of mother, father and perhaps one or two siblings. Others are brought
up by only one parent or by both biological parents and step-parent or adoptive
parents.
-The social class and ethnicity of the family are also important. Children pick up the
language and behaviour of their parents and others in the family and internalise them
so that they become part of who they are. Families continue to act as agencies of
socialisation throughout childhood and into adulthood.
The education system of schools and colleges is
another important agency of socialisation.
-Children learn the formal curriculum but they also
learn the behaviour expected of them and the
organisation of the classroom and the school.
-In modern industrial societies many children now
attend nursery schools and other preschool
institutions where they begin to learn these things.
-In traditional societies education is more informal
and is carried out by adult members of the family
and community.
-Peer groups are made up of people of the same age and status. In traditional
societies there a re often age groups based on rites of passage and
ceremonies, for example before they become accepted as adults.
-Experiencing these ceremonies together binds the age group into a peer
group that can strongly influence the group members' behaviour.
-In modern industrial societies children are brought together in classes in
schools based on their age. Children in the same class at school often spend
a lot of time together and form strong friendship bonds that may even last
throughout their lives.
-These bonds may now form earlier than in the past as more children attend
nursery schools or day-care centres, playing and learning together.
-Peer groups continue to be important in adult life, whether as continuations
of earlier friendships or in new peer groups based on work colleagues or
people met through other interests.
-The media are now an important part of socialisation throughout Life. In traditional
societies the equivalent of the media is the oral storytelling tradition, in which many
stories have messages from which children learn. Today, the media are increasingly
important in childhood as more children interact with the media for longer periods.
-There are more films and television programmes aimed at children, for example For
a long time sociologists have wondered whether the socialisation of children by the
media might be faulty or have negative effects.
-For example, children might watch violence on television programmes and copy it,
thinking it was acceptable behaviour or they might copy bad language. In fact,
research suggests that children can be thoughtful and discriminating viewers.
-They do not passively accept media messages; they work at making sense of them,
often with help from their family and peers. The importance of the media continues
throughout life. For example, the news coverage of crimes and court cases reminds
people of the limits of acceptable behaviour and the consequences of breaking the
law.
Religious organisations are often important
agencies of socialisation.
-Many children learn moral values from
attending mosques, churches and other places
of worship, or from hearing and reading holy
books and teachings.
Work places
-When starting a new job, people have to learn
not only what the employer wants and expects
them to do, but also how to get on with their
fellow workers.
-This can involve in effect being socialised into
new norms and values .
Inadequate socialisation: Feral and
Isolated Children.
-Children who have been inadequately socialised are unable to fit into society.
-Wild or feral children have not been socialised.
-There arc many legends and stories around the world about feral children, such as the story of
Mowgli, the boy brought up by wolves in Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book.
-About one child a year has been discovered who has been deprived of human contact for an extended
period. Some cases are better documented than others and there are differences between each.
-For example, some children have had different amounts of human contact before living alone for a
long period. Some seem to have been cared for by animals and some have even adopted some animal
behaviour. Some are cases of extreme neglect, where a child has been confined and deprived of human
contact but given food.
-'Where children have had some human contact, for example, kept in a house but fed and hearing some
language, they are referred to as isolated children. Some cases are eventually found to have been
frauds.
-In some sociology textbooks there was a report of two girls in India, Amala and Kamala, who were
supposed to have been brought up by wolves in the 1920s and who were known as the wolf children.
This was later proved to have been a deception with the aim of raising money for the orphanage where
the girls (who had mental problems and were orphans but not feral children) lived.
-Despite the differences between the individual cases, most feral and
isolated children(problems associated with feral and isolated children.)
-find it difficult to speak a language; this has led to the belief that
there is a crucial period in the development of children when they
need to hear and
-start to speak a language and that if this does not happen they will
never learn to speak
- find it hard to adapt to normal food; for example, they may prefer
uncooked meat
-do not like wearing conventional clothing
-may not walk upright, preferring to walk on all fours
-may seem uninterested in other people and unable to understand
how others might see them and react to them
-may not learn to use a toilet, instead relieving themselves at will.
The study of feral and isolated children raises important
questions, including the following:
-How much behaviour is natural rather than learnt in a
specific culture?
-How do children who have never learnt a language learn
to communicate?
-Can feral children think logically?
-Can feral children see how others might see them?
-What differences are there between a feral child and an
animal such as a wolf or monkey? (Is it interaction with
other humans that makes us more than animals?}
The nature/nurture debate
The nature/nurture debate focuses on the extent to which our personality,
attitudes and behaviour are decided by what we have inherited in our genes
(our nature) or by our social environment (nurture).
-This is a long-running debate with arguments on either side. Although there
can probably be no clear conclusion, recent research on genes suggests that
there is a complex relationship between nature and nurture - in other words,
that both sides are partly right.
-We live in societies and so our genes are expressed only in social situations,
so it is difficult, and perhaps a mistake, to separate the two.
- Sociologists concentrate on nurture but that is because it is part of the
subject matter of sociology, so perhaps the sociological preference for
nurture as the main explanation of behaviour is just the outcome of the
nature of the discipline.
-The two extreme positions in this debate are called determinism.
- Those who argue that nature is all important are biological
determinists; those who argue that nature is all important are
social determinists.
Some of the traits that sociobiologists have said may be biologically
determined are:
-Criminal behaviour. There may be a genetic predisposition to violent,
aggressive or rule-breaking behaviour.
-Intelligence. There may be a genetic component to intelligence.
-Sexual orientation. Whether people are heterosexual, bisexual or
homosexual may be determined by their genes.
.The nature theory takes this a step further and argues that more
abstract trails such as: intelligence, personality, aggressiveness and
sexual orientation may also be inherited
Role, age, gender, ethnic group and
class as influences on social identity
1.Roles, are based on our relationships with others.
The roles we play can be used to identify you.
For example:
*I am a husband, *father, *teacher *and author; *for my bank
I am a customer and *for my doctor a patient.
-People's lives are constantly changing and roles and identities
are not fixed for life.
-Your roles will change as you become an adult, enter worker
continue as a student roles is part of my identity, though some
are more important than others, and there are occasions and
situations where the relative importance or unimportance of
that aspect of my identity changes.
2. Age and identity
-In traditional societies many people had little idea how old they were.
-More important was the age set(people initiated at same time) they
belong to: the group of people with whom they went through
important stages in life, especially initiation into adulthood.
-In some traditional African societies there were three main stages in
men's lives - as children, warriors and elders.
-Boys of roughly the same age were initiated into adulthood and
became adults at the same time. -The initiation may have involved
instruction in traditions and lore and adult responsibilities and an
ordeal or test of strength.
-There were equivalent ceremonies for girls. African elders were seen
as sources of knowledge and experience and were valued members of
the community and integrated into extended families.
-Teens and age groups(people born at the same time) and adolescents
groups were used to identify people in the society.
3. Gender and Identity
-In traditional societies gender roles are usually fixed and there is little scope for individuals to
negotiate them.
-In modern industrial societies gender is an essential aspect of identity. It is helpful to distinguish sex
from gender, although they are closely interconnected.
-Sex relates to the body and biological characteristics; in particular, male and female humans have
different chromosomes. Gender is about how these biological differences affect our social lives. Until
recently, gender roles and identities were quite strict.
-Men took what functionalists call the instrumental role, looking after the practical and economic
needs of the family, such as food, shelter and money. Women took the expressive, domestic role,
looking after the home and the emotional needs of the family.
-Men who conform to the expected gender role of their society are masculine, while women who
conform to the expected gender role are feminine. In modern industrial societies, masculinity and
femininity have often been thought of as opposites (as in 'the opposite sex').
-This can be seen in some of the words commonly used to describe the two sexes:
*Masculinity: strong, competitive, aggressive, unemotional, active, confident, hard
*Femininity: weak, emotional, passive, quiet, dependent, soft
How have men inclined themselves to female
like gender reactions
-This has changed and it has become much more
acceptable for males to behave in ways that might
once have been seen as feminine, such as:
*showing emotion publicly, such as crying
*taking care over their appearance, following
fashions and using cosmetics
*talking about their relationships and emotions
*for fathers, having a close emotional bond with
their babies or infants.
Ethnicity and Identity
-Throughout history when different groups of people have encountered each other they have
responded by making a distinction between themselves and the other group.
-The Romans saw everyone who lived outside the Empire as barbarian, in contrast to civilised Roman
citizens.
-Ethnicity is a social construct. Ethnic groups exist only because people identify themselves and
others as members of groups and reinforce boundaries between groups.
-In most modern industrial societies today there is much greater ethnic diversity than in the past
because of migration. For example, the UK has significant African-Caribbean and Asian ethnic
minorities.
-Within each of these there are several groups and using terms like Asian to describe too many big
groups is not useful. Asians in Britain are not one group or even three (Indian, Pakistani and
Bangladeshi). There are many possible distinctions between people based on their Language, religion,
social class and national origin.
- New hybrid cultures are being created as cultures meet. For example, there are now British
Bangladeshis who are both British by citizenship and Bangladeshi by part of their culture. There are
also now growing numbers of people from mixed backgrounds (for example, with one British Asian
and one White British parent) who live in both cultures and who have some choice in creating new
identities for themselves.
-Closely related to ethnic identity is national identity. It might be expected that
globalisation would lead to the end of the nation-state and to national identities.
-In fact, nationality has become a more central part of many people's identities in
recent years and nationalism has been a factor in both world wars, in anti-colonial
struggles, in the fall of eastern European communism and in debates over the future
of Europe.
-Nationalism developed in modern times as a way of uniting the diverse peoples of
nation-states. For example, the UK needed to unite the people of England, Scotland,
Wales and Ireland, who had different religions, languages and cultures.
-Benedict Anderson argues that nations and nationalism are socially constructed and
calls them 'imagined communities'. In real communities people know each other or
interact regularly but nations are too big for this to happen. Creating a sense of
national identity is particularly important where:
*there are several sub-cultures or ethnic groups within the nation.
*the national boundaries are artificial, that is, they do not correspond to natural