SOCIALIZATION:
Becoming Human; Learning One’s Culture
”It matters not what someone is
born, but what they grow out to
“Born this way” (Lady Gaga)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FrqwZyKw
be” (J.K. Rowling)
http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/06/the-fringebenefits-failure-the-importance-imagination
Presentation Contents
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1. Central Question, Main Thesis and Argument
2. Learning of One’s Culture
3. The Major Concepts of Socialization
4. Socialization Stories
5. Sociological claims on the “Nature – Nurture War”
6. Definition of Socialization
7. Why socialization?
8. Becoming culturally competent and/or incompetent
9. Socialization processes
10.Socialization Practices
11. Agents & Types of socialization
12. Significance of Socialization
13. Theoretical Perspectives of Socialization
CENTRAL QUESTION & MAIN THESIS
• CENTRAL QUESTION: What are the connections
between the Social Structure and Socialization?
• MAIN THESIS
• “Socialization is one of the most important processes by
which the social structure shapes, constrains, and
transforms us” (Tepperman 2015, p. 141)
• “Socializing forces act on us within a broader social
context known as social structure—a framework of
cultural elements and patterned social arrangements of
statuses and roles, social groups, and social institutions”
(Symbaluk, Diane G. and Bereska, Tami M. 2016, p. 81:
Sociology in Action: A Canadian Perspective, Second
Edition. Nelson Education)
ARGUMENT
• Socialization processes over the “life
cycle” [the life course--from pre-natal to
dying], types (primary, secondary,
anticipatory, and resocialization), and
agents (family, school, peers, the media,
the workplace) of socialization use culture
to tie people to their societies through the
culture’s connections to the social
structure and private experience
(Tepperman 2015, p. 150-161, 163 and
173).
“Learning of One’s Culture”
• We learn to hate gays [and other
stigmatized people] from our culture,
community norms and also from some of
the many people with whom we interact
every day…We learn many good things,
all necessary to have a society, but we can
also learn to accept some very harmful
beliefs and to practice very harmful
behaviors (Steven Barkan 2012, p. 59).
The Major Concepts of Socialization
• Socialization over the life course [“the life cycle”?]
• Types of Socialization
– Primary Socialization
– Secondary Socialization
– Anticipatory Socialization
– Oversocialization
– Undersocialization
– Racial-Ethnic and Class Socialization
– Gender Socialization
– Sexuality Socialization
– Age Socialization
– Counter-cultural Socialization
– Resocialization or Neosocialization
• Agents or Agencies of Socialization
• SOCIALIZATION STORIES
SOCIALIZATION STORIES
• 1. J.K. Rowling’s Story (Watch Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHGqp8lz36c)
• 2. Lady Gaga’s Story (Watch Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FrqwZyKw)
• 3. Lillian Smith’s Story (Read from slide)
• 4. Anna’s Story (Read from Slide)
• 5. Isabelle’s Story (Read from Slide)
• 6. Ng Chhaidy’s Story (Read from Slide)
• 7. Victor’s Story (Watch Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmdycJQi4QA)
• 8. Genie’s Story (Watch Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmdycJQi4QA)
• 9. The Education Story (Watch Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U)
SOCIALIZATION STORIES
• Lillian Smith’s Socialization Story:
– The mother who taught me what I know of tenderness
and love and compassion taught me also the bleak
rituals of keeping Negroes in their place. The father
who…reminding me that ‘all men are brothers’,
trained me in the steel rigid decorums I must demand
of every colored male. They [my parents] taught me
also to split my conscience from my acts and
Christianity from Southern tradition. These racial
views also stayed with me for many years (Steven
Barkan 2012, p. 60).
– “Choose your parents carefully”.
SOCIALIZATION STORIES
• Anna’s Story:
– Born out of wedlock, spent first six years of
her life locked in an attic-like second floor
room, she was fed but not nurtured (cuddled
and talked to). When she was rescued at the
age of six , Anna “could not talk, walk, or do
anything that showed intelligence” (Davis
1940: 119). She died about four years later.
During her four years in the social world, she
had progressed only to the level of a 2 ½ year-old child (McIntyre 2006: 145).
– “Choose your parents carefully”
SOCIALIZATION STORIES
• Isabelle’s Story:
– Like Anna, Isabelle was born to an unmarried mother
and was kept in seclusion, away from most human
interaction. When she was rescued at the age of 6 ½
, she responded to people as a wild animal might. But
within a couple of years, Isabelle had managed to
catch up with members of her age group…Isabelle
had never been cut off from human contact to the
same degree that Anna had been. Isabelle was
nurtured by her mother, and this early socialization
seems to have made a difference—even though
Isabelle’s mother was a deaf-mute who
communicated with Isabelle with gestures (McIntyre
2006: 145).
– “Choose your parents carefully”
SOCIALIZATION STORIES
• Ng Chhaidy’s (“a jungle girl”) Story:
• In 2013, the world discovered a ‘feral child’ named Ng
Chhaidy, who was re-united with her family after 38
years of separation [she disappeared while playing in a
field with her cousin shortly before a rainstorm], during
which she spent much of her life living in isolation in an
Indian forest…After half a lifetime in isolation, Chhaidy is
described as still “childlike”, unable to use language in a
conventional sense, but not shy of human interaction
(Edwards 2012, cited in Symbaluk and Bereska 2016, p.
72).
– “Choose your parents carefully”
SOCIALIZATION STORIES
• These stories illustrate the power of
socialization, which can have both good and bad
consequences. Socialization into one’s culture is
necessary for any society to exist, and
socialization is also necessary for any one
individual to be ‘human’ in the social sense of
the term. Yet socialization can also result in
homophobic, racist, and/or sexist attitudes and
behaviors that most of us would condemn
(Steven Barkan 2012, p. 75)
• The Nature – Nurture War
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
• No Sex in the City: “Sekkusu Shinai
Shokogun”: “Celibacy Syndrome".
– A survey in 2013 by the Japan Family
Planning Association (JFPA) found that 45%
of women aged 16-24 "were not interested in
sex or despised sexual contact". More than a
quarter of men felt the same way
(http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/young-people-japanstopped-having-sex).
The Nature – Nurture War
• No Sex in the City: “Sekkusu Shinai
Shokogun”: “Celibacy Syndrome".
– Japan's under-40s appear to be losing
interest in conventional relationships. Millions
aren't even dating, and increasing numbers
can't be bothered with sex (ibid.).
The Nature – Nurture War
• “Sekkusu Shinai Shokogun”: “Celibacy Syndrome".
– Marriage has become a minefield of unattractive
choices. Japanese men have become less careerdriven, and less solvent, as lifetime job security has
waned. Japanese women have become more
independent and ambitious. Yet conservative
attitudes in the home and workplace persist. Japan's
punishing corporate world makes it almost impossible
for women to combine a career and family, while
children are unaffordable unless both parents work.
Cohabiting or unmarried parenthood is still unusual,
dogged by bureaucratic disapproval (Ibid.).
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
• We learn to hate gays [and other
stigmatized people] from our culture-community norms and also from some of
the many people with whom we interact
every day…We learn many good things,
all necessary to have a society, but we
can also learn to accept some very
harmful beliefs and to practice very
harmful behaviors (Steven Barkan 2012,
p. 59).
The Nature – Nurture War
• NURTURE MATTERS MORE THAN NATURE.
• In contrast to the view of SOCIOBIOLOGY,
sociology postulates that socialization rather than
DNA or biological maturation makes people human
beings.
• In other words, the EGO and SUPEREGO develop
through the process of socialization to override the ID.
• In effect, 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 by the social structure
implemented by AGENTS of Socialization.
• DEFINITION OF SOCIALIZATION:
• The Sociological Perspective:
– Socialization is…the lifelong social learning
process, which entails mainly the learning of
one’s culture, a person goes through to
become a…member of society (Tepperman
2015, p. 141)
• WHY SOCIALIZATION?
WHY SOCIALIZATION?
• FUNCTIONALISM: Necessary for society to exist
• Society requires socialization as a vertical (top down)
sharing of culture; (not acculturation which is a horizontal
sharing of culture) because society requires
homeostasis, particularly cultural consensus, which
requires shared values, beliefs, norms, fate, feeling of
solidarity among members of the social structure.
• Through socialization people acquire cultural
competency through which society perpetuates
the fundamental nature of existing social
structures” (McIntyre 2006: 144).
WHY SOCIALIZATION?
• Social Conflict Perspective: To “manufacture
consent” (Norm Chomsky) to legitimize
inequity/inequality
– Socialization as defined by functionalism is
not required by society. Such socialization
exists only as a social construct that
manufactures consent to perpetuate the
dominant ideology that justifies social
inequalities, particularly social class inequality
(Lorne Tepperman 205, pp. 144).
WHY SOCIALIZATION?
• Interactionist Perspective: To develop
a sense of self (identity); to be human
– Socialization is both a bottom up and a top
down sharing of culture that make people
develop a sense of self (Lorne Tepperman
2015, pp. 141 and 146).
WHY SOCIALIZATION?
• Interactionist Perspective
• Socialization makes us Human Beings or People:
– It is about CONSTRUCTING CULTURE IN US to transform our
biological, inborn predispositions into socially viable behaviour
(Lorne Tepperman 2015, p. 163).
• “In primary social groups human nature comes into
existence. Man [sic] does not have it at birth; he cannot
acquire it except through fellowship, and it decays in
isolation” (Charles Cooley).
• “People” do not pre-exist the socialization process:
socialization makes us into people” (Lorne Tepperman
2015, p. 141).
WHY SOCIALIZATION?
• Feminist Perspective: To perform
socially constructed gender roles
– A process of learning the attitudes, thoughts,
and behaviour patterns that a culture
considers appropriate for members of each
sex. This process equips people to perform
gender specific roles (Lorne Tepperman
2015, p147).
WHY SOCIALIZATION?
• Postmodernist Perspective: To foster
consumerism and hyperreality in people
as a way to reproduce “the culture industry
and its literary political economies” (Ben
Agger 2001, p. 183: cited in Tepperman
2015, p. 148).
WHY SOCIALIZATION?
• In effect, apart from the Social Conflict
perspective, all the other perspectives of
sociology believe that society requires
socialization as a cultural transmission process.
And this process makes members of society
culturally competent to contribute to social
integration and interaction.
• BECOMING CULTURALLY
COMPETENT AND/OR INCOMPETENT
BECOMING CULTURALLY COMPETENT
AND/OR INCOMPETENT
• 1. OVERSOCIALIZATION:
– Acquiring enough of the material and
nonmaterial elements of your culture.
• 2. UNDERSOCIALIZATION:
– Not having enough or having the bad
part of the material and nonmaterial
elements of your culture
– “Inadequately or harmfully
socialized” (Lorne Tepperman 2015,
p, 171)
BECOMING CULTURALLY COMPETENT
AND/OR INCOMPETENT
• 3. RESOCIALIZATION or NEOSOCIALIZATION:
• Involves learning new roles and processes in a
hurry (Lorne Tepperman 2014, p. 143).
• Examples:
– 1. Job-training for career change and relationship
changes such as marriage, divorce, remarriage, etc.
– 2. “reprograming” or rehabilitation within Total
Institutions such as long-term care facilities,
convents. prisons, foster homes, mental
hospitals, drug/alcohol rehab centers, residential
schools in Canada, police/military training camps.
• SOCIALIZATION PROCESSES
SOCIALIZATION PROCESSES
• 1. What is the duration of the process?
– Lifelong Process
• 2. What is the content of the process?
– Socialization constructs THE SELF (“I” & “ME”) through the
transmission and acquisition of values, beliefs, knowledge,
skills, attitudes, character traits, emotions, morals, spirit,
image, identity, statuses and roles to the individual. That is,
things individual’s social structure and/or culture deems
important for the structure to experience homeostasis.
• 3. How are these qualities acquired?
– The SELF emerges and evolves continually as it
interacts with a variety of AGENTS of
Socialization.
UNDERSTANDING THE SOCIALIZATION PROCESS
SOCIALIZATION
CAUSES & 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
EFFECTS
AGENCIES
FAMILY
SCHOOL
PEER GROUP
WORKPLACE
MEDIA
RELIGION & COMMUNITY
LIFE
PRACTICES
PRODUCT/EFFECT
COURSE
PRE-NATAL
INFANCY
CHILDHOOD
ADOLESCENCE
ADULTHOOD
OLD AGE
PRACTICES
PRACTICES
Interaction
Experiences
Emotions
Thinking
Image
Identity
Aspirations
Dreams
Status
PRODUCT/EFFECT
MAKES THE SELF:
MAKES PEOPLE HUMAN BEINGS BY PUTTING CULTURE
IN THEM and CONTRIBUTES TO HOMEOSTASIS:
• SOCIALIZATION PRACTICES
SOCIALIZATION PRACTICES
• JAPAN & UNITED STATES COMPARED:
– Unlike United States, Japan’s culture emphasizes
harmony, cooperation, and respect for authority.
– In contrast to the United States,
• 1. Socialization in Japan is highly oriented
toward the teaching of these values.
• 2. Schools teach students to value their
membership in their homeroom or Kumi. They
spend several years in the same Kumi. A Kumi
in Junior High will stay in its classroom while
teachers of different subjects move from one
classroom to another.
• 3. Young school children in the public school
system wear the same uniforms
SOCIALIZATION PRACTICES
• 4. Japanese teachers rarely call on individual
students to answer a question
• 5. Rather than competing with each other for
good grade, Japanese school children are
evaluated according to the performance of the
Kumi as a whole
• 6. Because decision making within the Kumi is
done by consensus the children learn the need
to compromise and to respect each other’s
feelings.
• 7. Japanese teachers use constant drills to
teach children how to bow, and they have the
children repeatedly stand up and sit down as a
group. These practices help students learn
respect for authority
:
Quiz 1
• You were chatting with your parents about non-western
cultures. You cited the Japanese socialization practices
as an illustration of collectivistic societies that operate in
harmony and cooperation because in contrast to the
Western world, Japanese socialization processes
construct consensus culture in its members. Which of
the four sociological paradigms best explains the
Japanese socialization system?
• A) Functionalism
• B) Social Conflict
• C) Interactionism
• D) Feminism
• E) Postmodernism
SOCIALIZATION PRACTICES
AND IMPROVING SOCIETY
• New socialization practices might be necessary to
address many of the social problems facing Canada and
other countries in the global village.
• 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).
• AGENTS & TYPES OF SOCIALIZATION
AGENTS OF SOCIALIZATION
• “The social institutions and structured
relationships within which socialization takes
place” (Tepperman 2015, p. 150)
– We learn all sorts of things, good or bad, without
formal instructions. We learn these things from our
parents, care givers, friends, and other parts of the
social environment. We learn many other things
through formal instructions in school and the
workplace. The things that we learn from these
agents of socialization constitute culture—norms,
values, symbols, beliefs, skills, knowledge (Steven
Barkan 2012, p. 60).
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
• Primary socialization agent.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
THE FAMILY:
Initial or basic language and thinking skills
Emotions
Attitude
Morals
Spirit
Ascribed statuses and roles (gender, race, ethnicity).
Social class status and roles.
Initial self image and identity
AGENTS & TYPES OF SOCIALIZATION
• Secondary Socialization Agents
• 1. SCHOOL:
• Reinforces or disrupts initial self-image, beliefs,
and values.
• Reinforces or disrupts initial statuses
• 2. 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
• Secondary Socialization Agents
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
3. WORKPLACE:
Reinforcement and/or disruption of acquired knowledge and skills
4. MASS MEDIA:
Reinforces and/or disrupts conformity, consumerism, aggression,
crimes, and stereotypes (racial, ethnic, class and gender).
5. RELIGION:
Reinforces and/or disrupts Morals and Beliefs
6 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
TYPES 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
SOCIALIZATION AND THE LIFE COURSE
• 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.
TYPES OF SOCIALIZATION:
Transmission of Culture Inter-generationally
• Families shape children’s educational and
occupational ambitions, view on inequality
and oppression largely by influencing their
value structures through primary
socialization (Lorne Tepperman 2015, p.
161).
• “Choose your parents carefully”
RACIAL/ETHNIC SOCIALIZATION:
Processes
• 1. Racial/ethnic minorities instilling pride in their
cultural heritages and transmitting group
traditions.
• 2. Parents talk openly to their children about the
risks and experiences of discrimination
• 3. Children lean about the meaning of race and
ethnicity through discussions, observations, and
limitations of significant others usually parents
• (See Lorne Tepperman 2015, p. 160 and 161)
CLASS SOCIALIZATION:
Processes
• 1. Parents communicate their life experiences –
especially, their experiences in the workplace and their
feelings about the place they hold in society.
• 2. Parents from the upper end of the socioeconomic
scale tend to value independent thinking and hard
work—their children are likely to learn these values, and
correspondently experience beneficial results in the
workplace.
• 3. Conversely, children who are taught the opposite—
that hard work is irrelevant, school is a waste of time,
and all that counts is who (not what) you know—are less
likely to get ahead. Only children who are born rich can
safely afford to hold those values.
• (See Lorne Tepperman 2015, p. 161).
QUIZ 2
• 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, Genie,
and Ng Chhaidy show that extreme social
isolation results in irreversible damage to normal
personality development (http://www.worldmysteries.com/sci_feralc.htm.)
WATCH THIS VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmdycJQi4QA#t=32
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
• 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: Society requires
oversocialization and undersocialization because they
are functional for the social structure--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 (”Davis-Moore Thesis”).
– 3. Society to maintain social solidarity or integration
• Deviants, including criminals, are victims of undersocialization,
but undersocialization is not necessarily dysfunctional. It
contributes to homeostasis
• Individuals are passive receptacles of the top-down
socialization process: Self-fulfilling Prophesy?
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIALIZATION
• SOCIAL CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE:
Reproduction of inequalities.
– Dominant economic interests use socialization as a victimblaming cultural ideology to produce social channeling by
which children of the upper/middle classes are prepared
and directed into existing positions of privilege, and
children of the lower classes are prepared and directed into
existing positions of subservience.
• Individuals generally “cooperate” with the
socialization process because of false
consciousness (produced by “manufactured
consent”) or fear of coercion
• (SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION)
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIALIZATION
• INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE:
Development of the self through the bottom-up
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.
“All people participate in their own socialization,
through social interaction and social learning”
(Tepperman 2015, p. 146)
• (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).
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
SOCIALIZATION
• POSTMODERNIST PERSPECTIVE: Construction of Cultural
Hegemony
– Members of the dominant groups are given the mainstream
culture that prepares and directs them into positions of
privilege while minorities are given subcultures or counter
cultures that prepare and direct them into positions of
subservience.
• The resistance of the mainstream culture by the members of
subcultures or countercultures produces and reproduces
conflict. Results of this cultural interaction include “class
polarization, social atomization, urban chaos and violence,
ecological crisis, mass depoliticization, disjointed narratives, a
dark view of the human condition, death of the hero, emphasis
of technique over content, and dystopic view of the future”
(Tepperman 2015, p. 149).
(SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY).
QUIZ 3
• “Imagine that you are sitting with two friends in a
cafeteria on your campus. An openly gay student you
know walks by on his way 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” (Barkan 2012, p. 59). 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 4
• The resistance of the mainstream culture by the members of
subcultures or countercultures produces and reproduces conflict.
Results of this cultural interaction include “class polarization, social
atomization, urban chaos and violence, ecological crisis, mass
depoliticization, disjointed narratives, a dark view of the human
condition, death of the hero, emphasis of technique over content,
and dystopic view of the future” (Tepperman 2015, p. 149). What
major sociological concept(s) would emphasis this depiction of
culture and socialization?
• A) Functionalism
• B) Social Construction of reality
• C) Social Conflict and Postmodernist paradigms
• D) Sociological Imagination
•
QUIZ 5
• “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
QUIZ 6
• 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
QUIZ 7
• 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
• CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
• Without socialization we would not
learn our culture and without culture
we could not have a society.
Socialization, then, is an essential
process for any society to be possible
(Steven Barkan 2012, p. 60).