Sociology Chapter 6

Socialization

The process in which people learn their culture’s basic norms, values, beliefs, and appropriate behaviors.

We learn who we are, what is expected of us, how society operates, and where we stand withing our social world.

Agents of Socialization

People and groups who teach us about our culture.

Families play a crucial role in the early development of a child’s sense of identity.

Schools also convey a “hidden curriculum” consisting of implicit lessons about how children should behave.

Media play a central role in contemporary society - the internet provides young people access to a vast array of adult content outside of the supervision of parents.

Peer Group

A group of people, usually of comparable age, who share similar interests and social status.

Provides young people with the opportunity to experiment with values, beliefs, and behaviors that differ from their parents.

An agent of socialization

Occupational Socialization

The process of learning the informal norms associated with a type of employment.

One of the most important social settings in which we experience socialization.

An agent of socialization

Religion

Can be a potent socializing agent because it often bases its prescriptions on texts such as the Bible or the Qur’an.

An agent of socialization

Total Institution

Confining social settings in which an authority regulates all aspects of person’s life.

Has five general categories:

1. Institutions that care for people who are defined as incapable and harmless

2. Institutions set up to care for people who cannot care for themselves but who may represent an unintentional threat to the community

3. Institutions set up to protect a community from those whom authorities define as posing a significant danger

4. Institutions established to pursue a specific task requiring the total commitment of participants

5. Institutions intended as escapes or retreats from the world

Resocialization

The process by which individuals replace old norms and behaviors with new ones as they move from one role or life stage to another.

Total institutions attempt to reprogram people to avoid past problems, accept current realities, or prepare for future commitments

Life-Course Perspective

Looks at how age, time, and place shape social identities and experiences over a lifetime.

Each stage of life is associated with particular experiences that influence our identity and that require resocialization

Rites of Passage

Activities that mark and celebrate a change in a person’s social status.

Some ceremonies are rooted in religion and follow traditions handed down from generation to generation.

Anticipatory Socialization

The process by which individuals practice for a future social role by adopting behaviors associated with a position they have not yet achieved

Childhood

The early stages of life that correspond to the period during which infants gradually mature biologically into adults.

A 17th/18th century invention when children were starting to be seen as innocent and in need of protection as compared to miniature adults.

Adolescence

When youth are nearing physical maturity and are no longer considered children but have not yet taken on the rights or responsibilities of adulthood.

Maturing physically and mentally and are capable of working in many different jobs, but are now expected to stay in school and delay their entry into the workforce.

Nature VS. Nurture Debate

A disagreement about the relative importance of biology (“nature”) and the social environment (“nurture”) in influencing human behavior

Biological Determinism

Contends that biology, specifically our genetic makeup, almost completely shapes human behavior.

Those who hold this perspective argue that biology explains many types of human action, such as crime, violence, or addiction.

Attributes much of the social and economic inequality between groups to innate biological differences

Social Determinism

Contends that culture and the social environment almost completely shape human behavior.

Most economic and social inequalities result from the social systems humans create.

Epigenetics

The study of changes in gene expression (some of which can be passed on to children) that are produced without changing the underlying genetic code.

Factors such as malnutrition, pollution, trauma, and nurturing all appear to produce changes that affect the expression of genes, resulting in long-lasting health and behavioral effects.

Sense of Self

The collection of thoughts and feelings you have when considering yourself as an object.

Humans are self-conscious beings: we make ourselves the object of our own thoughts and attention.

This capacity for self-reflection is at the heart of the concept of a self.

Looking Glass Self

The idea that our sense of self develops as a reflection of the way we think others see us.

We imagine our image in the eyes of others, we imagine the others making some judgement about us, we experience a feeling as a result of the imagined judgement.

Mead’s “I”

The part of the self that is spontaneous, impulsive, creative, and unpredictable.

Nonreflective and only exists in the present (the minute you start to think about it, you lose that spontaneous self).

Mead’s “Me”

The sense of self that has been learned from interactions with others.

When you adhere to social norms.

If you reflect on the "I,” it becomes part of this.

Generalized Other

The values and orientations of their overall community rather than those specific individuals.

Internalize the values and beliefs of the culture.

Depends on social context.

The Brain

Central to social life because it processes stimuli outside.

Helps “read” people and understand intentions and behaviors.

Emotions are crucial to human communication and behavior.

Brain Plasticity

The ability of the brain to restructure and reorganize itself, especially as a result of social experiences and learning.

Foucalt’s Regimes of Power

Power in the modern world is embodied in various types of knowledge that are connected to particular social sites, such as hospitals, schools, prisons, and the workplace.

Cultural Capital

Various types of knowledge, skills, and other cultural resources that may give a person a social or economical advantage

Double-Consciousness

An inward “two-ness” or the awareness of always looking at oneself through the eyes of another.