Week 2: Socialization

Rousseau theorized society corrupted humans. The more advanced the civilization, the more corrupt it is. He believed humans before societies were primitive, incapable of interacting and speaking to each other, but happy.

Rousseau theorized that society did what to humans?

He believed that society stood above humans, regulating and constraining their behaviour. Also believed that humans could not exist without society and interactions with others.

Durkheim theorized that society did what to humans?

Socialization

The lifelong process by which we learn about society’s norms, customs, and ideologies. Provides us with the skills to particpate in society and allows individuals to find a good fit and sense of self.

1. Structural functionalism

2. conflict theory

3. symbolic interactionist

The theories that dominate sociological research include the classic ones [3]

1. post-modern

2. feminist

What sociological theories emerged later in sociology’s development? [2]

Structural functionalist, conflict, and feminist theory

These three theories explain socialization as a process that happens from the top-down, in order from those with social power to those without.

Structural functionalism

One of the oldest socialization theories, seeks to explain how society functions effectively. Looks at how different structures and institutions in society work together to create consensus. ALlows children to internalize social rules and values, preparing them for a variety of roles in society

Purpose is to survive and reproduce itself, each part working together to do so, just like the human body.

Society’s purpose according to structural functionalism:

Conflict theory

Socialization theory that suggests human behaviour and social relations are a result of underlying conflict between two competing groups. The conflict between classes determines how individuals are raised to behave in human societies

Karl Marx

Who called social classes “classes”? (founder of conflict theory)

Capitalists and workers.

Two primary classes in conflict in MArx’s theory are:

Capitalists

Class in Marx’s theory that own the means of production (property) and sue this power of owndership to purchase the labour power of workers. Have more power in society.

POWER

according to conflict theory, THIS is a key element of social life, influencing the process of socialization

1. Who has the power to shape how individuals are socialized?

2. How does socialization help people to fit into society as it is benefit some groups over others?

3. How does socialization help or hinder social inequality?

Conflict theory asks these critical questions about the process of socialization: [3]

Feminist theory

Socialization theory that has broadened the application of Marx’s theory, retaining itsfocus on conflict, but on gender, not class conflict

Gender relations

Defined by Men possessing more social power than women so that everything in society is organized around men, their positions, and their experiences

Patriarchy

The system of male domination that feminist theories research in their work and resist with their activism

It is less influenced by power and more influeneced by everyday interactions and shared experiences.

How is socialization a horizontal process in symbolic interactionism?

Symbolic interactionism

Theory were socialization is negotiated through our connections with other people, and does not believe meanings attach naturally to things during interactions.

1. Humans acct towards things based on the meanings they assign to them

2. The meanings of things is derived or arises from social interactions between people

3. Individuals use an interpretative process to understand and modify meanings

Herbert Blumer believed three basic premises ground symbolic interactionists:

Sense of self is assembled through the reactions of others. We think of ourselves using the words and categories developed by others.

How is sense of self assembled according to symbolic interactionism?

George Herbert Mead and Charles Horton Cooley

Two people who researched the relationship between the process of socialization and the development of self

1. Stage one: Children learn language and other symbols by imitating significant others

2. Stage two: The role playing stage (they pretend to be other people in their lives)

3. Stage three: the game stage (they learn complex rules to play the games they are learning to play)

4. Stage four: Children think of themselves through the eyes of others

mead theorized the relationship between socialization and the development of self through four stages of role playing by children:

Agents of socialization

The significant and generalized others in the process of socialization

1. Family

2. peer groups

3. education system

Many different agents of socialization exist bt sociologists tend to focus on which three?

Our sense of self is assembled and constructed from reactions from others. When we look at other people, they act as a mirror that helps us to understand how we appear.

Cooley explained sense of self as what?

Primary Socialization

The process by which individuals learn the unwritten rules of a society and how to become a member of society (ex: how to have a conversation). Applies at a societal level

Secondary socialization

The process by which individuals learn about the attitudes and appropriate behaviours of a subculture within a larger society (ex: soccer team, interacting with teammates.) Applies at a smaller, local level

Anticipatory socialization

Refers to the process by which individuals rehearse potential roles they may take on in the future, like medical students interacting with patients.

Resocialization

When individuals are socialized to replace an old role in their lives with a new one (ex: those who retire)

Gender socialization

This type of socialization refers to the process of learning how to behave in a way that is consistent with the gender roles and norms of your society.

The play we engage in as children

What influences our understanding of what it means to act in a masculine/feminine way that society deems appropriate?

By the society in which we live during our lifetime. The culture and institutions of or societies, and the time period in question. The experience of aging depends on social factors.

The socialization process of learning how to become a member of society and developing an identity is shaped by what?

The dramaturgical perspective

Goffman believed that an important part of the socializatino process is learning to perform roles on the “stage of life.” The front stage is where we perform to make an impression on others while the backstage is private, where we can act as ourselves.

Clara Dollar

Researched the presentation of the self in the social media age. She unpacks how she presents herself online to a romantic date and then in-person during the date.