Chapter 3: Socialization

Socialization

The process by which people learn their culture​

1. by entering into and disengaging from a succession of roles​

2. by becoming aware of themselves as they interact with others

Role

Behaviour expected of a person occupying a particular position in society.​

Romanian Orphans

Early 1990s​

• Roughly 100 000 children in Romanian orphanages​

• undernourished, lethargic, little human contact in ​
  early years​

• 600 adopted by Canadian families​

• later studies showed the impact of the orphanage experience​

• e.g., inattention/overactivity, anxiety, social withdrawal, depressive symptoms, aggressive and antisocial behaviour​

Implication: ​

Early socialization is critical in our forming a sense of self and making us fully human.

The Crystallization of Self-Identity

• Main theories of self-development in early childhood are reviewed first.

• Key agents of socialization include families, schools, peer groups, and mass media.

• These agents teach impulse control, group identity, values, and role performance.

• Nearly everything we learn about being human ​
  (how to speak, walk, interact) comes from the people who raise us.

Socialization begins soon after birth:

• Social interaction enables infants to begin developing their sense of self.​

Continues until our last breath!​

Self​

A set of ideas and attitudes about who one is as an independent being.

Charles Horton Cooley​ ‘Looking-glass self’

• When we interact with others, they gesture and ​react to us.​

• We imagine how we appear to them, then we imagine what judgment / evaluation they are making of us.​ e.g. my parents view me as an angel so they think highly of me

• From these judgments, we develop a self-concept ​or a set of feelings and ideas about who we are ​(a self-image).

George Herbert Mead

• Argued that a storehouse of culturally approved standards emerge as part of the self during social interaction. ​

  I- subjective and impulsive aspect of the self is present from birth.

  Me- objective social component of the self that emerges gradually through social interaction and “taking the role of the other”. The “me” is shaped by culturally approved norms and standards.

Mead emphasized the human ability to “take the role of the other”—seeing oneself from another’s perspective.

• This ability is essential for interpreting others’ actions and for effective communication.

• Example: Interpreting a friend's facial expression during lunch involves imagining how they perceive you.

• The “me” develops gradually through symbolic interaction (e.g., language, gestures).

• Communication and self-awareness rely on this symbolic role-taking.

• The self is not innate in full form; it emerges through social experience

Mead’s Stages of Development

• Imitation Stage (up to ~2 years old):

  • Children imitate important people in their lives (e.g., parents).

  • These individuals are called significant others.

  • Language and symbols are learned through mimicry.

• Play Stage (~2 to 6 years old):

  • Children engage in role-play using their imagination.

  • They pretend to be specific people (e.g., “playing house” or “doctor”).

  • Helps them understand roles one at a time.

• Game Stage (~7 years old):

  • Children learn to play complex games involving multiple roles.

  • They begin to understand how various roles relate to each other (e.g., in baseball).

  • Develop ability to anticipate and coordinate actions based on others' expectations.

• Generalized Other Stage (after ~7 years old):

  • Children internalize the general cultural norms and values of society.

  • They form an image of how society typically views and judges them.

  • The generalized other represents the attitude of the broader community.

Carol Gilligan (gender differences)

• Sociological facts help explain differences in the ‘sense of self’ developed by boys and girls.​

• Different cultural standards are passed on to ​
  each sex by parents, teachers, media, etc.

Civilization Differences

Social structure shapes thinking styles—not just innate traits

Ancient China:

• Rice agriculture required cooperation and centralized organization.

• Led to a hierarchical society emphasizing harmony and social order.

• Thinking focused on:

  • Mutual obligation and consensus over debate.

  • Holistic reasoning—understanding events through whole systems, not isolated causes.

Ancient Greece:

• Geography favored small-scale herding and fishing.

• Society was less complex, more decentralized, and valued individual freedom.

• Thinking focused on:

  • Analytical reasoning—understanding events through discrete causes.

  • Greater value placed on debate and logical argumentation.

• These contrasting thinking styles reflect civilizational influences, not just biology.

• Society strongly influences how we think and how we view ourselves.

• Early symbolic interactionists uncovered how the self develops socially.

• Later researchers added insights on gender, civilization, and other social patterns of socialization.

Function, Conflict, Symbolic Interaction, and Gender: How Agents of Socialization Work

Functionalists ​

• Socialization helps to maintain orderly social relations.​

​

Conflict and Feminist Theorists ​

• Discord based on class, gender, and other divisions ​is inherent in socialization.​

​

Symbolic Interactionists ​

• Individuals creatively attach meaning to their social surroundings.

Agents of Socialization

Family, Schools, Peer groups, Media

How Agents of Socialization Work: Family Functions

Family is the most important agent of primary socialization:​

• the process of acquiring the basic skills required ​
  to operate in society during childhood ​

• One example: gender-role socialization

How Agents of Socialization Work: Schools: Functions and Conflicts

Public school system is increasingly responsible for secondary socialization: ​

socialization outside the family after childhood

Schools: Manifest Function​

• instruction in academic / vocational subjects​

Schools: Latent Function ​

• teach the hidden curriculum​

• instruction in becoming conventionally good citizens of society

Content of the Hidden Curriculum

Evaluation in the family:​

• on the basis of personal and emotional criteria​

• TO =>​

Evaluation in schools:​

• on the basis of performance (standardized tests)​

Hidden curriculum teaches​

• Punctuality, respect for authority​

• the importance of competition-hard work-ethics in leading to excellent performance

The Hidden Curriculum and Conflict Theorists

Conflict theorists’ research on socialization in schools highlights the way many students, especially those from working-class and racial-minority families, struggle against the hidden curriculum. ​

Paradoxically, the rebellion of some working class and racial-minority students against the hidden curriculum typically helps to sustain the overall structure of society, with all of its privileges and disadvantages.

Symbolic Interactionism and the ​
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Thomas theorem​

“Situations we define as real become real in ​
their consequences.” ​

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy​

An expectation that helps to cause what it predicts​

OR: intimidation to self-confirmation.

Application to Education:

• Working-class and minority students often internalize low expectations.

  • Believing they won’t succeed “by the rules,” they may reject those rules and underperform.

• Teachers also contribute to self-fulfilling prophecies with their expectations.

• Teacher bias and low societal expectations can limit minority students’ performance.

• Anxiety caused by negative expectations can itself lower performance.

How Agents of Socialization Work: Peer Groups

Peer Groups​

Individuals who are not necessarily friends but who are about the same age and of similar status.​

Status ​

Refers to a recognized social position that an individual can occupy.​

Conflict often exists between the values promoted by the family and those promoted by the adolescent peer group.

Adolescent Peer Groups​

Influence the development of a personal identity:​

• Rejection of some parental values​

• Experimentation with new elements of culture​

• Engagement in various forms of rebellious behavior

Have your parents ever expressed concern about your ‘choice of friends’?​

have ever you done something / adopted a behaviour as the result of being “part of a group.”

Peer Groups​

• Help integrate young people into the larger society.​

Adler and Adler (1998) found school cliques arranged in hierarchies:​

• Much like adult society—arrangement of classes and racial groups.​

• Popularity of students based on factors such ​
  as race, family wealth, athletic ability, and attractiveness.

How Agents of Socialization Work: Mass Media

Increasingly important socializing agents in the twenty-first century:​

• Internet​

• Television / radio​

• Movies / videos / CDs​

• Newspapers / magazines​

• Books

  Two Main Points Introduced:

  1. Reach of television and the Internet.

  2. Impact of media on socialization, especially in teaching gender roles.

The Mass Media and the Feminist Approach ​
to Socialization

Gender roles ​

The behaviours associated with widely shared expectations about how males and females are supposed to act.​

• ​Gender roles are learned, not innate.

• Mass media play a key role in teaching how to express masculinity and femininity.

Learning gender roles from mass media ​

• begins in childhood ​

• exposure to fairly widespread images of masculinity and femininity

Resocialization

Occurs when powerful socializing agents deliberately cause rapid change in a person’s values, roles, and self-conception, sometimes against that person’s will.​

It is often accompanied by a ceremony or an initiation rite. ​

• The initiation rite signifies the transition of the individual from one group to another and helps to ensure the person’s loyalty to the new group.

• Examples of Resocialization Settings:

  • Fraternities, sororities

  • Canadian Armed Forces

  • Religious orders

    Resocialization is often rapid and thorough, even in absence of initiation rites.

Initiation rites often consist of three stages:

-Separation from old identity (ritual rejection)

-Degradation and disorientation (ritual death)

-Adoption of new values and group identity (ritual rebirth)

• Not all initiation rites or rites of passage involve resocialization; some rites of passage are normal parts of primary and secondary socialization, and merely signify the transition from one status to another.​

Total Institutions

• Settings where individuals are isolated from broader society and controlled by specialized staff.

• Create a “pressure cooker” atmosphere for resocialization.

• Often intense and rapid, even without formal initiation rites.

Examples of Total Institutions:

• Asylums

• Prisons

• Drug and alcohol rehab centres

• Military (e.g., Canadian Forces)

Socialization and the Flexible Self

• The development of the self is a lifelong process.​

• Throughout life, a person enters into (and leaves behind) many roles.​

Anticipatory socialization​

Learning the norms and behaviours of the roles to which we aspire.​ Example: A 12-year-old learning from TV shows what it's like to be a young adult.

Virtual communities

Associations of people, scattered across the city or around the world, who communicate via computer about a subject of common interest. ​

• Allow people to assume new identities​

How many identities do you have?

Emergence of Childhood and Adolescence

Preindustrial societies:​

• Children were considered to be ‘small adults.’​

• Achievement of ‘full adulthood’ by about the age of 15 or 16​

The idea of childhood emerged because of​

1. social necessity ​

2. social possibility

   Seventeenth-century Europe:​

   • Most people reached mature adulthood by age 16.​

   Canada today:​

   • Most people reach mature adulthood by age 30.​

   • Term coined for teenage years – adolescence​

   • Term young adulthood – has entered ​
     popular usage

Early Adult Socialization Today

Socialization patterns of North American youth have changed over the past 40 or 50 years.​

Factors:​

1. Declining adult supervision and guidance​

2. Increasing mass media and peer group influence​

3. Declining extracurricular activities and increasing adult responsibilities ​

   -Today’s youth spend less time on extracurriculars than their parents did instead they work more shifts or have too much schoolwork.

4. The vanishing adolescent (?)​

   -Traditional childhood and adolescence may be vanishing due to major social changes like overworking and no extracurriculars

5. Millennials: the “Me” generation (?)

   First generation to come of age in the 21st century.

   -Grew up with smartphones, social media, laptops, ATMs.

   -Often labeled as the “Me Generation”:

   • Described as lazy, entitled, narcissistic, still living at home.

   • Criticized for being overpraised and under-disciplined.

   • Perceived as poorly socialized due to overly permissive parenting and "participation trophies."