Sociology Studies AS Level: Socialisation and the creation of social identity

Anderson (1983)

Societies are 'imagined communities' where members lack any 'real' physical connection with other members of the society, but consider themselves as one group through social construction.

Merton (1957)

Objects have two functions: a manifest function, or the main purpose of the item (a car drives, a watch tells time), and a latent function, a hidden function specific to societal norms (cars and watches are common status symbols).

Merton (1938)

Without order and predictability, anomie, a situation where social norms and values break down, may arise.

Goffman (1959)

Norms are more open to interpretation than roles or values, meaning different people can act in different ways despite having the same roles and values.

Billikopf (1999)

In Russia, peeling a banana for a woman meant a man had romantic feelings for her.

Wojtczak (2009)

In Victorian Britain, 'women's sole purpose was to marry and reproduce'.

Mead (1934)

Advanced social skills have to be taught and learned. The social context in which behavior is learnt determines how people behave.

For Mead, an awareness of who we are ('the Self') has two aspects, an 'I' based around our opinion of ourselves ('unsocialised self'), and a 'Me' Aspect that consists of our awareness of how others expect us to behave ('socialised self').

Goffman (1939)

Our sense of identity is constructed by how we present ourselves to others. Our self and identity are formed through how we present ourselves to others. We 'perform' and 'act' to create a certain impression on other people to achieve a desired status or standing. Sometimes, we base our performances off our personal identity and what we want to be. Other times, we base it off of what others expect us to be given the situation and our role.

Cooley (1909)

In the majority of social encounters, other people are used as a mirror reflecting other people's images of us.

Wilson (1979)

Biological principles of natural selection and evolution are applied to humans to produce a 'biological basis' for all behavior. Our behavior isn't determined, but influenced by our 'biogrammars'.

Parsons (1959)

In most societies, family roles are organised for women to play an expressive role, while men play an instrumental role. While these are not determined, overriding these biogrammars is less efficient than following our programming.

Meins et al. (2002)

Although there exists a genetic instinct for babies to become attached to their primary care-giver, it can be affected by environmental factors like the ability of the care-giver to recognise and understand the needs of the child.

Berger and Luckmann (1967)

Secondary socialisation is characterised by a 'sense of detachment from the ones teaching socialisation'. While primary socialisation involves 'emotionally charged identification', secondary socialisation is done with 'formality and anonymity'.

Parsons (1959a)

One of the main purposes of secondary socialisation is to 'liberate the individual from a dependence on the primary socialising agency.'

Hughes et al. (2002)

Peer groups can be secondary agencies because they can be a reference group, a 'model we use for appraising and shaping our attitudes, feelings and actions'.

Durkheim (1903)

Education transmits collective values and creates social solidarity.

Bowles and Gintis (1976)

Schools reproduce class inequality, making students accept inequality through the hidden curriculum. Thus, social relations in school reflect class divides outside of school. This is called the 'correspondence principle'.

Parsons (1959a)

School plays a particularly significant role in secondary socialisation because it's their first move away from their family, and allows children to internalise societal values by interacting with a wider group.

Potter (2003)

The short term effects of media are imitation, desensitization, and learning. He also suggests that media influence comes about through habituation and repetition.

Philo et al. (1982)

The media determines how something will be debated depending on the way it is presented.

Durkheim (1912)

The media serves to mark the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and strengthen perceptions of expected behaviour, using positive and negative sanctions and campaigns to save or disparage certain ways of acting.

Baudrillard (1998)

A simulacra is a representation of ideas and concepts that never existed in a 'real' sense, causing the copy to be more real than its original. In social media, the filtered and edited things we see act as a representation of someone's actual life, which doesn't exist. But, they become real in the minds of others. (He called this 'hyperreality')

Bandura (1961)

Children imitate aggressive behaviors shown by adult role models in media.

Strinati (1995)

Media provides examples of multiple lifestyles, giving individuals choices in constructing their own selves.

Durkheim (1912)

Religion works to create a collective conscience through moral teachings and value reinforcement.

Weber (1905)

The Protestant Ethic played a large role in the formation of capitalism due to it promoting discipline and hard work, showing how religion can influence class structures.

Marx (1844)

Religion acts as the 'opium of the people', acting as a healing remedy for many people from the injustice and flaws of society.

Swatos (1998)

Religions are going through important changes to make them more 'female friendly' to fit societal changes.

Parsons (1937)

Every social system consists of four 'functional sub-systems': political, economic, cultural and family. Each performs a different but related function that addresses problems in each society.

Parsons (1959a)

For individuals to thrive, they need to be part of larger cooperative groups, so form societies to solve their problems. Thus, social institutions need to ensure that individuals conform to the needs of the society as a whole to prevent dysfunction.

Althusser (1972)

There are two ways societies control individuals within: the ideological state apparatus (religion, schools, media) to brainwash and influence the working class, and the repressive state apparatus (army, police, judicial system), which forcibly makes people conform.

Garfinkel (1967)

By disturbing people's normal routines, people can be made upset and confused, as order is more comfortable than disorder. This psychological quirk is what causes people to organize into societal norms.

Schutz (1962)

'Subjective meanings give rise to an apparently objective social world'.

Wrong (1961)

The idea of the 'over-socialised conception of man', the concept that people behave solely to their socialisation, is wrong. People are able to exercise a degree of freedom and self-possession away from their environment.

Giddens (1984)

Structuration refers to the perspective that as people follow rules and values to guide their behavior in developing relationships, these get formalised and turned into an external structure. These rules, through reflexivity, create conformity. Rules are selected for externalization through negotiation or imposition by a powerful group.

Adorno and Horkheimer (1944)

Ruling class ideologies are passed on through a culture industry (popular media) which controls the means of mental production. This creates false class consciousness and prevents uprisings by the proletariat.

Dugan (2003)

Power is the capacity to bring about change.

Lukes (1990)

Power is the ability to do nothing and make others believe nothing has to change.

Weber (1922)

There are two types of power, coercive power and consensual power (authority). Authority can be broken down into three other parts: charismatic, traditional (based on custom, like a pope) and rational/legal power (based on their position).

Foucault (1983)

Power in modern societies is less obvious, and exercised in more covert ways like CCTV or digital tracking. Additionally, knowledge about the social world and the language we use influences how we think about the world.

Miller (1962)

There exists a working-class subculture characterized by a tendency to cause trouble, act tough and masculine, dress as well as possible, a high value on fun, a fatalistic attitude, and a dislike of authority.

Crompton (2003)

Occupation is a good, general measure that can allow us to define classes.

Goldthorpe et al. (1968)

A new working class with a privatised and instrumental mindset has emerged as a result of increasing affluence.

Devine (1992)

The new working class and the middle class are still differentiated by identification and differences in values.

Brooks (2006)

The job identity of 'manager' combines career progression, decision-making, power and control over others.

Connell et al. (1987)

We are not born 'man' or 'woman', we become these roles through the social construction of gender identities. Thus, gender does not equate sex. Sex is the biological characteristics, dividing into 'male' and 'female', while gender is based on social characteristics.

Lips (1993)

Differences in male and female identity do not occur naturally, but through socialisation.

Connell (1995)

There are two forms of dominant gender identities: hegemonic masculinity and emphasised femininity, each of which complements the other. However, as women have become more powerful, male identities have started to change.

Kitchen (2006)

Emphasised femininity is complicit because it depends on male needs and desires.

Schauer (2004)

There are alternative forms of masculinity: subordinate masculinity (those unable to perform in a hegemonic manner, like disabled people), subversive masculinity (any masculine role that directly challenges and subverts hegemonism; serious students), complicit masculinity (men who become feminised and take on traditionally feminine roles; the 'new man') and marginalised masculinities (men who feel they are unable to fulfill their traditional roles).

Willott and Griffin (1996)

Marginalised masculinity is common among working-class fathers who are unable to fulfill their instrumental role.

Oakley (1972)

There are four main ways gender identities are shaped in childhood: manipulation, canalisation, verbal appellation and differentiated activities.

Evans (2006)

There is a new female individualism which frees women from traditional constraints. They form non-committal heterosexual attachments, often with no children. They are highly educated, professional and career-focused.

Ossorio (2003)

The idea of race and biologically different racial groups is not scientifically supported, and is different from ethnicity.

The Center for Social Welfare Research (1999)

Identity is in some sense 'ethnic' in that we have diverse origins and differences in religion, family structures, beliefs, values and norms.

Winston (2005)

Ethnic identities develop when people see themselves as being distinctive from others because of their culture and history.

Song (2003)

Ethnic identities are often expressed in terms of markers like ancestry or a 'shared past'. It's based on symbolic elements, rather than any actual cultural distinctiveness.

Wimmer (2008)

An important aspect of ethnic identities is how they are defined in relation to others by constructing a sense of difference through boundaries and cultural stereotypes.

Anderson (1985)

"Whilst an average woman of the mid-18th century could expect to die twelve years before her last grandchild was born, a woman of the 1970s could expect to live twenty five years after the birth of her last grandchild."

Philippe Aries (1962)

Childhood did not exist in the Middle Ages. Back then, children were seen as 'mini-adults', and given the same roles, truths and responsibilities. The invention of the printing press, and the creation of a 'symbolic world' that had to be taught created a divide between children and adults, leading to formal education becoming normalised, and childhood becoming viewed as a period of innocence.

Hood-Williams (1990)

There are three types of adult control of children: limiting where they can go, how they spend their time, and how they alter their body (hair, piercings, tattoos).

Neil Postman (1994)

Childhood has begun to disappear due to the creation of new media like television and the Internet which exposes children to adult content and ideas when before they had been hidden, causing a loss of innocence in children. This has led to increases in crime rates for children, and more children acting and dressing like adults.

Eisenstadt (1956)

Teenage years are difficult as they cause status anxiety as they feel pressure to find an achieved status. Thus, they rely on their peer groups to feel comforted, leading to youth cultures. While there may be some deviance, this is functional as it relieves stress and acts as a release valve.

Rampton (2002)

Identity construction in postmodern societies is 'something that involves assembling, or piecing together a sense of identity from a range of options.

Peele (2004)

Recent global economic changes have resulted in a blurring of class identities, as the lines between working-class, middle-class and upper class have grown less defined.

Savage (2007)

The meaning of class has changed to become more individual than collective, especially the working class.

Benyon (2002)

Contemporary global societies are experiencing a masculinity crisis due to unemployment, lower educational achievement and the rise of female-friendly service identities.