Chapter 4

Consequences of Social Isolation in Childhood

  • inability to develop intellectual speech

  • inability for physical capacities

  • no affection → rarely emotional attachments

  • undeveloped vision ;-;

    • Therefore: children must be exposed to other humans with love and care

Socialization

  • The process of people learning to function in social life

  • People becoming aware of themselves as they interact with others

Role

  • behavior expected of a person occupying a particular position in society

Self

  • The ideas and attitudes about who you are as an independent being: distinguishing yourself from others (ex. babies learning to differentiate themselves from their caregivers)

  • History of its development:

    • Sigmund Freud: children learn of their self from self-control and realizing their needs differ from their parents → social interaction catalyzes this development of the self b/w parents and children; it is not natural

      • Kids learn to exist independently of others, and they must balance their needs with the realities of life

    • Charles Horton Cooley: “Looking-Glass self”

      • Others judge us, and we see those judgments and apply them to our selves (basically a mirror)

    • George Herbert Mead:

      • I: impulsive, subjective part of the self present at birth

      • Me: the objective part of the self that comes from symbolic communication and learning to take the role of the other

      • Mead’s Four Stages of Development: Role-Taking

        • Learning language and other symbols from significant others

        • Children playing role-playing games like House, Doctor, Superhero, etc.

        • 7yo take on “complex games” and multiple of them

          • learning the complexities of the society in which they live or the activity in which they are taking part

        • Children take on the role of the “generalized other”

          • becoming socially acceptable

      • Generalized other: a person’s image of the cultural standards on them and how people apply them in their judgment

Epigenetics

  • the relationship between genes and environment, hence the study of how gene expression is modified by behavioral and social forces

  • identical twins differ at birth, when they start to socialize 😋

How does social context determine your life course?

  • The society determines your opportunities

    • China: constructed system with harmony, social order, and mutual social obligations

    • Greece: want personal freedom instead of a social consensus, less cooperation

      • The individual freedom of Greece allows for more innovation

  • Opportunities and constraints depend on the unique slice of history one lives through

Life course

  • The distinct stages of life through which people pass and that vary from one society and historical period to another

  • Adolescence:

    • A newly developed stage in the life course to relieve teenagers of adult responsibilities

      • Due to them being naive, impressionable, and vulnerable

      • Begins at the onset of puberty

    • Before: working at 10-12, married at 15-16 [and still common in low social classes in India / Nigeria / racialized communities in rich countries]

    • A social construction

Age, significant because:

  • it determines behavior: laws surround age

  • sets expectations for how certain people are to live

  • society is age-segregated (young people not really interacting with older people)

  • subjective age: extent to which people might experience themselves as younger or older than their actual age

    • Older you feel, the worse your well-being

    • Young people feel old, old people feel young 😋

Factors that shape people:

  1. Experience through the life course, dependent on their slice of history

  2. Age-specific norms

Cohort

  • A group of people who share one or more characteristics

    • Generally same age, but can also not be (example: graduating class)

  • Used to study social change and their connection with individual lives

  • Happens slowly, therefore we compare generations

Generation

  • social categories of people of about the same age and who share a collective identity and set of values

  • Develop in young people:

    • They experience new things the most

    • Traditional means of turning to adulthood have changed, hence new practices must be made

  • may promote stereotypes, but we don’t care LMFAO

6 Generations of Canada

  • Greatest Generation

    • post Great Depression and post WWII

    • established economic opportunity and prosperity

  • Silent Generation

    • Lucky generation: reaped the benefits of the Greatest Generation w/o having to go through a war

      • Threatened by change: less innovation

      • value hard work/conformity, community-minded and patriotic

  • Baby Boomers

    • Civil Rights + Wars!!

    • Innovation, competition, and intendency

    • Impatient, selfish, and self-absorbed

    • Are out-of-touch with society: don’t care about government or job market now

  • Generation X

    • “Latchkey children” for going home after school to no parents

    • Technology: TV/Pong/high divorce rates :(

  • Millennials

    • mostly working!

    • high post-secondary attendance, but cooked by the Great Recession and precarious jobs

  • Gen Z

    • Lowest attention Span

    • Care the most for individuality

    • Less milestones (driving, alcohol, sex)

    • See themselves as “more than the sum of their parts”

    • COVID cooked them fr (isolation —> no friends) (more depression and anxiety)

Functionalism - Socialization

  • it maintains orderly social relations while minimizing individual freedom

Conflict/Feminist - Socialization

  • Discord occurs in socialization based on class/gender/other divisions

Symbolic Interactionalists - Socialization

  • Individual creativity allows people to attach meaning to their social surroundings

  • individuals step out of and modify the values and roles authorities put onto them

Families

  • Primary socialization → becoming self-aware and developing a sense of self through childhood activities

  • TREND: parents need to do more world as parenting is becoming more child-centered

  • also hard because helicopter parenting is bad

  • Catalyze gender socialization:

    • Reinforce gender roles, which slowly dissipates as time passes, but still parents play a HUGE part

Schools

  • Secondary socialization → socialization outside the family

  • Goal of teaching kids how to independently think

    • Some parents disagree: they want clones of themselves (sexuality and controversial books)

    • Thus are contested spaces

  • Enforces the hidden curriculum → success determinant

    • ex: obeying authority, punctuality, conformist behaviour

      • disproportionate # of students struggle with the curriculum, enforces dominant culture supremacy

  • Thomas Theorem: “situations we define as real become real in their consequences”

  • Self-fulfilling prophecy: expectations help cause what they predict

    • The more teachers except of their students, the more they succeed (vice versa is true)

Peer Groups

  • People of same age and similar status

  • Help develop identities → younger peer groups develop distinct values/culture from the parents when they cannot adapt

    • Help grow worldviews on class/gender/racial inequities

    • shows schools may change or enforce class/gender/racial inequity

  • PARENTS ARE STILL MORE INFLUENCIAL! Thus the conflict above is short-lived

Mass Media

  • technologies that facilitate communicating information to a large audience

    • Old people are even online: shows socialization occurs at all ages

  • Benefits:

    • tracking children’s whereabouts

    • At-home lectures

    • SHAZAM!

  • Consequences

    • Ruins dates ;-; on phone, not giving full attention (superficial interaction)

    • Lessens Empathy

    • Cyberbullying

      • Victims can become aggressors too

      • Less empathy → no faces

      • large audiences

  • Feminist:

    • W more sexualized/under presented in films/less as smart characters

Resocialization

  • Powerful socializing agents intentionally cause rapid change in people’s values/roles/self-conceptions (sometimes against their will!)

    • ex: passing a test or trial to join a certain group → elicits trust and forges strong bonds between gang members

  • Total institutions

    • Places isolated form the larger society and are under strict control and constant supervision of a specialized staff (ex. Prison)

    • Stanford Prison Experiment shows the effectiveness of total institutions

    • Residential Schools → abandoning culture, harsh punishments, and starving

      • now seen in today’s Indigenous parenting → neglect + abuse

      • results are high depression rates, substance use, violence, and suicide

  • Indigenous Storytelling

    • allow to experience and develop emotional responses; healing, self-expression being strengthened, more social justice

Anticipatory Socialization

  • taking on norms/behaviours to which we aspire

We grow our senses of self more flexibly due to:

  1. Globalization (less cultural restriction)

  2. Fashioning new bodies from old (Medicalization), no longer defined by illness

  3. Internet