Socialisation and Identity & Culture
Socialisation and Identity
Social Identity
Social identity involves:
Self-identification with certain groups.
A sense of belonging.
Social categories standing in power and status relations (Tajfel & Turner, 1985).
Key aspects:
Self-identifications: Self-descriptions individuals use.
Categorization: Grouping individuals based on shared characteristics like culture, beliefs, or appearance.
Stereotyping: Oversimplifying perceptions of groups, leading to "othering" and potentially resulting in racism, sexism, and ageism (Stewart & Zaaiman, 2018).
Culture
Culture is learned, but the lecture poses questions about how we learn it and whether we are active or passive recipients.
Identity
Similar to culture, the lecture questions the learning process and individual agency in acquiring identity.
Identity and Culture
The relationship between identity and culture is presented as a "chicken or the egg" dilemma.
Core Definitions of Culture
Humans are social beings, and their social nature is expressed through learned culture.
Culture encompasses:
Food
Language
Gestures
Behaviors
Social actions
Cultural actions have shared meaning and create social actions with ramifications.
Definitions
Society: A population sharing norms, values, institutions, and culture, often within geographical boundaries.
Culture: Symbolic and material elements of society shaping a way of life, transmitted through social interaction rather than biology.
Symbol: A gesture, artifact, sign, or concept representing something else, conveying shared emotions, information, or feelings.
Symbolic system: A pattern of symbols with meanings derived from their relationships, like language and fashion.
Values: Shared ideas of what is good or bad.
Norms: Rules guiding behavior in specific contexts, which can be informal.
Roles: Socially defined attributes and expectations for different positions.
Status: Social position with power and expectations.
Institution: An overarching body controlling engagement with individuals in society.
Key Themes for Culture
Culture as a Lived Experience
Culture is experienced practically, not just academically.
Parents model cultural behaviors.
Interactions are social actions involving social exchange.
Culture is both symbolic and material.
Symbolic systems derive meaning from relationships between symbols.
Culture as a Collective
Culture categorizes people.
Cultural features are shared, including language and material items.
Ethnocentrism classifies people based on unstated assumptions, leading to stereotyping, racism, sexism, and ageism.
Culture as a Framework for Living
Relates to norms that guide life.
Can be analyzed through conflict theory, symbolic interaction, and structural functionalism.
Culture provides possibilities and opportunities.
Culture distinguishes groups and both constrains and provides opportunities.
Cultural Change
Changes in culture are generally organic and motivated.
The meanings of symbols evolve.
Functionalism: Culture is the glue that holds society together, creating social order.
Conflict Theory: Culture emerges from economic relationships and forms the superstructure of belief (ideology).
Symbolic Interactionism: Culture is the basis of interaction and meaning ascription.
Culture and Subculture
Subcultures are offshoots of culture.
Examples include high culture, low culture, and pop culture.
Hegemony: The domination and acceptance of culture.
Culture in South Africa
South Africa has a unique cultural history.
It is a melting pot with 11 official languages.
Unique cultures have emerged, such as Afrikaans culture and its subcultures (Boer, Pretorian) and Coloured culture.
The concept of the Rainbow Nation.
Culture and Subcultures
Some cultural acts have greater value (high culture) compared to mass culture.
Marxist Theory: Pop culture is seen as mass culture, trivial, commercialized, and passive, used by the dominant group to pacify the subordinate group.
Hegemony: Dominance and acceptance of culture.
Subcultures
Specific music genres are associated with specific looks, sounds, styles, dress, ideologies, and languages.
Subculture studies often focus on youth, music, fashion, and style.
Subcultures contribute to subjective and collective identity, resisting or negotiating established conventions.
Culture is connected to power.
Culture in South Africa (Continued)
Social practices are stereotyped and labeled by groups.
Culture serves as a framework for living and justifies social arrangements based on ethnic differences.
Social regulation uses culture as a method of control.
Religion has been used oppressively to destroy other religions and beliefs, particularly during colonization.
Diversity of South African Culture
Culture is connected to gender, religion, socialization, and race.
Race and culture are intrinsically linked and lead to ethnicity.
These aspects are crucial for socialization, social life, and individual identity.
Theories of Socialisation
Structural Functionalism
Society comprises institutions in which individuals play different roles guided by sets of norms.
These institutions function interdependently, resulting in social order and stability.
Socialization's primary function is to perpetuate social order for the continuation of society.
Key institutions: Family, school, community.
Conflict Theory
Focuses on social conflict rather than social cohesion.
Environments and social situations are subject to change.
Competition for resources results in conflict, creating power dynamics.
Dominant groups manipulate those without power.
Conflicting views indicate unequal power relationships.
Socialization differs for the bourgeois and the proletariat.
Structural Functionalism and Conflict Theories
Both emphasize social structure as crucial in maintaining society and in socialization.
Social categories have hierarchical memberships.
Symbolic Interactionism (George Mead)
Human interaction is defined by how people define facts.
Socialization teaches shared meanings, making social action possible.
Social Behaviorism: The mind and self do not exist independently of the social environment.
Society is the foundation for the emergence of individuality through social acts.
The "dog fight" analogy illustrates reciprocal determinism.
The mind and biological functions are social phenomena.
Mead argues that the self is developed through nurture, not innate.
Play Stage and Game Stage
The self develops in two stages of childhood:
Play Stage: Children assume the attitudes of those around them.
Game Stage: Children learn to take on the roles of others, developing a sense of self.
We perceive ourselves through the views of others.
The "I" vs. the "Me"
I: Unpredictable, creative parts of the self.
Me: The part of us concerned with what others think.
Social Constructivist View: Society is a human construct, and identity is constructed by the environment.
We make meaning of our reality with others, directed by order, direction, and stability.
We engage with others in the inter-subjective world.
Structuration (Anthony Giddens)
Environment and individual factors combine to influence us.
Structure: The way social life is patterned and organized.
Agency: The ability of the individual to make choices.
Agency vs. structure is the new nature vs. nurture.
Interaction involves resources and rules.
Behavior is influenced by the environment, but our behavior influences the environment reflexively.
Giddens states that identity is "a product of the person's reflexive beliefs about their own biography."
Identity is multifaceted and comes from the mind and self.
Stryker suggests we develop a more dominant salient identity that is frequently active.
Re-Socialisation (Erving Goffman)
Total institutions re-socialize people.
Total Institutions: Places where large groups of like-situated individuals are cut off from wider society for an appreciable period, leading an enclosed, formally administered life.
Examples: Mental institutions, prisons, concentration camps, orphanages, military.