3. SOCIALIZATION
• Refers to the preparation of new comers
to become members of an existing
group and to think, feel, and act in ways
the group considers inappropriate.
Viewed from the groups point of view, it
is a process of member replacement.
Such widely diverse situations as child
rearing, teaching someone a new game,
orienting a new member of an
organization, preparing someone who
has been in sales work to become a
manager, or acquainting an immigrant
with the life and culture of a new society
are all instances of socialization
4. SOCIALIZATION
• Socialization is a central process in a social
life. Socialization occurs through explicit
instruction, conditioning and innovation and
role modeling. In practice, these modes are
usually blended. The socialization process
tends to be general rather than specific,
calls forth automatic behaviors and
responses and persists through time. The
family, peer groups, television, day care
and schools are today’s basic agents of
socialization. Conflict theorists point out
that these agents can be thought of as
agents of domination because they may
use their position to perpetuate an unequal
power situation and to dominate the one
being socialized. As time went on, however,
socialization came to be seen more and
more as the end-result that is, as
internalization.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9. INTERNALIZATION
• Means taking social norms, roles
and values into one’s own mind.
Society was seen as the primary
factor responsible for how individuals
learned to think and behave. This
view is evident in the work of
functionalist Talcott Parsons, who
gave no hint that the result of
socialization might be uncertain or
might vary from person to person. If
people failed to play their expected
roles or behaved strangely,
functionalist explained this in terms
of incomplete or inadequate
socialization.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14. INTERNALIZATION/UNSOCIALIZED
• Such people were said to be
“unsocialized” – they had not yet
learned what was expected of them.
The trouble is, they might very well
know what was expected but simply
be rejecting it. Someone who runs a
red light, for example, knows
perfectly well that one is not
supposed to do that but is doing it
anyway. The possibility that
individuals might have needs,
desires, values, or behaviors
different from those that society
expects (or demands) of them was
not seriously considered by
functionalists.
15. • We can distinguished three major aspects of
socialization:
1. The context in which it occurs
2. The actual content and processes people use to
socialize others
3. The results arising from those contexts and
processes.
16. CONTEXT
• The context is like the theater or
stage in which socialization
occurs. Social context includes
culture, language and social
structures such as class, ethnic,
and gender hierarchies of a
society. Context also includes
social and historical events, power
and control in social life, and the
people and institutions with whom
individuals come in contact in the
course of their socialization.
17. CONTENT AND PROCESS OF SOCIALIZATION
• The content and process of
socialization is like the play, the
lines, and the actors. It includes
the structure of the socializing
activity-how intense and
prolonged it is, who does it, how it
is done, whether it is a total
experience or only a partial
process, how aware individual is
of alternatives, and how attractive
those alternatives are.
18. CONTENT AND PROCESS OF SOCIALIZATION
• Content refers specifically to what
is passed from member to novice.
• Processes are those interactions
that convey to new members how
they are to speak, behave, think,
and even feel. The view of
socialization as an interactive
process stands in contrast to the
deterministic view of how
socialization occurs. Old and new
members interact, and in the
process exercise mutual influence
on each other.
19. • Outcomes may properly be
defined as what happens later,
after someone has been exposed
to particular content and
processes. New members may
learn the behaviors, attitudes, and
values that old members hope
they would learn. What do these
include? First and foremost
among humans is learning how to
speak and to apply the rules of
language to creating new
sentences.
20.
21. • Like learning to play chess,
learning a language involves
being shown some of the ways
vocabulary and grammar can be
combined (like learning how the
various pieces can be moved in a
chess game), and then creating
one’s own combinations from
those possibilities. Closely related
to learning to use language is
gaining a sense of the rules
underlying a society’s culture.
Even learning to walk in an upright
position appears to be the result
of socialization.
22.
23. THE CONTEXT OF
SOCIALIZATION
• Socialization occurs
within biological,
psychological and
social context. Each of
these offers
possibilities and
limitations that may
influence socialization.
24. THE BIOLOGICAL CONTEXT
• Biological features are regularly
suggested as sources of human
behavior. Sociologists suggest that
some human capacities may be
“wired into” our biological makeup.
For example, even newborn babies
seem to strive for maximum social
interaction. They move their heads
back and forth in burrowing or
“rooting” motions looking for milk,
they have powerful, grasping
fingers that cling tightly to other
human fingers or bodies; and they
move so as to maximize body
contact with their caregivers. These
facts suggest that infants are born
wanting human contact.
25.
26.
27.
28. THE BIOLOGICAL CONTEXT
• Sociobiologists argue that traits
which aid survival and reproduction
(like learning to eat things that
induce vomiting) will survive,
whereas others (like unusual
whiteness in certain animals, which
makes them easier prey) will tend to
die out. Although this evidence
suggest that biological factors
clearly play a role in development, it
does not show that all human
behavior is biologically determined.
Biology sets the stage, on which a
very broad range of human
behavior occurs. Most or all of the
important differences between
societies are due to social rather
than biological factors.
29. THE BIOLOGICAL CONTEXT
• As educators have become more aware of
children with “learning disabilities”, they have
begun to wonder if some conditions, such as
those labeled “dyslexia” (that is, the inability to
grasp the meaning of something one reads)
are due to the incomplete development of
certain nerve pathways in the brain that may
scramble signals on the way to the brain,
making it likely that children will “see” bs
instead of ds, qs rather than ps, and so forth.
Such problems may be part of the biological
context of socialization. They may interact in
significant ways with psychological and social
factors during socialization and have important
effects on the outcomes—for example, if
children are labeled retarded or develop a
sense of worthlessness, they may be less
likely to learn
30.
31.
32.
33. • In short, biology provides rich potential for
becoming human and may present general
tendencies, such as the tendency to seek out
social interaction or to use language, but it does
not determine the particular form such social
development takes.
34. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTEXT
• Emotional States and the Unconscious
The primary factor in the psychological context of
socialization is the psychological state of the person
being socialized. Psychological states include feelings
such as fear, anger, grief, love, and happiness or a
sense of emotional deprivation. Strongly feeling one or
more of these emotions might very well inhibit or
promote socialization of a particular kind. Fear may
make it difficult for young children to be socialized in
school, whereas people in love may leant very quickly
what makes their loved ones happy. Emotions can also
influence how individuals perceive the content of
socialization, whether in becoming a member of a family
group or a religious sect. Knowing something about the
feelings of the people involved (the psychological
context) helps explain the results of the socialization
process.
35.
36.
37. • Cognitive Development Theory
A number or psychologists emphasize
the series of stages through which humans
progress. Although emotional concerns can
be involved these theorists focus on
cognitive (intellectual) development,
which occurs in a systematic, universal
sequence through a series of stages. The
most influential theorist of intellectual
development was the Swiss psychologist
Jean Piaget. A sharp observer of children’s
development. Piaget stressed that children
need to master the skills and operations of
one stage of intellectual development before
they are able to learn something at the next
stage.
38.
39. • Cognitive
Development Theory
Whether or not they all
agree on the unfolding of
specific stage, cognitive
development theorists see
children as increasingly trying
to make sense of their social
worlds as they grow up.
Children try to see patterns in
the ways things happen.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46. • Cognitive Development
Theory
Social contexts influence
individual development. Culture exists
before the socialization of new
members begins. Parents, for
example, do not need to decide alone
what they are going to teach their
children, since much of what they will
pass along they have themselves
learned through socialization. Besides
culture, individuals are affected by
social and historical events and by a
number of individuals who actively try
to socialize them.
47. • Social and Historical Events
Major social and historical
events can be a force in
socializing an entire generation.
Such major events as the Great
Depression of the 1930s, the
Holocaust in Europe during
World War II, or the civil rights
movement that took shape in the
United States in the 1960s have
profound implications for
individual socialization. Elder
(1974) compared children whose
families were very poor during the
1930s with others whose families
were more comfortable.
48. • Social and Historical Events
Those suffering greater
deprivation depended less on
formal education for their life
achievements and more on effort
and accomplishment outside of
education. Their health as adults
tended to be affected negatively by
their economic hardships. Finally,
they tended to value marriage and
family more highly as a result of
their economic deprivation (Elder
1974). Thus individuals who live in
extraordinary times appear to be
influenced by the historical events
around them.
49. • Participants in Socialization
Obviously, parents and the
immediate family of infants are
important to their early care and
development. Major changes in
the family are increasingly the
importance of other caregivers as
well. Teachers and schools
transmit formal skills, knowledge,
and social values. As infants
mature, they have more and more
contact with other children their
age, called peers.
50. • Participants in Socialization
Inevitably, children are
affected by the community and
nation in which they are reared.
Children in the United States
today spend a great deal of time
with the mass media, Radio,
movies, and – most
significantly—television have
transformed the way they we
experience the world and what
we know about it.
51. • THE FAMILY
In rural societies, children have
most of their early social contact with
family. Today, however, the family’s
importance in the child’s life is changing.
The American family no longer
necessarily conforms to the stereotypical
nuclear family with two parents and two
or more dependent children. Fewer than
one family in five consists of a working
father, full-time homemaker mother, and
at least one child. There are more and
more single-parent families, and 56
percent of all mothers with children under
6 years old are working (U.S Bureau of
the Census, 1985a, p. 399).
52. • THE FAMILY
More and more children are
receiving their early and primary
care from others in addition to
their parents. One study suggests
that single parents with adequate
financial and emotional support
are able to raise their children
quite effectively (Monaghan-
Leckband,1978)
53. • DAY CARE
Nearly 10 million children 5
years old or younger have mothers
who work away from home. This
includes 48 percent of the mothers
of children 3 years old or younger.
For these children, day care is an
important agent of socialization. In
1982 there were more than 30,000
day-care centers, ranging from
informal arrangements at the home
of a neighbor to large nurseries run
by schools, churches, charities,
corporations, and occasionally
employers (Lindsey, 1984)
54. • DAY CARE
When the ratio of staff to children
is at least one to ten or lower, when the
groups of children are not larger than
20, and when caregivers are trained in
early childhood development and are
attentive to the children, the children
who attend day care do very well
(Collins, 1984; Lindsey. 1984). Children
from very low income families have
benefited considerably over the long
term as a result of federally financed
Head Start and other early day-care
programs (Deutsch et al., 1985;
Schweinhart and Weikart, 1987).
55. • SCHOOLS
As societies become more
complex and there is a greater
division of labor, family members
cannot spend all day every day
teaching children what they need to
know to function effectively as
adults in society. Therefore, most
societies have established schools
to teach youngsters certain skills.
Schools teach values and attitudes
as well. These values and attitudes
include, for example,
competitiveness or cooperation,
conformity or innovation.
56. • SCHOOLS
Schools try to impress upon
children the importance of working
for rewards, and they try to teach
neatness, punctuality, orderliness,
and respect for authority. Teachers
are called upon to evaluate how
well children perform a particular
task or how much skill they have.
Thus, in school, children’s
relationships with adults move from
nurture and behavioral concerns to
performance of tasks and skills
determined by others.
