journal entry#2
SOCIOLOGICAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: SOCIALIZATION
Soc. 230
Lecture 3
Katherine Watson, PhD.
Socialization
■ Chapter 4 from the text
■ Culture and Socialization
■ Types of Socialization
■ Self-development and Stages of Socialization: Cooley and Mead
■ Socialization and Gender
Culture: Tool Kit
■ Social actors choose different pieces of culture to construct different lines of social action depending on circumstances.
– Norms – Language categories
Culture and Socialization
■ How do we learn our culture? How do we learn what is important and how we are expected to act?
■ Socialization: the on-going interactive process through which individuals develop identities and learn the ways of thinking, feeling and acting that characterize their society.
Types of Socialization
■ Primary Socialization: – learning that occurs during childhood. Shapes the development of children. – Learn their culture and a sense of self (who are they) through social
interaction. ■ Secondary Socialization:
– learning (often formal training) that occurs in adulthood and builds upon what people have learned as children.
– Resocialization: process of tearing down the old self and building a new one. Goffman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShDaJXK5qo
Key Agents
■ Agents of socialization: – individuals, groups, organizations and social institutions that shape
people’s perceptions and behaviours through the life course. – Core agents: Family, Schools, Peers and Media. – Other agents: Religion, Sports, Preschool/Daycare, Clubs and Social
Groups.
Socialization
Biological factors or social environment? ■ Different Approaches to Child Development vary in the degree to which they
emphasize biological and/or social determinants.
■ Capacity and social interaction are key for SI.
■ Symbolic Interactionists argue that the process is reciprocal.
■ Children and caregivers have an active role in the socialization process. It is not a “top-down” guaranteed process
■ Effective process page 87.
Cooley: The Looking Glass Self or Social Self
– Other people serve as mirrors: reflected appraisals. Metaphor for a sense of self
■ We imagine how we appear to another individual. ■ We imagine how that person judges us by interpreting words
and gestures. ■ We react to this perceived judgement with emotions such as
pride or shame. We may internalize these judgements and develop corresponding self-concepts and self-feelings
Can you interpret this scene by looking at the gestures?
What are the gestures in this scene?
What type of self impression is this person likely to have?
Cooley: The Looking Glass Self or Social Self
■ Self-evaluations are shaped by the feedback we receive from significant others.
■ Self-concepts can change as others’ evaluations change. ■ Feedback that is pervasive and consistent from valued
others will influence how one sees oneself.
■ What role do less valued others have in our self perceptions?
George H. Mead
■ The self is not present birth but is emergent, built out of social interactions and as a result, endowed with meaning that can shift over time.
■ Babies can only make reflexive responses to others and things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vNxjwt2AqY
George H. Mead
1) Preparatory stage:
Pure Play and imitation of significant others. Name and social objects creates capacity for self-reflection.
2) Play stage:
Langauge and the ability to use labels, names and share meanings with others develop.
Children role play taking one role at a time. Play at “house” or “school”.
3) Game stage:
Children interact in larger groups and play games that have multiple positions and rules.
With time, develop a sense of the generalized other (broader social values, norms and expectations).
Socialization and Gender
■ Cultural codes of Gender: – Socially constructed characteristics associated with girls and boys, men
and women – Masculinity and femininity – Also suggests binary opposition
■ Gender relations are a central dynamic in any society and culture – Ideas about difference, what is valued, who does what type of work and
how we think/feel about ourselves may be influenced by gender relations and meanings
– Norms, values, beliefs, ideals (cultural aspect)
Gender
■ How many genders?
■ S.I. Gender is Culturally specific
– Multiple gender models of classification: ■ Two genders: Euro-American cultures ■ Three genders: South Asia hijras ■ 3-6 genders: Indigenous communities in Canada
Gender and Socialization: Family and Peers ■ Cahill: Naming of children as boy or girl; gender display. Page 97 ■ Fine: peer culture and moral codes of behavior and display.
– Masculinity: toughness, emotional control, winning and loyalty (humility) is stressed
– Dirty play: sex talk, pranks and being bold – Status hierarchy and opposition to other groups
– Girls have a different moral code niceness, emotional intimacy, romance and concern for others
– Differs by race, ethnicity, class, culture.
Gender and Media
■ Many of our gender codes can be read in the mass media including movies, ads and social media.
■ E. Goffman. Codes of Gender in Advertising.
■ We “see” it so often that it becomes invisible to us. It becomes normative.
FEMININE TOUCH
MASCULINE DOMINANCE