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