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Sociology and Technology: The Shifting Landscape Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: Changing Images of Women in the Mass Media With digital advanc- es, video games have crossed the line from games to something that more closely resembles interactive movies. The games cost millions of dollars to produce and market. One game (Grand Theft Auto 5) cost $250 million (McLaughlin 2014). Sociologically, what is significant is not their cost but their content. Video games expose gamers not only to action but also to ideas and images. Just as in other forms of the mass media, the gender images in video games communicate powerful messages.

The message of changing gender is loud and clear with Lara Croft, an adventure-seeking archeologist and star of Tomb Raider and its many sequels. Lara is smart, strong, and able to utterly vanquish foes. With both guns blazing—or whatever weapons she happens to be using— Lara breaks stereotypical gender roles and dominates what usually is the domain of men.

Yet as the photo here makes evident, Lara is a digital fantasy girl. No matter her foe, no matter her predicament,

Lara oozes sex. Her form-fitting outfits, which flatter her volup- tuous figure, reflect the mental images of the men who created this digital character.

In 2013, these men gave Lara a makeover, presenting what they

said was a “more vulnerable and realistic” Lara (Parker 2012). The new Lara, shown here, doesn’t seem more vulnerable, as she still manages to kill a lot of men. She is more realistic

in the sense that the new graphics make her look almost human, but

she still manages to ooze sex whenever she moves. My best guess is that her creators have

not had a mental makeover.

For Your Consideration → A sociologist who reviewed this text said, “It seems

that for women to be defined as equal, we have to become symbolic males—warriors with breasts.” Why is gender change mostly one-way—females adopting traditional male characteristics? These two questions should help: Who is moving into the traditional territo- ry of the other? Do people prefer to imitate power or weakness?

As adults, we are still peppered with ads. Although their purpose is to sell products— from booze and bras to cigarettes and cell phones—these ads continue our gender lessons. Most beauty products are pitched to women and most cars and technology to men (Matthes et al. 2016). The stereotypical images—from cowboys who roam the wide-open spaces to scantily clad women whose physical assets couldn’t possibly be real—become part of our own images of the sexes. So do advertising’s occasional attention-grabbing stereotype-breaking images.

IN SUM “Male” and “female” are powerful symbols. When we learn that different behav- iors and attitudes are expected of us because we are a girl or a boy, we learn to interpret the world in terms of gender. Whether overt and exaggerated or subtle and low-key, the mass media continue the gender lessons begun at home and reinforced by our peers. Gender serves as a primary basis for social inequality—giving privileges and obligations to one group of people while denying them to another, something we will analyze in following chapters.

Agents of Socialization 3.5 Explain how the family, the neighborhood, religion, day care, school, peer

groups, and the workplace are agents of socialization.

Individuals and groups that influence our orientations to life—our self-concept, emotions, attitudes, and behavior—are called agents of socialization. We have already considered

social inequality a social condition in which priv- ileges and obligations are given to some but denied to others

agents of socialization people or groups that affect our self concept, attitudes, behaviors, or other orientations toward life

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how three of these agents—the family, our peers, and the mass media— influence our ideas of gender. Now we’ll look more closely at how agents of socialization prepare us in ways other than gender to take our place in society.

The Family As you know, the first group to have a major impact on who you become is your family. Your experiences in the family are so intense that they last a lifetime. These experiences establish your initial motivations, values, and beliefs. In your family, you receive your basic sense of self, ideas about who you are and what you deserve out of life. It is here that you began to think of yourself as strong or weak, smart or dumb, good-looking or ugly—or more likely, somewhere in between.

Not all families are the same, of course. Let’s look at the difference that social class makes in how families socialize their children.

SOCIAL CLASS AND TYPE OF WORK Sociologist Melvin Kohn (1959, 1963, 1977, 2006) found major differences in how working-class and middle-class parents socialize their children. With the main concern of working-class parents that their children stay out of trouble, these parents tend to use physical punishment. Middle-class parents, in contrast, focus more on developing their children’s curiosity, self-expression, and self- control. They are more likely to reason with their children than to punish them physically.

Why should there be such differences? Kohn wondered. As a sociologist, he knew that the reason was life experiences of some sort, and he found the answer in the world of work. Blue-collar workers are usually told exactly what to do. Since they expect their chil- dren’s lives to be like theirs, they stress obedience. In contrast, the work of middle-class parents requires more initiative, and these parents socialize their children into the quali- ties they find valuable.

Kohn was still puzzled. Some working-class parents act more like middle-class parents, and vice versa. As Kohn probed further, the pieces fell into place. The key turned out to be the parents’ types of jobs. Middle-class office workers are supervised closely, and Kohn found that they follow the working-class pattern of child rearing, emphasizing conformity. And some blue-collar workers, such as those who do home repairs, have a good deal of freedom. These workers follow the middle-class model in rearing their children (Pearlin and Kohn 1966; Kohn and Schooler 1969).

SOCIAL CLASS AND PLAY Working-class and middle-class par- ents also have different ideas of how children develop, ideas that have fascinating consequences for children’s play (Lareau 2002, 2011; Mose 2016). Working-class parents see their children as being like wildflowers—they develop naturally. Since the child’s develop- ment will take care of itself, good parenting primarily means pro- viding food, shelter, and comfort. These parents set limits on their children’s play (“Don’t go near the railroad tracks”) and let them play as they wish. To middle-class parents, in contrast, children are like tender houseplants—they need a lot of guidance if they are to flower. These parents want their children’s play to accomplish something. They may want them to play baseball, for example, not for the enjoyment of the sport but to help them learn how to be team players.

The Neighborhood As all parents know, some neighborhoods are better than others for children. Parents try to move to the better neighborhoods—if they can afford them. Their commonsense evaluations are borne out by

This photo captures an extreme form of family socialization. The father seems to be more emotionally involved in the goal—and in more pain—than his daughter, as he pushes her toward the finish line in the Teen Tours of America Kid’s Triathlon.

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sociological research. Children from poor neighborhoods are more likely to get in trou- ble with the law, to become pregnant, to drop out of school, to see violence, and to have worse mental health (Levanthal and Brooks-Gunn 2000; Wheaton and Clarke 2003; Ren- don 2014; Graif and Matthews 2017).

Sociologists have found that parenting is easier in the more affluent neighbor- hoods. Among the major advantages these parents have are more employment, less crime, stronger ties among the neighbors, more support groups, and being able to rely more on one another in times of need (Byrnes and Miller 2012; Rendon 2014). There are also fewer families in transition, so the adults are more likely to know the local children and their parents. This better equips them to help keep the children safe and out of trouble.

Religion How important is religion in your life? Most Americans report that religion is very important to them, but what if you are among the 25 percent who say that religion is not very important (Gallup Poll 2017)? We would miss the point if we were to assume that religion influences only people who are “religious.” Religion plays a powerful role even for people who wouldn’t be caught dead near a church, synagogue, or mosque. How? Religious ideas so pervade U.S. society that they provide the foundation of morality for both the religious and the nonreligious.

For many Americans, the influence of religion is more direct. This is especially true for the nearly two of every five Americans who report that during a typical week they attend a religious service (Gallup Poll 2017). On the obvious level, through their participation in religious services, they learn doctrines, values, and morality, but the effects of religion on their lives go far beyond this. For example, in religious services, they learn beliefs about the hereafter, but they also learn what kinds of clothing, speech, and manners are appropriate for formal occasions. There are many more func- tions. Life in congregations also provides them a sense of identity, a feeling of belong- ing. Religious participation also helps to integrate immigrants into their new society, offers an avenue of social mobility for the poor, provides social contacts for jobs, and, for African Americans, has been a powerful influence in social change.

Day Care It is rare for social science research to make national news, but occasionally it does. This is what happened when researchers published their findings on 1,300 kindergarten chil- dren they had studied since they were a month old. They observed the children multiple times both at home and at day care. They also videotaped the children’s interactions with their mothers (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development 1999; Guen- sburg 2001).

What caught the media’s attention? Children who spend more time in day care have weaker bonds with their mothers and are less affectionate toward them. They are also less cooperative with others and more likely to fight and to be “mean.” By the time they get to kindergarten, they are more likely to talk back to teachers and to disrupt the class- room. This holds true regardless of the quality of the day care, the family’s social class, or whether the child is a girl or a boy (Belsky 2006). On the positive side, the children scored higher on language tests.

Are we producing a generation of “smart but mean” children? This is not an unrea- sonable question, since the study was well designed and an even larger study of children in England has come up with similar findings (Belsky 2006). Some point out that the dif- ferences between children who spend a lot of time in day care and those who spend less time are slight. Others stress that with 2 million children in day care (Statistical Abstract 2017:Table 593), slight differences can be significant for society.

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There is another surprise: These initial effects of day care did not disappear as the children grew older. At age 15, the children who had spent more time in child care had slightly more behavioral problems and did slightly worse academically than those who had spent less time in day care (Vandell et al. 2010). Apparently, the age at which children begin day care is of utmost importance. Infants who begin day care before the age of 1 experience the most negative effects, those who begin between the ages of 1 and 2 have less negative effects, and those who begin day care after the age of 3 have no negative effects (Gentleman 2010).

The School Part of the manifest function, or intended purpose, of formal education is to teach knowl- edge and skills, such as reading, writing, and arithmetic. Schools also have latent func- tions, unintended consequences that help the social system. Let’s look at this less obvious aspect of education. At home, children learn attitudes and values that match their family’s situation in life. At school, they learn a broader perspective that helps prepare them to take a role in the world beyond the family. At home, a child may have been the almost exclu- sive focus of doting parents, but in school, the child learns universality—that the same rules apply to everyone, regardless of who their parents are or how special they may be at home.

The Cultural Diversity in the United States that follows explores how these new values and ways of looking at the world sometimes even replace those the child learns at home.

manifest functions the intended beneficial conse- quences of people’s actions

latent functions the unintended beneficial conse- quences of people’s actions

Cultural Diversity in the United States Immigrants and Their Children: Caught between Two Worlds It is a struggle to adapt to a new culture, to learn behaviors and ways of thinking that are at odds with those already learned. This exposure to two worlds can lead to inner tur- moil. One way to handle the conflict is to cut ties with your first culture. Doing so, however, can create a sense of loss, one that is perhaps recognized only later in life.

Richard Rodriguez, a literature professor and essayist, was born to working-class Mexican immigrants. Wanting their son to be successful in their adopted land, his parents named him Richard instead of Ricardo. Although his English– Spanish hybrid name indicates his parents’ aspirations for their son, it was also an omen of the conflict that Richard would experience.

Like other children of Mexican immigrants, Richard first spoke Spanish—a rich mother tongue that introduced him to the world. Until the age of 5, when he began school, Richard knew only fifty words in English. He describes what happened when he began school:

The change came gradually but early. When I was beginning grade school, I noted to myself the fact that the classroom environment was so different in its styles and assumptions from my own family environment that survival would essentially entail a choice between both worlds. When I became a

student, I was literally “remade”; neither I nor my teachers considered anything I had known before as relevant. I had to forget most of what my culture had provided, because to remember it was a disadvantage. The past and its cultural values became detachable, like a piece of clothing grown heavy on a warm day and finally put away.

As happened to millions of immigrants before him, whose parents spoke German, Polish, Italian, and so on, learning English eroded family and class ties and ate away at his ethnic roots. For Rodriguez, language and education were not simply devices that eased the transition to the dominant culture but they also slashed at the roots that had given him life.

To face conflicting cultures is to confront a fork in the road. Some

U.S.A.U.S.A.

(continued)

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Schools are a primary agent of socialization. One of their functions is to teach children the attitudes and skills they are thought to need as adults.

Sociologists have also identified a hidden curriculum in our schools. This term refers to values that, although not taught explicitly, are part of a school’s “cultural message.” For example, the stories and examples that are used to teach math and English may bring with them lessons in patriotism, democracy, justice, and honesty. There is also a corridor curriculum, what students teach one another outside the classroom. The corridor curric- ulum is strikingly different: It includes racism, sexism, illicit ways to make money, cool- ness, and superiority (Hemmings 1999; Cross and Fletcher 2013). You can determine for yourself how each of these is functional and dysfunctional.

Conflict theorists point out that social class separates children into different educa- tional worlds. Children of wealthy parents go to private schools, where they learn skills and values that match their higher position. Children of middle-class parents go to pub- lic schools, where they learn that good jobs, even the professions, beckon, while children from blue-collar families learn that not many of “their kind” will become professionals or leaders. This is one of the many reasons that children from blue-collar families are less likely to take college prep courses or to go to college. In short, our schools reflect and reinforce our social class divisions. We will return to this topic in Chapter 13.

Peer Groups As a child’s experiences with agents of socialization broaden, the influence of the family decreases. Entry into school marks one of many steps in this transfer of allegiance. One of the most significant aspects of education is that it exposes children to peer groups whose influences conflict with how parents and schools are trying to socialize them.

When sociologists Patricia and Peter Adler (1998) observed children at two elementary schools in Colorado, they saw how children separate themselves by sex and develop sepa- rate gender worlds. The norms that made boys popular were athletic ability, coolness, and toughness. For girls, popularity came from family background, physical appearance (clothing and use of makeup), and the ability to attract popular boys. In this children’s subculture, academic achievement pulled in

turn one way and withdraw from the new culture—a clue that helps to explain why so many Latinos drop out of U.S. schools. Others turn the other way. Cutting ties with their family and cultural roots, they embrace the new culture.

Rodriguez took the second road. He excelled in his new language—so much, in fact, that he graduated from Stanford University and then became a graduate student in English at the University of California at Berkeley. He was even awarded a Fulbright fellowship to study English Renaissance literature at the University of London.

But the past shadowed Rodriguez. Prospective employers were impressed with his knowledge of Renaissance literature. At job interviews, however, they would skip over the Renaissance training and ask him if he would teach the Mexican novel and be an advisor to Latino students. Rodriguez was also haunted by the image of his grandmother, the warmth of the culture he had left behind, and the language and ways of thinking to which he had become a stranger.

Richard Rodriguez represents tens of millions of immigrants—not just those of Latino origin but those from other cultures, too—who want to integrate into

U.S. culture yet not betray their past. Fearing loss of their roots, they are caught between two cultures, each beckoning, each offering rich rewards. The choice is painful.

From his most recent writings, it is evident that even as he ages, the past and cultural contradictions continue to plague Rodriguez.

SOURCES: Based on Rodriguez 1975, 1982, 1991, 1995, 2013.

For Your Consideration → I saw this conflict firsthand with my father, who did not

learn English until after the seventh grade (his last in school). He left German behind, eventually coming to the point that he could no longer speak it, but broken English and awkward expressions remained for a lifetime. Then, too, there were the lingering emotional connections to old ways, as well as the haughtiness and slights of more assimilated Americans. He grasped security by holding on to the past, its ways of thinking and feeling, but at the same time he wanted to succeed in the everyday reality of the new culture. Have you seen similar conflicts?

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Down-to-Earth Sociology Gossip and Ridicule to Enforce Adolescent Norms Adolescence is not known as the turbulent years for noth- ing. During this period of our lives, the security of an identity rooted in parental relations and family life is being ripped from us as we attempt to piece together a strong sense of individual identity. This sense of who we are apart from our parents and siblings does not come easily. At this stage of life, we simply don’t know who we yet are, and seldom do we have a good sense of whom we will become. The pro- cess of developing a sense of self by evaluating the reflec- tions we receive from others is not new, but its severity at this point of life grows acute.

Here is what sociologist Donna Eder said about her research on adolescent girls.

I became concerned while reading studies on adolescent girls. Many of these studies reported a drop in girls’ self-esteem and self-image when they entered junior high school. I hired both fe- male and male assistants to observe lunchtime interaction along with me as I wanted to study both girls and boys from different social class backgrounds. We also attended after-school sports events and cheerleading practices. All of us took field notes after we left the setting and tape-recorded lunchtime conversations.

Some of the things we observed were painful to watch. Through our recordings of gossip and ridi- cule, we learned a lot about what might make girls so insecure. For one thing, much of the gossip involved negative comments on other girls’ appearances as well as their “stuck up” behavior. The only time that anyone disagreed with someone’s negative evaluation was if they did so early on, right after the remark was made. Once even one other person agreed with it, no one seemed willing to challenge the “group” view. So

in order to participate in the gossip, you pretty much needed to join in with the negative comments or else be sure to speak up quickly.

When we studied teasing, we also saw the power of a response to shape the meaning of an exchange. One day during volleyball practice, a girl said that another girl was showing off her new bra through her white T-shirt. The girl responded by saying, “If I want to show off my bra, I’ll do it like this,” lifting her shirt up.

By responding playfully, she disarmed the insulter, and her teammates all joined in on the laughter.

In this large middle school, status hierarchies were based on appear- ance, social class, and intelligence. Those at the bottom of the status rank- ings were isolates, eating lunch by themselves or with other low status students. As isolates, they were frequent targets of ridicule from students trying to build themselves up by putting others

down. Both boys and girls picked on the isolates, most of whom lacked the skills to turn the exchanges into playful ones.

SOURCE: Redacted from Eder 2014.

For Your Consideration → For many students, middle school is a difficult time of

transition. What was school like for you at this age?

→ In school, did you observe anything like the events reported here?

→ Why do you think peer groups at this stage in life are so critical, even vicious?

→ Why do peer groups, at all stages of life, produce isolates?

Status insecurity, already high at this time of life, increases with gossip and ridicule.

opposite directions: High grades lowered the popularity of boys, but for girls, good grades increased their standing among peers.

You know from your own experience how compelling peer groups are. It is almost impossible to go against a peer group, whose cardinal rule seems to be “conformity or rejection.” Anyone who doesn’t do what the others want becomes an “outsider,” a “non- member,” an “outcast.” For preteens and teens just learning their way around in the world, it is not surprising that the peer group rules. As you know, peer groups can be vicious in enforcing their norms, the focus of the following Down-to-Earth Sociology.

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As a result, the standards of our peer groups tend to dominate our lives. If your peers, for example, listen to rap, Nortec, death metal, rock and roll, country, or gospel, it is almost inevitable that you also prefer that kind of music. In high school, if your friends take math courses, you probably do, too. It is the same for clothing styles and dat- ing standards. Peer influences also extend to behaviors that violate social norms. If your peers are college-bound and upwardly striving, this is most likely what you will be; but if they use drugs, cheat, and steal, you are likely to do so, too.

The Workplace Another agent of socialization that comes into play somewhat later in life is the work- place. Those initial jobs that we take in high school and college are much more than just a way to earn a few dollars. From the people we rub shoulders with at work, we learn not only a set of skills but also perspectives on the world.

Most of us eventually become committed to some particular type of work, often after trying out many jobs. This may involve anticipatory socialization, learning to play a role before entering it. Anticipatory socialization is a sort of mental rehearsal for some future activity. We may talk to people who work in a particular career, read novels about that type of work, or take a summer internship in that field. Becoming more familiar with what some particular work requires can help people avoid an empty career. When edu- cation majors do their student teaching, some find out that they don’t enjoy it, and they move on to other fields more to their liking.

An intriguing aspect of work as a socializing agent is that the more you participate in a line of work, the more this work becomes part of your self-concept. Eventually, you come to think of yourself so much in terms of the job that if someone asks you to describe yourself, you are likely to include the job in your self-description. You might say, “I’m a teacher,” “I’m a nurse,” or “I’m a sociologist.”

Resocialization 3.6 Explain what total institutions are and how they resocialize people.

What does a woman who has just become a nun have in common with a man who has just divorced?

The answer to this question is that they both are undergoing resocialization; that is, they are learning new norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors to match their new situation in life. In its most common form, resocialization occurs each time we learn something contrary to our previous experiences. A new boss who insists on a different way of doing things is resocializing you. Most resocialization is mild—only a slight modification of things we have already learned.

Resocialization can also be intense. People who join Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), for example, are surrounded by reformed drinkers who affirm the destructive consequences of excessive drinking. Some students experience an intense period of resocialization when they leave high school and start college—especially during those initially scary days before they find companions, start to fit in, and feel comfortable. The experiences of peo- ple who join a cult or begin psychotherapy are even more profound: They learn views that conflict with their earlier socialization. If these ideas “take,” not only does the individual’s behavior change but he or she also learns a fundamentally different way of looking at life.

Total Institutions Relatively few of us experience the powerful agent of socialization that sociologist Erving Goffman (1961) called the total institution. He coined this term to refer to a

anticipatory socialization the process of learning in ad- vance an anticipated future role or status

resocialization the process of learning new norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors

total institution a place that is almost totally controlled by those who run it, in which people are cut off from the rest of society and the soci- ety is mostly cut off from them