Module 3-Exam
1. Define primary versus secondary forces. Provide three examples of each type and
explain how they contribute to identity development (10 points out of 70 total).
These forces occur early in an infant's life due to family, extended family, and friends'
input. A young person discovers fundamental collective customs and norms through primary
socialization forces. These primary socialization forces allow the person to develop the
ability to operate within society. Primary socialization forces significantly impact our lives,
with the children unaware of the impact or the consequences. These forces give them a
lifetime of receiving and disseminating these customs, rituals, and beliefs, forming their
social identity. Primary socialization is crucial because it sets the groundwork for all future
socialization. These forces are not choices; children are born into families and taught these
social characteristics. Primary socialization forces born into, include family, gender, race,
physical characteristics, personality, social class, manners, morals, and behaviors applicable
to followers of a specific society.
Secondary socialization is a choice that typically entails minor adjustments to primary
socialization. Secondary socialization forces include family, relationships, peer involvement,
religion, school, work, religion, media, social media, and social class that influences a
person's proper conduct within a smaller group (sports team) contained by the more
extensive group (high school). It is the behavioral patterns strengthened by socializing agents
of society like schools, peers, and workplaces, to name a few.
2. Explain how you see more clearly when you understand socialization forces (10
points out of 70 total).
Creating these social identities includes identifying the concepts, internalizing them
by accepting them fully, and finally, crystallizing these concepts by acknowledging them that
become ingrained as part of their identity. Unfortunately, there may be clashes between the
primary and secondary socialization forces. Examples include family vs. college. The family
expects the child to behave one way, and the child wants to behave like their peers and stay
at school.
Primary socialization produces in the child's awareness a gradual generalization from
the roles and thoughts of others to universal roles and attitudes. Primary socialization for a
child is vital as it creates the mindsets, beliefs, and behaviors applicable to people as
participants of a specific culture.
When the child's social identity takes hold, they start taking on the roles and attitudes
of others they feel are significant, like friends, school, and work associates. They begin to
internalize them and make them their own, accepting them without reservation.
Internalization takes social norms, roles, and values into one's mind, accepting them as truth.
Next, they begin to identify with these concepts developing an instinctively rational
and credible identity, identifying with others in various expressive methods. Anything they
may be, internalization happens after, identification happens.
There is a progression in the internalization of norms from "Mommy is angry with me
now" to "Mommy is angry with me whenever I leave dirty clothes on the floor." Additionally,
significant others, like a sister, brother, or father, support the mothers' negative feelings
toward dirty socks, allowing the simplification of the norm to be personally expanded. The
child soon recognizes that everybody is against dirty socks on the floor, and the norm is
generalized to "One does not leave dirty socks anywhere."
3. How does American society define family, parenting, childhood, and happiness?
Be sure to incorporate Jennifer Senior's TED Talk into your answer (10 points out of 70
total).
Family/ Parenting/ Childhood/ Happiness
Jennifer Senior stated that she does not think parents know what parenting is. Things
have changed drastically in the family unit; the parent has changed, and so have the children.
Due to society's years of change, children have become unruly, and parents are frantically
trying to cope with these situations by the seat of their pants. Parents today grapple with
more stress than spouses with no children, triggering minimal marital happiness. Various
findings have looked at how parents feel when devoting time to their youngsters, and the
response frequently is not so good.
Jennifer Senior states that since the industrial revolution, when children stopped
working in factories, they no longer carried their weight by bringing in a paycheck. We
supply food, clothes, housing, and ethical training to children, and they, in return, provide
income. Instead, parents are now working for them. We want them to be successful, and
therefore, we send them to school and enroll them in extracurricular activities, but now we
are bogged down with shuttling them around, doing their homework, and monitoring their
social media. Mothers currently devote more time to their children than they did in 1965,
before entering the labor force.
Today, parents are traversing different functions as husbands and wives because many
women are in the labor force, causing a crisis in the family. Parents have no rules or norms
when a child is born, and collectively mom and dad are sources of income. Mothers are
much more likely to multitask at home, and fathers are more likely to do only one thing.
Happiness and self-worth may be consequences of other things. A kid's happiness is
an unreasonable responsibility on a parent, and vice versa, a parent's happiness is a much
more unreasonable responsibility on a child. "Schoolwork is the new dinner." Parent's now
pour all their "time, energy, and funds" into the kids. The unavoidable way for a pair to start
arguing and be miserable is to compare their family with others that have a better
distribution of labor.
4. Identify another culture, other than American culture, which would define
family and parenting differently (10 points out of 70 total).
Individuals from diverse cultures have distinct associations with their children.
Cultural norms surrounding parenting methods usually impact how children are reared in the
home. These norms influence how parents use these principles and values to instruct their
kids on appropriate values and behaviors and the teaching methods used.
Chinese cultural variations in parenting influence how a child behaves socially,
expecting their children to revere their parent and conform to their standards. Chinese
parents accept more accountability and power over their children, relate more
authoritatively, and require their children to be dutiful. Children in these settings are
additionally likely to conform to their parent's wishes, even when they are unwilling, due to
the primary socialization forces seen during their youth (Chao, 1994).
Chinese parents would like their children to do good academically; they also need
them to shine at other things. Chinese children are frequently required to take up an
instrument and practice for a long time. While Chinese parents believe their children will
excel at their work, they always want more. Second place is not good enough for Chinese
parents, whereas American parents are happy that the child got a high grade.
Chinese parents will not let children play unaccompanied, as they feel someone
should hold the child or be with them. Second place is not good enough for Chinese
parents, whereas American parents are happy that the child got a high grade.
5. What does Feinberg mean when she says, "traditional marriage consists of much
more than opposite-sex spouses"? What sociological issues does she reference (10 points
out of 70 total)?
Interestingly, Feinberg asserts that the struggle to keep traditional marriage did not
start due to the alleged risk of same-sex marriage. In fact, for most of the nation's past,
corporations and people have been denouncing the marriage crisis and taking sides on
different marriage-linked concerns to safeguard traditional marriage.
Feinberg affirms that conventional marriage is permanent and committed; children
are anticipated, husbands work and earn the income and make all the decisions, while the
wives remain home taking care of the home and everyone inside it. Subsequently, if
conventional marriage is characterized in this way, the obligation of marriage goes past man-
woman relationships. We must include permanency, gender roles, reproduction, and
commitment.
The proposed strategy would openly question whether conventional marriage is
something people intend to safeguard. Many people would theoretically feel an individual
stake in opposing the outmoded marriage schema since to support the perpetuity duty of
traditional marriage would reverse "no-fault divorce, introduce pre-divorce waiting periods
and obligatory counseling, necessitate joint agreement for a divorce," and require couples to
try to save their marriages.
Feinberg felt that it is time to challenge the idea of protecting conventional marriage.
In today's society, individuals exist in marriages that are not conventional. Marriage goes
beyond just a man-woman relationship.
6. How would you define marriage? Why is your definition of the institution of
marriage correct over someone else's definition (10 points out of 70 total)?
As a feminist, I mention the social inequalities of marriage and family life. Women are
not free but oppressed by men into caring for them and tolerating the inequality of
socialization and roles. Couples that are married are quickly divorcing because of the
women's subservience to the children and husband.
Women can work a job but must take the children to daycare after dressing and
feeding everyone in the morning. Off to work, working an eight-hour day, then back to the
daycare to pick up the children. Now to make dinner and clean up the kitchen from the night
before because no one helps. Husband comes home, we eat, and he sits and watches
television, drinking a beer and finally falling asleep. I sit and work on homework with the
kids, bathe them, and put them to bed.
Afterward, I cleaned the kitchen, mopped the floor, and put in 2 loads of laundry
while considering what to make for dinner the next night. It is now 11 pm, and I shower and
go to bed. I get up at 4:30 am and make breakfast, pack lunches, and make sure homework
is in the bags. Off to daycare, and my day starts again, leaving the house at 7 am to work by
9 am.
My definition of marriage is accurate because I lived it…my perception is my reality.
No one can tell me I am wrong because no one has lived with me in my marriage.
7. In your own words, describe the different theoretical perspectives above and
comment on how you view the social institution of the family today (10 points out of 70
total).
Theoretical perspectives
Functionalism
Functionalists contend that all social institutions have crucial responsibilities, and the
family is not unique. Functionalists see the family unit as an essential establishment that
executes critical social roles. A stable family is the foundation of social order and economic
stability.
For functionalists, the family unit produces well-unified society participants and
imparts culture to the latest participants of a culture. It offers the critical assigned societal
class and culture importance to new members. It is accountable for social replacement by
reproducing to replace its dying members. In addition, the family permits personal property
claims and the allocation and preservation of kinship. Lastly, families offer physical and
emotional security, including financial aid for those who need care.
Conflict
According to conflict theorists, the family unit works toward perpetuating social
unfairness by preserving and emphasizing the status quo. Birthright, schooling, and social
wealth are transferred across the family structure. Affluent families can maintain their
advantaged social status while persons from low-income families are deprived of equal
status.
Conflict theorists have also witnessed the family as a community organization
advancing men more than women, permitting men to retain a place of control. In most
cultures, the conventional family shape is male-regulated, increasing the inequality among
the genders. Males are likely to have added power, whereas females have to a lesser extent.
This inequality is purported because male positions and responsibilities are appreciated
more than their wife's positions of housework and child-raising. The conventional family is
also an unjust arrangement for women, as more than 60 percent of all mothers are in the
workforce and still do more housework and childcare than their husbands.
Symbolic interactionism
Symbolic interactionists also investigate the ever-changing connotations connected to
family. They contend that collective interests better develop emotional ties between family
members and that associations are based on negotiations. This interactionist viewpoint
highlights that families strengthen and revitalize relationships through representational
traditions like sit-down meals and religious holidays.
References
Chao, R. K. (1994). Beyond parental control and authoritarian parenting style: Understanding
Chinese parenting through the cultural notion of training. Child Development, 65(4),
1111-1119.
Feinberg, J. (2012). Exposing the traditional marriage agenda. New England Journal of Law
and Social Policy, 7(i).
