Transcript henslin socialization chapter 3

Intro to Sociology
Socialization:
The Process of Becoming
Human
Copyright by
Michael J. O’Connor
2003
All Rights Reserved
1
Myth or Reality?
Who raised
Him?
What is Socialization?
• “[S]ocialization is the process
by which people acquire
cultural competency and
through which society
perpetuates the fundamental
nature of existing social
structures” (McIntyre 2002:143).
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A Process
• Life long process of social
experiences, leading to:
– Personality development
• The fairly consistent
patterns of thinking, feeling,
and acting
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Importance of
Interaction
• Interaction
leads to the
internalization
(absorption) of
one’s culture
person
society
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Importance of Language
and Socialization
• No natural language
• Language MUST be learned
– Learn emotions
– Learn emotional responses
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Functions of
Socialization
• Personality development
– Self—one’s sense of identity
and awareness of self,
awareness of being human
• a social product
– Self-concept—how you view you
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Functions of
Socialization con’t
• Role-taking
– “to put [ourselves] in someone
else’s shoes” (Henslin 2004:62).
– a reflective process
• Reciprocal
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Chicago School:
Symbolic Interaction
• SI stresses the importance of
symbols and meanings in social
relationships and social
interactions
• Language is the most important
symbol b/c it allows people to
construct their own reality (Curry,
Jiobu, and Schwirian 2002:76).
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Chicago School:
Symbolic Interaction con’t
• We can perceive ourselves as
objects; we have self-awareness,
therefore,
– “We build meaning by observing
what others people do, by imitating
them, and by following their
instructions” (Curry, Jiobu, and Schwirian 2002:77).
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Charles Horton Cooley:
the Looking-glass Self
• How do infants develop a self,
the ability to see themselves
from the outside?
• Our self is our interpretation
of how others see us
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Charles Horton Cooley:
the Looking-glass Self con’t
• We are socially created by
our interactions with others
• Self comes about as a result
of the way he perceives the
responses of others towards
him
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Charles Horton Cooley:
the Looking-glass Self con’t
• “children learn to judge
themselves in terms of how
they imagine others will react
to them…others serve as
mirrors for the development
of the self” (Shepard 2002:95).
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Charles Horton Cooley:
the Looking-glass Self con’t
• “the process in which individuals
use others like mirrors and base
their conceptions of themselves
on what is reflected back to
them during social interaction”
(Thompson and Hickey 2002:86).
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Norman Rockwell, a
famous illustrator of
magazine covers, is shown
here in a triple selfportrait. His painting
suggests the metaphor of
the looking glass self; his
percept of how he
appears to others shows
an imagine decidedly
younger and more
handsome that the actual
reflection in the mirror
(Curry, Jiobu, and Schwirian 2002:74).
SOURCE: Printed by permission of
the Norman Rockwell Family Trust.
Copyright  1960 the Norman
Rockwell Family Trust.
other people
Cooley—3 stage process
• 1: imagine how we
appear to others
• 2: interpret
reactions of others
• 3: develop selfconcept based on
our interpretation
of the reaction of
others
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Note on Children and Pronouns
• Cannot imitate
pronouns
• speak of
themselves in
the third
person
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Socialization According
to George Herbert Mead
• Socialization takes place through
LANGUAGE and ROLE TAKING
• Language
– “a process of indicating certain
stimuli and changing the response
to them in the system behavior”
(Morris 1967:97).
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Socialization According to
George Herbert Mead con’t
• Role Taking
– Because we have language and can
think, we carry on silent
conversations
• We think something to ourselves
and respond internally to it
– We talk to ourselves and
answer ourselves
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Socialization According to
George Herbert Mead con’t
• “Role taking is a cognitive
process that permits us to
play out scenes in our minds
and anticipate what others
will say or do” (Shepard 2002:96).
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Mead’s Stages of
IMITATION
Socialization
STAGE
Imitation Stage
– Child learns to
associate
certain
meanings to
certain types
of cries
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Mead’s Stages of
Socialization con’t
• Play Stage
– Increase in mental capacity
that facilities learning of
language
– Play one role at time, reflecting
that role back on themselves
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Mead’s Stages of
Socialization con’t
• Game Stage
– Good mastery of language with
increased thinking ability so
multiple roles can be played
simultaneously
– Greater awareness of the world of
social relationships
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Mead’s Stages of
Socialization con’t
• Generalized Other Stage
– “an integrated conception of the
norms, values, and beliefs of one’s
community or society” (Shepard 2002:97).
• understanding multiple roles in
multiple structures of society
and the world
Is this Maturity?
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What is the SELF?
• A developmental process
occurring between the
stimulus and response
• Interaction between two
components—”I” and “me”
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The Process of Self
• “I”
– Unpredictable
– Spontaneous
– Self-centered
• “me”
– Socially
derived
representation
of society
– Predictability
– Conformity
– Past “I’s”
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The Process of Self con’t
• Language allows an internal
conversation between the “I”
and the “me”
– This conversation produces the
uniqueness of a person
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The Process of Self con’t
• Person is stimulated by interaction,
then reflects upon what behavior to
act out, then does so.
STIMULUS
RESPONSE
Process of Self
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me
I
Gender and Socialization
• Sexual Orientation
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Sex and Gender
• Sex
– biological
• Gender
– socially constructed
– socially learned
• masculinity and femininity
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Why Do Gender
Differences Exist?
• Symbolic Interactionist
perspective
– socialization process develops
gender identity & gender roles
acknowledgment
of your sex
social expectations associated
with a person’s sex
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Agents of Socialization
• People and groups who pass
culture interacting within the
context of social institutions
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Functionalism on
Socialization
• Reinforces the social system
• Perpetuates society’s
existence
• Transmits culture from one
generation to the next
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Conflict Theory on
Socialization
• Helps to maintain status quo
• Helps to perpetuate the
system of social inequality in
a society
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Socialization:
Across the Life Course
1. Desocialize- get rid of old
values.
2. Resocialize- adopt new values.
–
•
–
“learning new norms, values,
attitudes, and behaviors to
match [our] new situations in
life” (Henslin 2004:71).
Total Institutions-done away
from old society.
Prisonization, Rehab, Boot Camp
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Are We Prisoners of
Socialization?
• “Because of socialization, our
identities become embedded in
and dependent upon society” (Charon
1999:26).
• “Society makes the human being,
yet the human being, in turn,
makes society” (Charon 1999:168).
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References
• Charon, Joel M. 1999. The Meaning of Sociology. 6th ed.
Prentice Hall.
• Curry, Tim, Robert Jiobu, and Kent Schwirian. 2002.
Sociology for the Twenty-First Century. 3rd ed. Prentice
Hall.
• Henslin, James M. 2001: Sociology: A Down-To-Earth
Approach. 5th ed. Allyn and Bacon.
• McIntyre, Lisa J. 2002. The Practical Skeptic: Core
Concepts in Sociology. 2nd ed. McGraw Hill.
• Morris, Charles W. ed. 1967. Mind, Self, and Society,
from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist. The University
of Chicago Press.
• Shepard, Jon M. 2002. Sociology. 8th ed. Wadsworth.
• Thompson, William E., and Joseph V. Hickey. 2002. Society
in Focus. 4th ed. Allyn and Bacon.
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