6: Socialization

Socialization: From Childhood to Adulthood

7:30 - Attendance

...

Continue discussion of Chapter 2: Culture
Norms: laws, mores, folkways

 example in football.

How does culture change over time?

• invention
• discovery
• diffusion

Theoretical approaches...


Structural Functionalism - Culture is a complex strategy for meeting human needs.  What does this mean?

Look for patterns and universals.

Stability of society rests on core values shared by all.


Social Conflict Approach – if there is inequality, assume that culture benefits the powerful by teaching us to accept the system.

Accepting "material determinism" means that we view external culture as something that shapes our patterns of thought and behavior.





8:00 - Chapter 3: Socialization



The importance of social experience

Nature vs. Nurture debate
(instincts vs. learned behavior)
(walking vs. Talking, as I said last time)
(or, perhaps they're both affected by one another?)



Nurture IS our nature, just as culture is our nature.

We have evolved so that we have instincts to teach extra-genetic information (traditions, ways of life, beliefs and values) to our kids using memes.


Isolation


-opening story of girl in closet, Anna... thoughts?



-Rhesus monkeys (Harlow)

  -how much isolation could they recover from, and eventually act like normal monkeys?

  -how much isolation did it take to substantially and IRREVERSIBLY disrupt their development?



Important socialization research

Freud: tripartite model of the mind: Id, Ego, Superego

Piaget: cognitive development: Sensorimotor -> Preoperational -> Concrete Operational -> Formal operational

Kohlberg: moral reasoning development: Preconventional -> conventional -> post-conventional (Kant)
(this kid is pre-conventional... when mommy takes the butcher knife away...)


Gilligan: extended Kohlberg's work by applying gender
Boys: Justice, fairness, rational rules
Girls: care/responsibility, emotional bonds

Horton-Cooley: the "Looking-Glass Self"


8:35 - Split into small groups, plan for Commercial Critique assignment

Group 1: Marisol, Brittany, Scott, Ally
Group 2: Adrienne, Steve, Joe, Carly
Group 3: Nick, Michelle, Arianna, Hailey
Group 4: Sarah, Lindsay, Hunter, Becky


GOOD example:

Nestle's Bottled Water commercial appeared to have a socialization effect, communicating cultural beliefs and norms.  It's not the focus of the ad, but a side-effect is a reinforcement that it is a normal behavior for men to be sitting on the couch watching TV while the women's role is to be taking care of them.  There is also a belief of nature vs nurture.  As we have learned, humans are not born with instincts for their cultural behavior - they must learn to develop these traits.  As the young mother watches, she notices her son imitating each move that his father makes, including drinking a sugary soft drink.  It occurs to her that a better habit for her son to develop would be imitating his dad drinking a bottle of water.  By implying that she can change his learned behavior, she has established that nurture is more powerful than nature.    

Nestle Bottled Water Commercial

BAD example:

go to youtube type in (best ad ever - winner of 2010 best tv advertisement award hd )

its the mouse commercial

This ad is implying by eating the cheese you will have supper human strength

more examples... beef jerky campaign... this as supplementary watching...

... Virgin Air commercial implying white men are born to be pilots and engineers, while blacks and women are born to servile roles...


FOR NEXT TIME:

Read pp. 71-81
Be prepared with your group to show a commercial advertisement, present your analysis of a belief, norm, or value, and facilitate a brief class discussion.  Use the new forum I created just for this assignment in the Discussion Board.

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Agents of Socialization:

1. Family. Early childhood socialization from before we are born (pink or blue wallpaper, followed by gendered toys).

Values - Parents act in ways that encourage their children to follow in their footsteps.
Wealthy encourage creativity/independence, poor tend to encourage conformity/discipline.
( a new study uncovers a similar phenomenon - self-advocacy and questioning vs. avoidance and deference ) 

Identity – race, class, religion. Religion is the odd one – what is a little Jewish boy, or a little Catholic girl? They don't know what that means, yet we call them that because we presume kids share their parents' religion.

Capital – economic capital (money), social capital (networks), cultural capital (knowledge).

"Capital" is just a resource – something you use to do something else.
Family and class also determine when you become an "adult," as do cultural factors. What does a year off after school mean if you are poor vs. rich?

Is adulthood when you can drink? When you can go off to war? When you can vote? When you become a parent? When you get a full time job and your own place?

2. School.
   People with different backgrounds.
   More structured, bureaucratic authority.
   Gender socialization continues, boys aggressive, girls passive.
   Money can determine the value of education, as can cycles of poverty and Blocked Opportunity Structures.
   Schools have a "hidden curriculum" of values in addition to the regular, planned lessons and classes. Sports, spelling bees, grading curves, etc... teach competition as a value. Team projects can teach cooperation. Even here at WCTC, we're supposed to teach implicit lessons like getting yourself up on someone else's schedule, being responsible, meeting deadlines, interacting with people from different backgrounds, etc...

3. Peer groups. Democratic/anarchic authority.
   Children learn autonomy, can discuss taboo topics.
   Homophily.
   Anticipatory socialization – the influence of groups you would like to join.

4. Mass media. Impersonal, one-way transmission of memes.
   vast audience, cultural homogenizer. Lowest common denominator.  Can introduce new and different ideas, can educate.  But can also be sculpted into propaganda (spin) and reinforce prejudice and fear.
   Can promote stereotypes – twice as many blonde women as there are in real life. Everybody's attractive on T.V. unless the point of the character is to be unattractive, therefore if you feel you are not attractive you may feel something is wrong with you.
   Can desensitize us to violence.

5. Others. Religion. Workplaces. Social clubs. Total institutions like prisons, psych wards, certain aspects of the military (boot camp).

Total institutions (p.80) explicitly re-socialize people.  It is their manifest function - not a latent function like with many of the above agents.
See Zimbardo on page 22. 

Cut off from outside, constant surveillance, professional authorities, minimization of self (standardization of hair, clothes, etc.)

4:00 - Life course stages.

Childhood – culturally defined, sometimes regardless of biological maturity.

Kids work in other countries. Middle ages depict kids as small adults. We are in a rich country so kids don't HAVE to work so our culture has shifted to define childhood as carefree and playful, and formal education has become important with industrialization.  But it wasn't always this way.

Are Piaget's stages (last time) moving up earlier and earlier?  When are kids "adults?"  In America we are rich and so have an extended childhood relative to the rest of the world, so we are concerned when kids grow up faster, or when there is pressure to grow up faster.

What about imposing adulthood and sexuality on children (Toddlers & Tiaras, etc...)?

DISCUSS: Where does this pressure come from?

kids' natural emulation of adults + cultural impetus from media + increasingly indulgent parents (perhaps trying to live vicariously through their children, like in Toddlers & Tiaras - but in doing so are imposing an adult frame of understanding childhood on their kids)

Adolescence – confusion and emotion come not just from biological puberty, but from social confusion over norms and status (anomia). Contradictions of being no longer children but not yet adults: can go to war but not drink, be sexy but don't have sex, be your own person but obey your parents...
Socially constructed since 1800's...

Working class = adults shortly after high school, start work and parenting.

Wealthy = adults around 30, after college, maybe grad school or traveling

Adulthood – support yourself, career goals, parenting, different for men and women, have to face aging which our culture doesn't like. (youth-worship, Ageism)

Old Age – retirement, growing elderly population (p.79 chart), health problems, social security?
Culture shapes our understanding of Age.  How do other cultures deal with age?  Respect for elders, power (gerontocracy), families take care of elders... 

Poverty, especially for elderly widows now who didn't work but were supported by husbands.
Although now we're seeing that more older women have worked and so have social security and/or pensions... also people are healthier now, less smokers, better medicine & nutrition, so can stay working longer.

Last article at the end (p.81): are we puppets responding to offstage direction?