Many social factors affect the way a family raises its children. For example, we can use sociological imagination to recognize that individual behaviors are affected by the historical period in which they take place. Sixty years ago, it would not have been considered especially strict for a father to hit his son with a wooden spoon or a belt if he misbehaved, but today that same action might be considered child abuse.
Sociologists recognize that race, social class, religion, and other societal factors play an important role in socialization. For example, poor families usually emphasize obedience and conformity when raising their children, while wealthy families emphasize judgment and creativity National Opinion Research Center This may occur because working-class parents have less education and more repetitive-task jobs for which it is helpful to be able to follow rules and conform.
Wealthy parents tend to have better educations and often work in managerial positions or careers that require creative problem solving, so they teach their children behaviors that are beneficial in these positions. This means children are effectively socialized and raised to take the types of jobs their parents already have, thus reproducing the class system Kohn Likewise, children are socialized to abide by gender norms, perceptions of race, and class-related behaviors.
In Sweden, for instance, stay-at-home fathers are an accepted part of the social landscape. A government policy provides subsidized time off work— days for families with newborns—with the option of the paid leave being shared between mothers and fathers. Close to 90 percent of Swedish fathers use their paternity leave about , dads ; on average they take seven weeks per birth The Economist, How do U.
How will Swedish children raised this way be socialized to parental gender norms? How might that be different from parental gender norms in the United States? The socialized roles of dads and moms vary by society. A peer group is made up of people who are similar in age and social status and who share interests. Peer group socialization begins in the earliest years, such as when kids on a playground teach younger children the norms about taking turns, the rules of a game, or how to shoot a basket.
Booher-Jennings, J. Learning to label: Socialisation, gender, and the hidden curriculum of high-stakes testing. Schooling in capitalist America: Educational reforms and the contradictions of economic life. This process reinforces the blaming-the-victim ideology discussed in the previous chapters. Again, no one conspires for this to happen, but it happens nonetheless.
Schools are also a significant source of gender socialization, as even in this modern day, teachers and curriculum send out various messages that reinforce the qualities traditionally ascribed to females and males, and students engage in recess and other extracurricular activities that do the same thing Booher-Jennings, ; Thorne, Gender play: Girls and boys in school. This is especially true during adolescence, when peers influence our tastes in music, clothes, and so many other aspects of our lives, as the now common image of the teenager always on a cell phone reminds us.
But friends are important during other parts of the life course as well. We rely on them for fun, for emotional comfort and support, and for companionship. That is the upside of friendships. The downside is called peer pressure , with which you are undoubtedly familiar.
Suppose it is Friday night and you are studying for a big exam on Monday. Your friends come by and ask you to go with them to get a pizza and the beverage of your choice. You would probably agree to go with them, partly because you really dislike studying on a Friday night, but also because there is at least some subtle pressure on you to do so.
As this example indicates, our friends can influence us in many ways. During adolescence, their interests can affect our own interests in film, music, and other aspects of popular culture. More ominously, adolescent peer influences have been implicated in underage drinking, drug use, delinquency, and hate crimes, such as the killing of Charlie Howard, recounted at the beginning of this chapter Agnew, Agnew, R.
Pressured into crime: An overview of general strain theory. After we reach our 20s and 30s, our peers become less important in our lives, especially if we get married. Yet even then our peers do not lose all their importance, as married couples with young children still manage to get out with friends now and then. Elsesser, K. The glass partition: Obstacles to cross-sex friendships at work. Human Relations, 59, —; Marks, S. Intimacy in the public realm: The case of co-workers.
Social Forces, 72, — The mass media are another agent of socialization. Television shows, movies, popular music, magazines, Web sites, and other aspects of the mass media influence our political views; our tastes in popular culture; our views of women, people of color, and gays; and many other beliefs and practices. The average child sees thousands of acts of violence on television and in the movies before reaching young adulthood. Rap lyrics often seemingly extol very ugly violence, including violence against women.
Commercials can greatly influence our choice of soda, shoes, and countless other products. The mass media also reinforce racial and gender stereotypes, including the belief that women are sex objects and suitable targets of male violence. The mass media certainly are an important source of socialization unimaginable a half-century ago.
As the mass media socialize children, adolescents, and even adults, a key question is the extent to which media violence causes violence in our society Surette, Surette, R. Media, crime, and criminal justice: Images, realities, and policies 4th ed. Studies consistently uncover a strong correlation between watching violent television shows and movies and committing violence. However, this does not necessarily mean that watching the violence actually causes violent behavior: perhaps people watch violence because they are already interested in it and perhaps even committing it.
Scholars continue to debate the effect of media violence on youth violence. In a free society, this question is especially important, as the belief in this effect has prompted calls for monitoring the media and the banning of certain acts of violence. Civil libertarians argue that such calls smack of censorship that violates the First Amendment to the Constitution, whole others argue that they fall within the First Amendment and would make for a safer society.
Certainly the concern and debate over mass media violence will continue for years to come. One final agent of socialization is religion, discussed further in Chapter Here we should distinguish between religious preference e. Both these aspects of religion can affect your values and beliefs on religious and nonreligious issues alike, but their particular effects vary from issue to issue. To illustrate this, consider the emotionally charged issue of abortion. People hold very strong views on abortion, and many of their views stem from their religious beliefs.
Yet which aspect of religion matters the most, religious preference or religiosity? Additionally, they provide us with our first system of values, norms, and beliefs — a system that is usually a reflection of their own social status, religion, ethnic group, and more. Define Agents Of SocializationFor example, Alexander, a young boy who lives in America, was born to an immigrant family.
He grew up bilingual and was taught the importance of collectivistic values through socialization with his family. Read Also: 30 60 90 triangle calculator. The next important agent of childhood socialization is the school. Of course, the official purpose of school is to transfer subject knowledge and teach life skills, such as following directions and meeting deadlines. In school, we also learn social skills through our interactions with teachers, staff, and other students.
Alexander, like other children, might even learn things from his teacher that she did not intend to teach. When he does so, he gets rare attention from the teacher and is hardly ever punished. Schools also socialize children by teaching them about citizenship and national pride. In the United States, children are taught to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Most districts require classes about U. As the academic understanding of history evolves, textbooks in the United States have been scrutinized and revised to update attitudes toward other cultures as well as perspectives on historical events; thus, children are socialized to a different national or world history than earlier textbooks may have done.
For example, information about the mistreatment of African Americans and Native American Indians more accurately reflects those events than in textbooks of the past. Thursday, 11 Nov By admin - August 30, Twitter Facebook Linkedin Pinterest Email.
What Are Agents of Socialization? What are the 5 agents of socialization? What are the 7 agents of socialization? In the United States, the primary agents of socialization include the family, the peer group, the school, and the mass media.
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