Socialization
Society makes us human
Nature or Nurture???
• Feral children
children assumed to have been raised by
animals, in the wilderness, isolated from
humans
• Isolated children
e.g., Genie
Genie Wiley: America's Feral Child
• Babies do not develop “naturally” into social
adults.
• If children are reared in isolation, their bodies
grow, but they become little more than big
animals.
The critical role of language
• Language is the key to human development
• Without the concepts that language provides,
they can’t grasp relationships between people
• Without language, there can be no culture—
no shared way of life—and culture is the key
to what people become.
The role of ‘others’
• without warm, friendly interactions, children
can’t bond with others. They don’t become
“friendly” or cooperate with others.
• it is through human contact that people learn
to be members of the human community.
• This process by which we learn the ways of
society (or of particular groups), called
socialization.
• Socialization is a process of learning to be a
member of a society
• primary socialization
• secondary socialization
• Primary socialization is associated with the
foundational or early years of personhood
• It is the process by which children start to
accumulate the knowledge and skills needed
to become a member of a particular society.
• This process is accomplished through various
activities:
play, imitation, games, observation
• interactions with important agents of
socialization are important:
significant others: parents, carers and siblings.
• During this phase of socialization that primary
social identities begin to be formed
• Personhood
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Religion
• Personhood is a sense of selfhood and
humanness.
• An infant only gradually learns that it exists as
something separate from its surroundings.
• It slowly learns that it can make things
happen, it is capable of being an agent.
• These identities are core aspects of a person’s
social identity, and relatively stable.
• Age: 0- 5,6
• Secondary socialization recognizes the
complex and lifelong experiences of becoming
and being a member of a society or cultural
group.
• It refers to a broader range of skills,
knowledge and roles acquired and learnt over
the life course.
• 5,6- to death.
• Secondary identities: are built on to a
foundation provided by primary identities.
– less stable
– changeable
• Education is usually seen as a prime site for
secondary socialization:
Schooling is where children and young people
are formally exposed to knowledge and skills
• teachers act as important agents of
socialization
• national identities
• Educational arenas are also sites for more
informal, cultural learning.
• Through a wide range of interactions and
experiences in educational settings, roles are
learnt, values understood and identities
shaped.
• Peer groups can be significant agents in this
process of acculturation.
• Socialization does not stop at the school gates:
During our transitions to adulthood, and
throughout our adult lives we continue to
become.
• Personal biographies and social identities are
actively constructed and reconstructed, as we
continue to come to terms with new roles and
the nuances of the culture within which we
are located.
• We both acquire and lose secondary identities
over the course of our lives
– occupational identities, leisure identities,
identities associated with particular kinds of
consumption practices and so forth.
• Occupational socialization is a term used to
describe the processes of learning and
becoming associated with professional or
employment identities.
• There is a process of socialization that takes
place in order to become and be a medic,
builder, hairdresser or accountant.
• There are a number of theories of
socialization.
-some suggest that individuals have no or choice
in the construction of their social identities –
social roles are to be learnt rather than
negotiated in order for society to function.
• Psychoanalytical theories focus on the
unconscious and emotional processes of
selfhood.
• In sociology, the works of George Mead and
Erving Goffman has been particularly important.
• They argue that the self is a social construct, and
individuals are active agents in the processes of
socialization and identity construction.
• Mead identified the emergence of the self
through social experience, and the importance
of social communication and reflexivity.
• Goffman showed that social identities are the
outcomes of social processes and interactions
located with/in particular times and places.
