Notes:
socialization, the process by which individuals learn the appropriate attitudes and behaviors within a culture
self, an individual’s nature and identity resulting from reflections on social interactions.
Mead divided the self into the “I,” the unsocialized or acting self, made up of personal desires and needs, and the “me,” the social self, made up of the internalized attitudes of others.
In the preparatory stage, imitation of others, an infant merely imitates surrounding people.
The game stage, taking the role of multiple people at one time, normally occurs before the age of 10. By this time, you are able to imagine what other members of society expect of you. Mead labeled this the generalized other, the process of internalizing societal norms and expectations. This process continues for a lifetime.
the looking-glass self, the process of imagining the reaction of others toward oneself (HP) (Cooley 1902). He states that we look to others to create an understanding of self.
For example, the agents of socialization, individuals, groups, and institutions that influence the attitudes and behaviors of members of society (C-19), are structural components of society that significantly influence who you are today and who you will become.
Sociologists often explain socialization within families with social learning theory, the process of learning from one another in a social context as a result of observation and imitation.
One of parents’ biggest concerns is their child hanging around the wrong friends and caving into negative pressure from peer groups, social groups consisting of members with similar interests, social rank, and ages. Popular adolescents are labeled as high-status youth, those who are viewed as being popular among peers. There are two categories of high-status youth: those who are genuinely well-liked by their peers and engage in predominantly prosocial behaviors and those who are seen as popular but not necessarily well-liked (Cillessen and Rose 2005).
This pattern of socialization reproduces the inequalities between the classes in educational outcomes. These examples are part of the hidden curriculum, the unintentional education of students in the ideals and ways of being in society.
Born in and after the 1990s digital natives, individuals born after the widespread adoption of technology, are those individuals who have always experienced a digital world. On the other hand, your authors are digital immigrants, individuals born before the widespread adoption of technology.
feral children, children who are isolated and neglected such that they are raised without socialization.
genie was a feral child who could not talk, could barely walk, and couldn’t swallow as a result of isolation and neglect.
Problems arise when a religion becomes a total institution, an isolated group with strict rules and regulations whose goal is to control every aspect of its members’ lives. In addition, if the religion requires resocialization, an identity transformation in which social norms and roles are altered or replaced—other problems may develop.
Recruits who have accidentally or intentionally done something wrong are often confronted with a type of public punishment or humiliation that sociologists call a degradation ceremony, an event, ceremony, or rite of passage used to break down people and make them more accepting of a total institution. Examples of basic training degradation include being yelled at in front of the group and forced to do repetitive exercises.
People’s willingness to go through the difficulties of boot camp is an example of anticipatory socialization, the process of learning different behaviors or activities in an effort to aspire to group membership. For most, completing basic training is a rite of passage, a ceremony or ritual used to mark a change in age or social status, and the start of their military career.
dramaturgy, the theory that we are all actors on the stage of life, and as such, we divide our world based on what we do and do not let the others see of us (Goffman 1956).
According to Goffman’s theory, our world is divided into two areas. The first is what we let the world see, our front stage, a person’s public life that they reveal to the world. In juxtaposition, we try not to let the world see our back stage, a person’s private world that they choose not to reveal (C-19). As an example of the front and back stage of dramaturgy, consider the waitstaff experience in a restaurant. The front stage is the public area where the patrons sit and enjoy their meals. The restaurant employees work to ensure the public dining area is calm and inviting. On the other hand, the back stage of a restaurant is the kitchen. Whether dining at McDonald’s or a four-star establishment, restaurant kitchens are often the opposite of calm, with people scurrying, smoke billowing, and cooks yelling.
Goffman’s theory of dramaturgy does not stop with the notions of front stage and back stage. He contends that the theory has a third component, the notion of impression management, an effort to control the impression others have of us. By engaging in impression management, we are not only being selective about what we reveal to the world but also making a decision, consciously or otherwise, about how much of our personal troubles we are willing to make public issues.
Goffman wrote that life is similar to a(n) play in that you are constantly on stage.
Anthropologist Edward Hall addressed the issue of personal space with his work on Proxemic Theory (Brown 2011). His research involved studying distance zones, the amount of space we are socialized to feel comfortable having between ourselves and others (HP).
We can study an individual’s socialization experience at different intervals based on the norms of their society. This approach, known as the life course perspective, refers to a series of social changes that a person experiences over the course of their lifetime.