The Process And Agencies Of Socialisation

Question 1

What did Talcott Parsons claim socialisation is?

Answer 1

The process by which humans learn and internalise their culture’s norms and values, learning specific beliefs and forms of behaviour appropriate to their cultures, and so their society becomes internalised and part of their development

Question 2

What did Parsons claim to be the three stages of socialisation?

Answer 2

1. Primary
2. Secondary
3. Tertiary

Question 3

What did Parsons identify as the two elements to socialisation?

Answer 3

Formal socialisation and informal socialisation

Question 4

What is formal socialisation?

Answer 4

Processes where people are deliberately and consciously manipulated to ensure they learn to follow certain rules

Question 5

Through what can formal socialisation of young people occur?

Answer 5

Educational processes in particular where children may be taught to obey those in authority

Question 6

What is informal socialisation?

Answer 6

Processes where people learn to fit into their culture by watching and learning from others around them. People learn what is seen as acceptable behaviour and their own place in their society

Question 7

What is an agency of socialisation?

Answer 7

Any group or organisation that passes on cultural norms and values to others

Question 8

What are some examples of agencies of socialisation?

Answer 8

• The family
• Education
• The mass media
• Peer groups
• Religion
• Work

Question 9

What are the aims of family socialisation?

Answer 9

To teach children how to become functioning members of their society, and pass on a variety of social skills such as;
- The ability to do certain things (read, swim)
- The desire to achieve ambitions (job, do well in school)
- The ability to survive in the outside world and avoid danger (teaching to recognise and deal with threats)
- To learn social rolls to support them in adulthood (parenting skills, gendered behaviours)
- The ability to think about the social roles of others and how people interact with each other (‘good manners’)

Question 10

What is a habitus?

Answer 10

The social situation in which we feel comfortable and at home

Question 11

Who theorised habitus in sociology?

Answer 11

Pierre Bourdieu, a French Marxist sociologist

Question 12

Explain the term ‘habitus’

Answer 12

Bourdieu claimed that because members of families tend to belong to the same social backgrounds and ethnic groups, children learn a set of behaviours and perceptions that mark them out from others with different backgrounds
- Example; we will have a similar accent, set of manners and thinking patterns to our family
He called this set of similarities a habitus

Question 13

Who has undertaken much of the work on primary socialisation processes and what have they focused on?

Answer 13

Feminists
- Focused on the way that children acquire their sense of identity from their family, in particular, the way they learn gender roles

Question 14

What are the four ways that feminist claimed children learned gender roles through primary socialisation?

Answer 14

• Imitation
• Role models
• Sanctions
• Expectations

Question 15

Explain how children learn gender roles in the family through imitation

Answer 15

Children learn social skills by watching and copying their parents. Thus, they will learn when and what to eat, how to control their bodily functions and what it is appropriate to say and do

Question 16

Explain how children learn gender roles in the family through role models

Answer 16

The people that children will copy become their role models. Children are often encouraged to act like the same-sex parent, thus girls may be given domestic toys and learn to act like their own mothers

Question 17

Explain how children learn gender roles in the family through sanctions. Give an example.

Answer 17

Children may be punished for incorrect behaviour and praised for acceptable behaviour.
- A boy who is seen as unacceptably feminine may be pushed into more typically male behaviour in British culture and teased or rejected if he acts in a non-masculine manner

Question 18

Explain how children learn gender roles in the family through expectations

Answer 18

Boys may develop better spatial skills than girls because parents may expect them to be better at sport and spend more time playing physical games with boys

Question 19

What did Talcott Parsons believe about secondary socialisation?

Answer 19

It helped the individual develop a separate identity in order to deal with strangers

Question 20

Which agencies pass on secondary socialisation?

Answer 20

• The mass media
• Education
• Friendship and peer groups
• Working environments

Question 21

Which agent of secondary socialisation did Parsons view as the main bridge between the family and wider society?

Answer 21

School

Question 22

What is social control?

Answer 22

Social control refers to the idea that people’s behaviour and thoughts are regulated by society. Agencies of socialisation and therefore also agents of social control because they are concerned with training people to fit into their cultures.

Question 23

What is formal control?

Answer 23

The deliberate training of people to follow the rules
- Many societies and organisations have strict rules which are generally codified so that everyone is aware of them. If the rules are broken, then individuals can expect punishment or formal sanctions

Question 24

What is informal control?

Answer 24

Consists of people following unwritten rules such as norms, morals and values.
- Breaking an unwritten rule is just as dangerous for an individual, but the informal sanctions may be less obvious (e.g. someone who fails to wash has not broken a written rule but can expect to be ignored and rejected by others)

Question 25

Why is the family seen as the agent of primary socialisation?

Answer 25

Because it is the first and most important agency to which we are exposed

Question 26

What are four ways in which parents will pass on cultural rules and norms?

Answer 26

1. Protection of child from harm including possibility of social disapproval (taught appropriate manners, maintain bodily hygiene, greet people properly)
2. Guided and deliberate teaching of the traditions and rules of a culture (Christmas, Bonfire Night, children may speak different langauge in the home than that used by wider society)
3. Social control through sanctions by praise or punishment (grounded for breaking family rules, rewarded for school or sports success)
4. Imitation (family becomes role models, children learn their social roles from the adults around them)

Question 27

What did Parsons believe about marriage and the family?

Answer 27

• Marriage performed a vital function for society and the individual.
• One of the most important functions of the family was the stabilisation of the adult personality
• Parents have separate roles within the family. Males have instrumental role (earn money), females have expressive role (look after of emotional well-being of family and take care of children)
• Family socialisation therefore a continuing process with adults passing on their expectations to their partners and encouraging them to fit into socially expected patterns of behaviour

Question 28

What does life course research show about socialisation?

Answer 28

Socialisation is a lifelong process as individuals’ behaviour changes over time as they move into new roles with different expectations.

Question 29

What are the main agencies of secondary socialisation?

Answer 29

• Peer groups
• Education
• Religion
• Media
• Work

Question 30

Define the term peer group

Answer 30

The peer group is made up of people who are the same age and same status as oneself. Your peer group are probably the first people you encounter as you develop independence from your family, so they can be very influential, particularly in your teenage years.

Question 31

Young children are very responsive to other children. When do they begin to form friendships

Answer 31

When they are three or four years of age

Question 32

What do children develop through peer groups?

Answer 32

Group norms and behaviours which may differ from those of the families from which they come

Question 33

What did Iona and Peter Opie demonstrate in their work?

Answer 33

That children often had a street culture from which adults were excluded and that this developed through play

Question 34

What do young people gain through belonging to friendship groups?

Answer 34

Adolescent peer groups, in particular, can be very supportive of each other, so young people gain a sense of independence from their families by belonging to friendship groups

Question 35

What is peer pressure?

Answer 35

The process whereby people modify their behaviour in order to fit in with the group. It can be a powerful force, particularly for young people, but anyone of any age can experience it.

Question 36

What has research shown about peer pressure?

Answer 36

That people are very fearful of social rejection, so groups can exert a powerful pressure on individuals who fail to conform to group norms

Question 37

Who looked at peer pressure put on teenage girls by boys?

Answer 37

Sue Lees (1983, 1997)

Question 38

What did Sue Lees find in her study about peer pressure put on teenage girls by boys?

Answer 38

Double standards are applied to girls’ and boys’ sexual behaviour, with the term ‘slag’ used to control girls’ behaviour. She found that there was a significantly larger amount of derogatory terms for girls than there were for boys and that when boys were attached to a derogative term they were praised for it, whereas girls were criticised and looked down upon

Question 39

Who looked at peer groups in primary schools, for example in the classroom and the playground?

Answer 39

Skelton and Francis (2003)

Question 40

What did Skelton and Francis find in their study of peer groups in primary school?

Answer 40

Found play was very gendered, with boys dominating the space and playing more active games like football or bulldog whilst the girls took part in separate activities such as hopscotch or house. Girls were excluded from the boys’ games

Question 41

All sociologists agree that schools socialise children and prepare them for the world of work. However, what are the specific opinions of functionalists and Marxists about this?

Answer 41

Functionalists see this as generally a good thing, but Marxists are very critical of what may be being taught to children

Question 42

What is the formal curriculum?

Answer 42

Schools deliver knowledge of culture to children. The formal curriculum is what is taught in timetabled lessons. It can be influential as ‘facts’ may be given to children who are not in a position to query what they are being told.

Question 43

What did Althusser say about the formal curriculum/education?

Answer 43

Althusser, a French Marxist, said that education exists to teach children that an unfair society is perfectly acceptable. He argued that children are taught that if they fail, it is their own fault and not the failing of an unjust society. In addition, there are cases where the formal school curriculum is used to pass on deliberately false ‘facts’ to children.

Question 44

What is the hidden curriculum?

Answer 44

It is a contested topic, meaning there are a number of different definitions, but the general opinion is that it is the set of assumptions and beliefs that are taught unintentionally by schools.
- It includes the values and beliefs that are implicit in textbooks, rules, uniforms and the daily life of the school

Question 45

What did feminists say about the hidden curriculum?

Answer 45

Feminists in the 1970s and 1980s pointed out that many school textbooks of the time either ignored the presence of women or placed them in domestic roles. As a result, traditional gender roles for girls were reinforced.

Question 46

Religion can be a powerful force for socialisation even for those who do not belong to a religious group or practice traditional religious beliefs. Explain a way in which this influences British society.

Answer 46

British society and family law is based on Christian traditions such as monogamy, though many British people are not only not Christian, but may come from traditions where multiple marriages are acceptable or a norm

Question 47

Who theorised collective conscience?

Answer 47

Emile Durkheim

Question 48

Explain collective conscience

Answer 48

Emile Durkheim claimed that is was impossible to have any form of social life without a set of socially accepted and shared values and norms. He called those shared beliefs the collective conscience.

Question 49

What did Durkheim argue about religion and collective conscience?

Answer 49

He argued that religion embodied the collective conscience because it established the principles and beliefs that make society both stable and well-ordered

Question 50

What did Erikson point out about religion as an agent of secondary socialisation?

Answer 50

In religious families children will be profoundly affected by the beliefs of their parents. Erikson pointed out that children have little or no choice but to take on the beliefs of their parents who will train their children in the community aspects of religious belief.

Question 51

What are some examples of parental faith being an aspect of religion as an agent of socialisation?

Answer 51

• Children will pass though various traditions such as Christmas, Passover or Ramadan with their families
• There may be rites of passage such as communion or bar mitzvah
• They may wear items associated with their religion (hijabs, kippah/yarmulke/crosses)
• They will attend ceremonies such as weddings, be educated at faith schools and view religious practice and belief as a normal part of life

Question 52

What did Albert Bandura claim as early as the 1960s?

Answer 52

There was a direct link between expose to watching violence and violent play among children

Question 53

Explain Bandura’s claim of copycat behaviour.

Answer 53

Bandura claims that children model their behaviour on the behaviour of the role models they see on television.
- There have been a number of cases of murderers who claim to have modelled their behaviour on films
- Increasing numbers of films and video games appear to glamorise mass murder and killing sprees

Question 54

What measures have some countries taken over concerns about children’s copycat behaviour of media/

Answer 54

Introducing very strict laws governing children’s television and gaming

Question 55

Who theorised the hypodermic syringe model?

Answer 55

Marxists

Question 56

Explain the hypodermic syringe model?

Answer 56

Early Marxist theories of the media suggested that the media act as a drug directly injected into people’s minds and affecting their beliefs. As people cannot escape from the media because it is everywhere, they accept the messages that are passed on to them without question.

Question 57

Why are children seen as particularly vulnerable to the hypodermic syringe model?

Answer 57

They are less able to tell the difference between reality and fiction

Question 58

How can the presentation of violence in children’s television affect their behaviour?

Answer 58

Violence is often shown as heroic in children’s television, with people solving problems through fights rather than sitting down and discussing issues as adults should do, leading children to believe this is the correct way to handle conflict.

Question 59

Work is an important part of adult socialisation as people have to adapt to the demands of their work position. How can they be taught to do this?

Answer 59

Formal training and informal training
- e.g. doctors who take many years to learn the knowledge to become a medical professional, but also have to learn how to behave as doctors should. This is more often through an informal process, but they must learn the social skills (‘bedside manner’) if they are to be good at their jobs

Question 60

Explain canteen culture as an aspect of secondary socialisation through work

Answer 60

Canteen culture refers to how workers need to understand the practices of other employees, their beliefs, how to deal with certain problems and the attitudes that they will need to survive.

Question 61

What is expected of workers under canteen culture?

Answer 61

• They will be expected to be punctual and work hard
• They may even be expected to learn how to survive a full day at work through tricks and tactics that mean they do not work too hard and place too high a physical burden on themselves

Question 62

Who described the ‘McDonaldisation of work’ and when?

Answer 62

Ritzer (1993)

Question 63

What does the McDonaldisation of work describe?

Answer 63

How workers in certain industries, such as fast food restaurants, were trained not to show initiative. People expect that if they go to a chain restaurant anywhere in the world, the food and behaviour of staff will be predictable.

Question 64

How is the McDonaldisation of work achieved?

Answer 64

Through insisting the staff wear uniforms, the menus remain standard and works behave in exactly the same way in every single restaurant. This, interactions are scripted with phrases such as ‘Have a nice day!’
- Work becomes repetitive, boring and routine. Imagination and talent are not necessary for such jobs