SOCIALISATION

Question 1

What is the nature/nurture debate?

Answer 1

What makes a person the way they are? Genes or upbringing?

Question 2

Give an example of a study used in the nature/nurture debate?

Answer 2

Oxana Malaya.

Left in the kennel with the family dogs, and was seen to walk on all-fours and displayed ‘dog-like’ behaviour.

Question 3

What does the Bruce and Brian Reimer study show about the nature/nurture argument?

Answer 3

Bruce’s penis was destroyed in a circumcision operation, thus, Bruce was raised as a girl. Bruce (Brenda) was so unhappy that at the age of 13 they attempted suicide.

Question 4

What is socialisation?

Answer 4

The process by which an individual learns the norms and values of society.

Question 5

What is primary socialisation?

Answer 5

The first and most important stage of learning.

Question 6

What is secondary socialisation?

Answer 6

Continuation of the primary socialisation process.

Question 7

What are the key agents of primary and secondary socialisation?

Answer 7

Primary: Family.
Secondary: Media, education, religion, peer group, workplace.

Question 8

What do children learn from their parents in primary socialisation?

Answer 8

What is acceptable and unacceptable by a process of trial and error. Their parents will apply sanctions.

Question 9

Lees - secondary socialisation.

Answer 9

Looked at the pressure put on teenage girls by peers and the double standards applied to girls and boys.

Question 10

Harris - socialisation.

Answer 10

Looked at the comparative influence of parents and peer groups, concluding that the peer group can be more influential.

Question 11

What is social control?

Answer 11

The ways through which our behaviour is controlled and reinforced by sanctions.

Question 12

What are some examples of formal social control?

Answer 12

The police, courts, criminal justice system, the government and the military.

Question 13

What is not traditionally seen as an agent of formal social control?

Answer 13

Education, as it has legal requirements such as attendance and behavioural codes.

Question 14

What are two examples of sanctions used by formal mechanisms of social control?

Answer 14

• Warnings from the police.

- Exclusion from school.

Question 15

What is informal social control?

Answer 15

Controls our behaviour more subtly - they would include peer group, education, religion, workplace etc.

Question 16

Give two sanctions that may be used by informal mechanisms of social control.

Answer 16

• Socially excluding a person from a peer group.

- Being passed over for promotion at work.

Question 17

What is the important thing to note with informal social control?

Answer 17

May be less obvious, but it is just as powerful in influencing our behaviour as formal control, more so in some cases.

Question 18

What does Young state about media and socialisation? What may this lead to?

Answer 18

A ‘bulimic society’ in which people are left with a constant hunger and desire to binge on everything and anything.

Question 19

What do Modood and Berthoud state about religion as a form of socialisation?

Answer 19

Surveyed young people and found that 67% of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis saw religion as ‘very important’ compared to 5% for white British.

Question 20

Waddington - workplace.

Answer 20

Used the term ‘canteen culture’ to describe the set of norms and values that people are socialised into in a workplace.