Socialisation and construction of identity

Question 1

Define socialisation

Answer 1

The process of learning acceptable norms and values of any given culture. The process is divided into two processes; primary and secondary socialisation

Question 2

Explain the Characteristic of Culture – Norms

Give an example

Answer 2

Specific behaviour given to a particular situation which is guided by acting out a value.

Wearing a seatbelt to demonstrate a protection of life

Question 3

Explain the Characteristic of Culture – Values

Give an Example

Answer 3

General beliefs about what is right or wrong or what we believe is worthwhile.

Protection of life.

Question 4

Explain the Characteristic of Culture – Social Roles

Give an Example

Answer 4

Behaviour we associate with a particular role in society

father, child, doctor

Question 5

Explain the Characteristic of Culture – Status – Achieved Status

Give an Example

Answer 5

Achieved through an individual’s own efforts or talents.

training to be a Doctor

Question 6

Explain the Characteristic of Culture – Status – Ascribed Status

Give an Example

Answer 6

Given to us at birth or family background and cannot be changed by the individual

Born a Prince

Question 7

Explain the Characteristic of Culture – Customs

Give an Example

Answer 7

Traditional and regular norms of behaviour associated with specific social situations, events or anniversaries.

In UK it is customary to mourn for the dead at funerals and we would wear black. Buying Easter Eggs, lighting candles at Divali.

Question 8

Explain the Characteristic of Culture – Language

Answer 8

The symbols we use to share meaning.

Question 9

Taylor’s Theory

Answer 9

Taylor (1997) notes that socialisation should be organised in such a way that ‘the ways of thinking, behaving and perceiving things that are accepted by culture come to appear as normal, natural and inevitable’.

Question 10

Elias’ Theory

Answer 10

Civilising Process - Elias (1987) argues that socialisation has grown more influential throughout history and in contemporary society, culture exerts a greater civilising influence on individuals than at any period in history.

Question 11

Re-Socialisation. Definition

Give Example

Answer 11

The process whereby people are removed from their everyday situations and encounter new social environments which are governed by a different set of norms and values. Re-socialisation adds further importance of the role of socialisation.

Example:
A key example of re-socialisation is in prison. Within the prison, the prison officers remove the identity of the individual and replace it with one imposed by the prison, such as enforcing new rules, clothing, getting rid of possessions, cutting hair etc. A prison’s aim is to re-socialise the individual into the value system of the prison but also rehabilitate the offender’s values which had led him/her to bring in prison

Question 12

Goffman’s Study

Name
Date
Details

Answer 12

Name: Asylum’s study

Date: 1961

Details: found that in psychiatric hospitals, a similar process of re-socialisation was taking place. The hospital imposed new vales and norms that met the needs of the hospital rather than those of the patient. Goffman argued that psychiatric hospitals (and prisons) are ‘total institutions’ whereby the lives of the mentally ill patients are completely controlled. Goffman argued that these institutions develop their own subculture based on the label that the institution has put on them. In Goffman’s case study, he found that the hospital didn’t cure patients but learned how to ‘act mad’, fulfilling the label that had been applied to them.