Socialisation Flashcards
(20 cards)
Formal social control
-Mechanisms of social control
-these involve written rules, laws or codes of conduct that individuals need to follow
- police, justice system, court, government
Informal social control
-The unwritten, informal ways of controlling people that are learnt during everyday interactions
-Family, peer groups, media, religion…
Socialisation
-Process of learning how to become human and behave in ways which are acceptable to the expectations in others
Primary socialisation
-Early years of life where we are in prolonged intimate contact with our parents
-Parents teach us basic norms and values
-We learn through imitation, trial and error, role models
Secondary socialisation
-Between individuals and the things and people they have a secondary relationship with
-Takes place in the later years by outside agents: education, peers, media, religion…
Norms
-Unwritten rules in society which guide our behaviour and are underpinned by values
Values
-Widely accepted beliefs in society that underpin the norms
Status
-Social position in society that can either be achived or ascribed
Role
- Position in society such as a mother or a police officer
Society
-The mechanism by whih people organise and are organised in order to survive and develop a shared understanding
Parsons = primary socialisation
-Family as a personality factory- parents produce children with identities and social qualities fit the social expectations of the society which they belong to
-parents use reward and punishment to teach right and wrong
-Family performs a role of informal social control by teaching norms and values
-Believes formal institutions reinforce these norms when informal socialisation fails.
Functionalism
-Consensus theory
-sociaty is realtively stable and interdependant
-works like an organism
-creates sense of solidarity
-Parsons
Marxism
-These sociologists think the function of socialisation in the family is to make sure that children grow up accepting inequality particularly based on social class and wealth/status. Socialisation is therefore about working class children learning conformity and subordination.
Feminism
-Inequality in society that benefits men at the expense of women
-These sociologists think the function of socialisation in the family is to make sure that children grow up accepting inequality particularly based on gender as a natural fact of life. Socialisation is therefore about girls learning conformity and subordination.
Post modernism
-society has moved into a postmodern era- typefied by individualism and insecurity
-individuals less connected to norms and values
New Right
-These sociologists argue that socialisation in modern society is becoming less effective because of increasing trends such as divorce and the absence of a father in many one-parent families.
Interactionist
These sociologists argue that socialisation in families is a two-way process because it is negotiated. Parents also learn from their children. Moreover, socialisation is not a universal process shared in the same way by everyone. Rather it is experienced in different ways because of the influence of social class, ethnicity, religion…
Anne Oakley (feminist)
Focused on gender socialisation within the family
You are socialised into your gender identity through 4 ways- Manipulation, canalisation, verbal appellations and different activities.
Bourdieu (marxist)
Introduced the idea of cultural capital. Argued that middle- class families pass on norms, values, and tastes that help children succeed in education. socialisation reproduces class inequality.
Children are socialised into being oppressed workers in a capitalist society.
Durkheim- functionalist, social control
-Believed in social control being necessary to maintain social order and collective conscience
-Formal control: Institutions like the law and police enforce norms to prevent anomie (breakdown of social norms)
-Informal social control: family, religion, and education install shared values through socialisation
