Unit 9 Socialisation

1. What is socialisation and why are sociologists interested in the socialisation process?

Socialisation involves instilling the basic elements of culture in a society's new members; every society shapes its children in the image of its own culture. Socialisation enables people to par­ticipate effectively in their communities. There are two basic aspects of socialisation. First, socialisation creates individuals who are part of a human community. It enables people to live within their groups and to be effective members of the society into which they are born. Second, socialisation is the process by which a society reproduces itself in a new generation. It helps transmit the values and traditions of the past to the next generation.

2. How important are nature and nurture for socialisation?

Many years ago some scientists argued that infants are blank slates and that their experiences determine who they become. Others argued that heredity determines who we become; experience cannot change what nature ordained. Today scientists recognise that both factors are essential; the interaction between biological and environmental forces determines the development of a human being.

Biological factors establish the basic blueprint for human development. Timetables for develop­ment exist for speech development and physical skills, as well as for emotions. Biological plans are not immutable, however; experiences can disrupt the emotional timetable, for example.

Certain traits are fixed genetically, such as hair colour and sex. In most cases, however, genes do not dictate how a child will develop, but instead establish a range of possible outcomes. How much of a child's potential is realised depends on the environment. Experiments with chimpanzees have shown that a rich learning environment can stretch the genetic potential to its limit.

Personality development reveals a particularly complex pattern of gene-environmental interac­tions. Personality includes the characteristic modes of thinking, feeling, and acting that individuals develop because of experience. Most studies of gene-environment interaction focus on how the environment affects inborn potentials, but studies of temperament show how inborn traits affect social interaction. That is, children with different temperaments evoke different responses from other people. Similarly, inherited physical characteristics evoke different responses from other people and can cause children to seek or avoid activities. In short, biology provides the raw material for development, but experience shapes that raw material.

The nature of the human animal both allows and requires socialisation. Human babies are very helpless; therefore they must learn a great deal from experience. Evidence for the importance of socialisation comes from extreme situations in which infants and young children were isolated. Finally, the effects of socialisation are felt not only by children but also by their parents and by others.

3. Which perspectives and theorists help us understand socialisation?

The four basic perspectives help us understand the role of socialisation. Sociologists who take a functional perspective regarding the basic question of what holds society together focus on the ways in which individuals learn values. These sociologists see society as many different parts that evolve to work together in an integrated fashion. Sociologists following a power perspective, however, argue that certain groups, individuals, and organisations wield power over others. Hence the values that individuals learn are the result of an ideological power struggle. Those with a structural perspective argue that individual choices are greatly constrained by social structural forces. That is, the structure of a society substantially affects socialisation potential. Finally, those who follow an action perspective consider it a mistake to see individuals as carried along passively by structural forces. They view individuals as active participants in their own socialisation. From this perspective it is critical to assess how individuals interpret what they experience according to their own subjective feelings.

Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929) was one of the first theorists to consider the social origins of self. The self is the notion that each individual has a unique and distinct identity; it emerges from interactions with others. Cooley developed the idea of the looking-glass self: we acquire our sense of self by seeing ourselves reflected in other people's attitudes and behaviours toward us and by imagining what they think of us. The looking-glass self has three parts: 1) what we imagine others see in us, 2) how we imagine they judge what they see, and 3) how we feel about those judgements. The looking-glass self, then, is a mixture of observation, imagination, and subjective interpretation. Perhaps most important, it is a social construction.

George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) traced the development of self-awareness to early social interaction. He stressed" the use of significant symbols, the signs, gestures, and language used to interact with others. Through symbolic interaction, children learn to anticipate what others expect and to evaluate and adjust their own behaviour accordingly. Mead believed that the self includes two parts: the " I" and the " me." The " I" is the active, spontaneous, idiosyncratic self, and is the product of individual distinctiveness. The " me" is the social self, a product of socialisation. Together these two elements help to define an identity—the self.

Mead left unsolved the problem of how we gain the sense of " I." Norbert Wiley suggests that infants have no sense of " I" but view themselves simply as part of other objects. Through the " we" experience with parents, babies begin to understand that they, too, have an ego. Hence the " I, " like the " me, " is social in origin. Regarding the development of a " me, " Mead proposed that this aspect of the self develops in early childhood as a result of role-playing. Children frequently take the roles of people who are important in their social world (significant others). As they mature, they begin to move from simple play involving one role to games involving the interaction of many roles. Eventually they see themselves as part of society and internalise the standards, attitudes, and beliefs of parents and others. Mead referred to this internalised sense of self as the generalised other.

Perhaps the theory of socialisation with the greatest impact is that of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). In his view, socialisation is a lifelong battle among three forces: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is a reservoir of innate biological drives aimed at obtaining physical pleasure. The ego is the rational part of the self which mediates between the id and reality. The superego reflects the conscience and embodies the moral standards of society. Freud thought that the ego's job was to find safe ways to satisfy the id without causing guilt to the superego. All three of these parts strive for control; hence Freud's theory is essentially power-oriented. People are not born with an ego or a superego; these components develop through social interaction. Although Cooley and Mead viewed socialisation as the gradual merger of the individual and society, Freud viewed it as a constant battle between society and a person's biological inclinations and drives.