Sociology: Ch. 5

Gilligan's Theory of Moral Development and Gender

-Carol Gilligan (1936-), recognized that Kohlberg's theory might show gender bias since his research was conducted only on male subjects. Would females study subjects have responded differently? -Gilligan also recognized that Kohlberg's theory rested on the assumption that the justice perspective was the right, or better, perspective.

Psychologist Erik Erikson (1902-1994) created a theory of personality development based, in part, on the work of Freud.

-Erikson was also interested in the social dimension of Freud's child development schema (1963). -He noted that each stage of psycho-social child development was associated with the formation of basic emotional structures in adulthood.

George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) advanced a more detailed sociological approach to the self.

-He agreed that the self, as a person's distinct identity, is only developed through social interaction. -He further noted that the crucial component of the self is its capacity for self reflection, its capacity to be "an object to itself". -On this basis, he broke the self down into two components or "phases," the "I" and the "me."

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a psychologist who specialized in child development, focusing specifically on the role of social interactions in their development.

-He recognized that the development of self evolved through a negotiation between the world as it exists in one's mind and the world that exists as it is experienced socially. -All three of these thinkers have contributed to our modern understanding of self development.

Conflict

-In socialization, each agent of socialization has a differing degree of power and influence on certain children, which allows advantages and disadvantages. Example: popular culture and high culture, or private school versus poor public schools.

Institutional Agents: The Workplace

-Just as children spend much of their day at school, many U.S. adults at some point invest a significant amount of time at a place of employment. -Although socialized into their culture since birth, workers require new socialization into a workplace, in terms of both material culture and nonmaterial culture.

Institutional Agents: Government

-Many of the rites of passage people go through today are based on age norms established by the government. -To be defined as an "adult" usually means being eighteen years old, the age at which a person becomes legally responsible for him- or herself.

Institutional Agents: School

-Most U.S. children spend about seven hours a day, 180 days a year, in school, which makes it hard to deny the importance school has on their socialization. -Students are not in school only to study math, reading, science, and other subjects—the manifest function of this system.

Interactionist

-People play a role (have agency) in the process of socialization, which means they do not experience agents' influence in the same way and that at some level we are also influencing the socialization agent through social interaction. Example: breaking the rules, underground fads and styles that become mainstreamed.

Agents of Socialization

-People, groups, and social institutions that provide the information needed to learn the culture; transmitted through social interaction (not an exhaustive list) -Family (Primary Agent) -Peers -School -Media (Rivals the family as primary agent)

Institutional Agents: Religion

-Religion is an important avenue of socialization for many people. -The United States is full of synagogues, temples, churches, mosques, and similar religious communities where people gather to worship and learn. -Like other institutions, these places teach participants how to interact with the religion's material culture.

Social Group Agents

-Social groups often provide the first experiences of socialization. Families, and later peer groups, communicate expectations and reinforce norms. -People first learn to use the tangible objects of material culture in these settings, as well as being introduced to the beliefs and values of society.

Functionalist

-Socialization must be carried out properly or the family will compromise the social integration process. -Cause social problems in education, crime, mental health problems, economy, politics, etc.

peer group

A group made up of people who are similar in age and social status and who share interests. -Peer groups are important to adolescents in a new way, as they begin to develop an identity separate from their parents and exert independence.

Social Location Socialization

Depending on a variety of statuses, people acquire knowledge about what expects in terms of race, class, gender.

Family

Family is the first agent of socialization. -Mothers and fathers, siblings and grandparents, plus members of an extended family, all teach a child what he or she needs to know.

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development

Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987) was interested in how people learn to decide what is right and what is wrong. To understand this topic, he developed a theory of moral development that includes three levels: preconventional, conventional, and postconventional.

Intersectionality Theory

People occupy multiple social locations simultaneously, which means they participate in various streams of socialization and often endure conflict, and collisions.

Theories of Self Development: Psychological Perspectives on Self Development

Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was one of the most influential modern scientists to put forth a theory about how people develop a sense of self.

Charles Cooley (1864-1929) asserted that people's self understanding is constructed, in part, by their perception of how others view them—a process termed "the looking glass self."

Seeing Yourself Through Others

Social Darwinism (Herbert Spencer)

Survival of the fittest and innate evolutionary superiority. -Epigenetics circular argument

generalized other

The common behavioural expectations of general society. -By this stage of development, an individual is able to internalize how he or she is viewed, not simply from the perspective of specific others, but from the perspective of the generalized other or "organized community."

-In the preconventional stage, young children, who lack a higher level of cognitive ability, experience the world around them only through their senses. -It isn't until the teen years that the conventional theory develops, when youngsters become increasingly aware of others' feelings and take those into consideration when determining what's "good" and "bad."

The final stage, called postconventional, is when people begin to think of morality in abstract terms, such as Americans believing that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

socialization

The process wherein people come to understand societal norms and expectations, to accept society's beliefs, and to be aware of societal values. -The process of learning the culture we live in; life-long process and informal/formal.

I and me

The two components or phases of the self-reflective self. -The "me" represents the part of the self in which one recognizes the "organized sets of attitudes" of others toward the self. -It is who we are in other's eyes: our roles, our "personalities," our public personas.

Double Consciousness

WEB Dubois: Double Consciousness: -ONE SELF, but two minds, two ways of operating and navigating life, two ways of thinking, behaving, speaking, acting, and reacting in two worlds -The added weight of injustice, contempt, oppression, and need to navigate for survival

self

a person's distinct sense of identity as developed through social interaction -the reflective and reflexive ability of humans to take themselves as object of their own thought.

preparatory stage

a time when children are only capable of imitation and have no ability to imagine how others see things.

play stage

a time when children begin to imitate and take on roles that another person might have.

total institution

an institution in which members are required to live in isolation from the rest of society.

Primary socialization:

focuses on early interaction processes that give children the necessary skills they need in the culture and society they live in.

Introspectionism (psychology)

knowledge of self through consciousness and examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and experiences. -Doesn't answer where thoughts, feelings, consciousness originate

Continuing socialization

ongoing interaction process through which we learn how to navigate the cultural we live in as adults.

He believed that personality and sexual development were closely linked, and he divided the maturation process into psychosexual stages:

oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.

Behaviorism (John B. Watson)

self is known through observable behavior that can be manipulated by internal/external stimuli.

mass media:

the distribution of impersonal information to a wide audience via television, newspapers, radio, and the Internet.

liquid modernity

the fluid and transitory nature of modern life, which is increasingly fragmented and cut into a succession of ill-connected episodes.

stages of child socialization

the four stages of child development (preparatory, play, game, and generalized other) in which the child develops the capacity to assume social role.

nature

the influence of our genetic makeup on self development.

hidden curriculum:

the informal teaching done in schools that socializes children to societal norms.

degradation ceremony

the process by which new members of a total institution lose aspects of their old identity and are given new ones.

resocialization

the process by which old behaviours are removed and new behaviours are learned in their place.

nurture

the role that our social environment plays in self development.

looking glass self:

the self or self-image that arises as the reaction to the judgment of others. -The self or "self idea" is thoroughly social. It is based on how we imagine we appear to others. This projection defines how we feel about ourselves and who we feel ourselves to be.

game stage

the stage in child development in which children begin to recognize and interact on the basis of fixed norms and roles.

moral development

the way people learn what is "good" and "bad" in society.

anticipatory socialization

when we prepare for future life roles.