Gender Socialisation

· Gender roles are socialised into children in the family and reinforced at school.

· It refers to the way how a child learns to act in manner which society appropriate to his or her sex.

· Parents expect their children to behave according to their sex.

· Males should be active, while females should be passive.

· Identity had been decided according to specific gender, e.g. blue for boys and pink are for girls.

Age as a social process

• Norms might be different according to age.
• The main idea, age is socially constructed.
• Because of age, we treat people differently.
• However, according to interactionists age is a symbol.
• Age divisions:

1. childhood
2. youth
3. adulthood
4. old age
   

Important key terms

• The Age status - the way that people receive different amounts of income and social prestige depending upon their age.
• Rite of passage - the ceremony that signifies leaving one stages of life and entering another.
• Transition - in sociology this means the period of change from being one age status to another, e.g. the period of change from being a child to being a youth.

Gender

• Definition: in terms of the particular cultural characteristics that people give to different biological sexes. We simply organize biological differences as the basis of sex labeling.
• In sociology gender differences are presented by labels such as: masculine and feminine. Labels- tell us how to behave.
• Males play instrumental role, females play expressive role.
• Male or female in our society means confirming to various cultural rules and expectations around what it means to the male or female. Rules develop because we live in a capitalists and patriarchal society.
• Glass ceiling - we can see ourselves but it is hard to reach, e.g. females has little opportunity in getting promoted.

Self , identity, socialisation and culture.

Case studies on socialisation

Evidence for the importance of socialisation

Anna and Isabella

· 1940s- Anna and Isabella were separately discovered who had been living totally isolated from human contact.

· Neither of the girls could walk, talk or feed themselves.

· They had difficulty in understanding everything that was explained or done for them.

· Both of them made a good progress, after being taken care of.

· They able to feed themselves and speak a few sentences.

· It shows the essential role played by the environment and education in the stages or child development.

Wolf children of Midnapore

• There was several cases where children had been raised by animals.
• Two females, aged two and eight were found in wolf den in Bengal, 1920.
• They walked on all four, eat raw meat and lack any form of speech.
• However, it is still unclear that weather they were raised by a wolves or simply abandoned and left to their own devices.

Reference

• According to Parsons (1951) socialization serves to maintain social order.
• Deviant behaviour- behaviour that goes against social norms, e.g. student don’t wear school uniform properly.
• However, according to C.H. Cooley, socialization is where the child’s identity is formed. Also, in this way we learn to be human.

Socialisation ,part 2

Interactionist, George Herbert Mead argued that our behaviour is conditioned by 2 aspects.

The main idea is that how we behave in the society and affect how people see us.

1. An 'I' aspect - based on your opinion and act as what we like (we don't care what other people say);
2. A 'me' aspect - have control over ourselves.

Charles Cooley - We use the way other people interpret our behaviour as evidence of who and what we are (looking - glass self).

Postmodernism

• Metanarratives : any set of theories that claim to offer the 'truth'. E.g. scientific theories and religions.
• Hyperreality : use to describe the difference between the reality and the one portrayed by the media.

References:-

• Postmodernist Lyotard (1993) argues that there are no truths and thus, metanarratives do not help explanations about identity.
• Anthony Giddens (1990) argues that we are in 'late modernity' and not 'post modernity'.
  

Interactionism

• Symbolic Interactionism: People interact in terms of symbol, in which language is the most important.
• Impression Management: How to impress others about ourselves. E.g. the way we dress.

According to interactionists, we are social actors. We act upon the situation. Also, we could understand response of others.






References:-

• Erving Goffman analyses the techniques we use in order to influence how others see us.
• W.I.Thomas stated that people act in terms of the way they define situations.

Feminism

1. Gender inequality between male and female in the society;
2. Focuses more on oppression and exploitation which faced by the women in the society.

• Patriarchy: society which involves male domination.

Other type of feminism:-

• Liberal Feminism
• Radical Feminism
• Post-modern Feminism
• Block Feminism

Women had less opportunity given in the society. For instance, in terms of job position (which still happen until now), male tend to be promoted easily compare to female.

Marxism

• Capitalism : A type of society in which the private ownership of the means of production in providing the means to live.
• Ideology: Set of beliefs and values which distorts reality.

Social Class

• Ruling Class (Bourgeoisie)
• Subject Class (Proletariat)

Marx predicted that working class will slowly overthrow the capitalism, which leads to the communist society.

• False consciousness: A situation in which working class people is 'unaware' that they are being exploited.

Functionalism

• Functionalists see society as a system which is working as a whole
• Concern more in the need of social order
• Social order exists so that the people in the society will behave (e.g. creation of law)

Key terms:-

Social order: when people disagree with each other because people are non-comformist.

Criticisms: they portrayed people as puppets, individuals are not necessarily passive.

Socialisation

Socialisation is the process where people learn norms and values.

Norms : Specific guide to action which defines acceptable and appropriate behaviour in particular situations.

Whereas,

Values: A belief that something is good and desirable.


Better way of remembering the definition of norms and values are by examples.
Simply by stating:-

1) People wear black in a funeral. - This is considered as a norm.
2) Taking off your shoes when entering someone's house. - Also considered as a norm.

On the other hand,

1) A responsible worker. - Responsible is considered as value.
2) Respectful. - Also considered as value.


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Agents of socialisation:-

• The family
• The peer group
• The school
• Religion
• The Mass Media
• Work
• Marriage
• Parenthood

Culture

• The way of life of a society; made up of shared values, norms and belief
  
• Is not absolute, fixed and universal
• No culture is superior, neither inferior. They are merely different.
• Types of culture:

1. Popular culture
2. Mass culture
3. Subculture
4. Dominant culture
5. Folk culture
6. High culture

• A youth subculture is a youth – based culture with distinct styles, behaviour and interest.
• Why subcultures are formed? It is formed as there’s rebellious attitude.
• Social class, gender and ethnicity can be important in relation to youth subcultures.
• The features of subculture: youth subcultures are often defined or distinguishable by elements such as fashion, clothing, hairstyles and etc.
• Talcott Parsons argued that as we move from the family and corresponding values to another sphere with differing values we would experience an “ anomie situation”.
• Marxists theories account for some diversity, because they focus on classes and class-fractions rather than youth aaas a whole.
• Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson describe youth subcultures as symbolic as symbolic or ritualistic attempts to resist the power of bourgeoisie hegemony.
• Dick Hebdige describes subcultures as a reaction of subordinated groups that challenge the hegemony of the dominant culture.
• Hegemonic how one situations is more powerful than the other. E.g no matter how rich you are, we couldn’t put your car plate license the same as the royal family.

Sociology

Is sociology a science?

-Sociology is:-

• Systematic
• Based on evidence
• Critical

Objective or subjective?

1. Positivist - Objective , this is because positivists see the world in scientific approach;

whereas

2. Interpretivist - Subjective, since interpretivists tend to involve feelings as well as the opinions by others.







Reference:

• Case studies : Durkheim's classic study of suicide ; and
• D.J. West's study of schoolboys.