Thursday, July 24, 2008

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.

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