Socialization to exploit their indigenous workers or the peasants of

underdevelopednations; (4) while economic classes may have become less

important with the abolition of private ownership, social stratificationpersists in

the form of income inequality, differences in prestige, and inequalities of

power; (5) inequality is determined not by the market but by the Party and its

bureaucratic apparatus, which enjoys a monopoly of power; (6) in practice, it is

difficult to remove entirely the operation of economic markets within a planned

economy and the black market serves to reinforce social inequalities associated

with political monopoly; (7) ideology is important in legitimating Party power,

although it has not proved particularly effective (for example, the persistence of

Catholicism in Poland or Orthodox opposition in Russia). In defence of socialist

societies, it is often claimed that: (i) these empirical departures from socialism

are defects of the transition to advanced socialist society rather than inevitable

and inherent failures; (2) socialist societies cannot fully develop in a global

situation which is still dominated by capitalist societies, since capitalism is able

to impose certain restraints on independent socialist development; (3) more

radically, societies like the Soviet Union are not socialist but 'state capitalist',

since the state has merely replaced private owners in the exercise of capitalist

functions. See: Convergence Thesis; Industrial Society. Bibl. Parkin (1971);

Lane (1985) Socialization. Sociologists use this term to describe the process

whereby people learn to conform to social norms, a process that makes possible

an enduring society and the transmission of its culture between generations. The
process has been conceptualized in two ways. (i) Socialization may be

conceived as the internalization of social norms: social rules become internal to

the individual, in the sense that they are self-imposed rather than imposed by

means of external regulation and are thus part of the individual's own

personality.The individual therefore feels a need to conform. (2) It may be

conceived as an essential element of social interaction, on the assumption that

people wish to enhance their own self-image by gaining acceptance and status

in the eyes of others; in this case, individuals become socialized as they guide

their own actions to 394 Socio-Economic Groups accord with the expectations

of others. The two conceptualizations may be combined, as in the work ofT.

Parsons (q.v.). Socialization may be divided into three stages: the primary stage

involves the socialization of the young child in the family; the secondary stage

involves the school; and the third stage is adult socialization, when actors enter

roles for which primary and secondarysocialization may not have prepared them

fully (for example, becoming an employee, a husband or wife, a parent). In the

mid twentieth century, particularly in Larssonian functionalism (q.v.),

sociologists displayed what D. H. Wrong (1961) called the 'over socialized

conception of man'; that is, they saw socialization as all-powerful and effective

rather than as a more tentative process that influences but may not determine

actors' behaviours and beliefs. Symbolic interactionists have also criticized the

conventional usage, emphasizing socialization as a process of transaction

between individual and society, in which both are mutually influential. It is now
accepted that individuals are rarely totally moulded by the culture of their

society. See: Agency and Structure; Initialization; Mead, G. H.;Role. Bibl.

Danziger (1971) Societal. This term refers to the characteristics of a society as a

whole. Society. The concept is a common sense category in which 'society' is

equivalent to the boundaries of nation-states. While sociologists in practice

often operate with this everyday terminology, it is not adequate because

societies do not always correspond to political boundaries (as in 'Palestinian

society'). Some Marxists, in order to avoid this difficulty, have substituted

'social formation' for 'society', but in practice these two terms are equivalent. It

is more useful to argue that sociology is the analysis of the social, which can be

treated at any level (for example, dyadic interaction, social groups, large

organizations or whole societies). See: Sociology. Socio-Economic Groups. The

Registrar General in Britain has classified occupations into SEGs since the 1951

census. These contain people whose life-styles (q.v.) are similar with respect to

social, cultural and leisure behaviour, and people are allocated to the