Becoming a Member of Society

What is Socialization?
What is Enculturation?
Objectives: ● Define Socialization
● Identify the different agents of
socialization
● Discuss Enculturation as the
product of socialization
● Understand the importance of
socialization in a society
Activity 1: Study the Case
Activity 1: Study the Case

A brief background of a controversial case of a feral child found in 1970’s.

Genie's story came to light on November 4, 1970, in Los Angeles, California. A social worker
discovered the 13-year old girl after her mother sought out services for her own health. The social
worker soon discovered that the girl had been confined to a small room, and an investigation by
authorities quickly revealed that the child had spent most of her life in this room, often tied to a
potty chair. She spent almost her entire childhood locked in a bedroom, isolated and abused for
over a decade. Genie's life prior to her discovery was one of utter deprivation. She spent most of
her days tied naked to her potty chair only able to move her hands and feet. When she made noise,
her father would beat her. Her father, mother, and older brother rarely spoke to her. The rare times
her father did interact with her, it was to bark or growl.
Activity 1: Study the Case
Activity 2. Complete ME!
Directions: Complete the graphic organizer by providing words or phrases that you have learned from the following
people or social institutions. Note: It can be values/traditions/norms, etc.
What is socialization?

Three Goals of Socialization

• Lifelong process of social interaction through which people
acquire their identities and necessary survival skills in
● It teaches impulse control
society.
and helps individuals
• It is considered as the central process of social life and is develop a conscience.
also a process of member recruitment and replacement.
● It teaches individuals how

• Enables the person to gradually become a self – aware to prepare for and perform
and knowledgeable human being, and learn the ways, certain social roles
values, rules, and culture of his / her society. ● It cultivates shared
sources of meaning and
• Greatly influenced by the context of his /her respective
society, and the social groups that he/she interact value
Agents of Socialization: Family

In rural societies, children have most of

their early social contact with the family.
Today, however, the family's importance
in the child's life is changing. The
American family no longer necessarily
conforms to the stereotypical nuclear
family with two parents and two or more
dependent children.

Although most children growing up in

America today will spend a great deal of
time with people other than members of
their families, this does not mean that the
participation of families in socialization
has ended.
Agents of Socialization: School

Schools try to impress upon children the

importance of working for rewards, and they
try to teach neatness, punctuality,
orderliness, and respect for authority.
Teachers are called upon to evaluate how
well children perform a particular task or how
much skill they have. Thus, in school,
children's relationships with adults move from
nurture and behavioral concerns to
performance of tasks and skills determined
by others.
Agents of Socialization: Peers

A peer group consists of friends and

associates who are about the same age and
social status. As children get older, going to
school brings them into regular contact with
other children of their age. In these early
peer groups, children learn to share toys and
other scarce resources. Peers may reinforce
behaviors that are stressed by parents and
schools--for example, whether it is all right
to hit someone else and what arc acceptable
behaviors for boys and girls. As children
move through school, the interests of peer
groups may diverge more and more from
those of adults.
 Agents of Socialization: Mass Media
The mass media include many forms of
communication--such as books, magazines, radio,
television, and movies--that reach large numbers of
people without personal contact between senders and
receivers. In the last few decades, children have been
dramatically socialized by one source in particular:
television. Studies have found that children spend more
time watching TV than they spend in school.

Most researchers studying the effects of television on

children have focused on the content of the programs
and not on the total experience of television watching.
They argue that there is too much violence and sex on
children's programs and that more good educational
programs for children are needed.
Socialization concerns both social structure and interpersonal
relations. It contains three key parts: context, content and process,
and results.

The context is like the theater or stage in

which socialization occurs. Social context
includes culture, language, and social
structures such as the class, ethnic, and
gender hierarchies of a society. Context
also includes social and historical events,
power and control in social life, and the
people and institutions with whom
individuals come in contact in the course of
their socialization.
THE CONTEXT OF SOCIALIZATION

The Biological Context

Biological features are regularly suggested as

sources of human behavior.

Sociobiologists suggest that some human

capacities may be "wired into" our biological
makeup. Sociobiologists argue that traits which aid
survival and reproduction (like learning not to eat
things that induce vomiting) will survive, whereas
others (like unusual whiteness in certain animals,
which makes them easier prey) will tend to die out.
THE CONTEXT OF SOCIALIZATION

The Psychological Context

The primary factor in the psychological context of

socialization is the psychological state of the person
being socialized. Strongly feeling one or more emotions
might very well inhibit or promote socialization of a
particular kind.

Emotions can also influence how individuals perceive

the content of socialization, whether in becoming a
member of a family group or a religious sect. Knowing
something about the feelings of the people involved
(the psychological context) helps explain the results of
the socialization process.
THE CONTEXT OF SOCIALIZATION

Social Position as Part of the Context

Your family's social class, economic position, and

ethnic background--as well as your gender and
race--can affect the ways in which you will be
socialized. People in more advantageous positions
tend to develop higher self-evaluations. As a result,
they feel justified in having more resources.
Similarly, those in less desired positions tend to
have lower self-evaluations and may feel that their
lower status is deserved (Della Fave, 1980).
Social Position as Part of the Context

Gender socialization is the process of learning

the social expectations and attitudes
associated with one’s sex.

● Gender stereotypes
Cultural expectations for gender roles
and gendered behavior are conveyed to
children through color-coded clothes and
sorts of game.
Social Position as Part of the Context

● Race Socialization is the process by

which children learn the behaviors,
values, attitudes, and norms
associated with racial groups.

Unlike racism in the U.S., which triggered

events like abolitionism and the civil
rights movement, the Philippines’ unique
brand of racism is far less volatile. A
subject of comedy and criticism, racism in
the Philippines sits on the border
between ignorance and innocence.
Racism in the Philippines is ignorant at best
and insulting at worst. We might not have a
history of institutional racism, but that doesn’t
mean our brand of (innocent?) racism is any
less concerning or offensive, no matter how
blind we might be to it. Our lack of racial
diversity in the population has made us
tone-deaf to the unconscious racism of
Filipinos and unable to recognize our lack of
cultural sensitivity until someone points it out.

-https://www.esquiremag.ph/politics/opinion/racism-in-the-phililppines-a1926-201910
09
Socialization concerns both social structure and interpersonal relations. It
contains three key parts: context, content and process, and results.

The content and process of socialization is
like the play, the lines, and the actors. It
includes the structure of the socializing
activity--how intense and prolonged it is,
who does it, how it is done, whether it is a
total experience or only a partial process,
how aware the individual is of alternatives,
and how attractive those alternatives are.
While context sets the stage for
socialization, the content and process
comprise the work of this undertaking.
How parents assign chores or tell their
children to interact with police are
examples of content and process, which
are also defined by the span of
socialization, the methods used, the
people involved, and the type of
experience.
Socialization concerns both social structure and interpersonal relations. It
contains three key parts: context, content and process, and results.

Results may properly be defined as what
happens later, after someone has been
exposed to particular content and
processes. New members may learn the
behaviors, attitudes, and values that old
members hoped they would learn.
Results are the outcome of socialization
and refer to the way a person conceives
and conducts after undergoing this
process. For example, with small children,
socialization exhibits focus on control of
biological and emotional impulses, such
as drinking eating with bare hands rather
than eating with spoon and fork or asking
permission before picking something up.
The effect of Socialization in acquiring culture.

Enculturation This process is the way in

which we obtain and transmit culture. It
describes how each individual comes to
terms with the already set ideals that
their culture has established, and how
each person adapts to prohibited
behaviors and beliefs, which are
‘proscribed’, versus encouraged
behaviors and beliefs, which are
‘prescribed’.
Something to When new generations
ponder... adopt social structures and
modes of social behavior
that are different from those
of parent (previous)
generations, does this mean
that socialization process
have failed?
Asynchronous
Activity on
Quipper!

Quiz on
Monday,
September 27!