Socialization

Socialization is learning. Socialization refers to all learning regardless of setting or age of the individual. In every group one has to learn the rules, expectations, and truths of that group, whether the group is your family, the army, or the state (nation). Socialization is the process whereby people acquire personality and learn the way of life of their society. Essentially, one has to learn Culture. Learning culture is learning everything. It encompasses all the truths, values, rules, and goals that people share with one another. Culture is a shared perspective. The most important time when socialization occurs is between the ages of one and ten. We obviously learn throughout our lives, but this first ten years is most important in determining who we are for the rest of our lives.

Human infants are born without any culture. They must be transformed by their parents, teachers, and others into cultural and socially adept animals. The general process of acquiring culture is referred to as socialization . During socialization, we learn the language of the culture we are born into as well as the roles we are to play in life. For instance, girls learn how to be daughters, sisters, friends, wives, and mothers. In addition, they learn about the occupational roles that their society has in store for them. We also learn and usually adopt our culture's norms through the socialization process. Norms are the conceptions of appropriate and expected behavior that are held by most members of the society. While socialization refers to the general process of acquiring culture, anthropologists use the term enculturation for the process of being socialized to a particular culture. You were enculturated to your specific culture by your parents and the other people who raised you.

Socialization is important in the process of personality formation. While much of human personality is the result of our genes, the socialization process can mold it in particular directions by encouraging specific beliefs and attitudes as well as selectively providing experiences. This very likely accounts for much of the difference between the common personality types in one society in comparison to another. For instance, the Semai tribesmen of the central Malay Peninsula of Malaysia typically are gentle people who do not like violent, aggressive individuals. In fact, they avoid them whenever possible. In contrast, the Yanomamö Indians on the border area between Venezuela and Brazil usually train their boys to be tough and aggressive. The ideal Yanomamö man does not shrink from violence and strong emotions. In fact, he seeks them out. Likewise, Shiite Muslim men of Iran are expected at times to publicly express their religious faith through the emotionally powerful act of self-inflicted pain.

Successful socialization can result in uniformity within a society. If all children receive the same socialization, it is likely that they will share the same beliefs and expectations. This fact has been a strong motivation for national governments around the world to standardize education and make it compulsory for all children. Deciding what things will be taught and how they are taught is a powerful political tool for controlling people. Those who internalize the norms of society are less likely to break the law or to want radical social changes. In all societies, however, there are individuals who do not conform to culturally defined standards of normalcy because they were "abnormally" socialized, which is to say that they have not internalized the norms of society. These people are usually labeled by their society as deviant or even mentally ill.

Large-scale societies, such as the United States, are usually composed of many ethnic groups. As a consequence, early socialization in different families often varies in techniques, goals, and expectations. Since these complex societies are not culturally homogenous, they do not have unanimous agreement about what should be the shared norms. Not surprisingly, this national ambiguity usually results in more tolerance of social deviancy--it is more acceptable to be different in appearance, personality, and actions in such large-scale societies.

How are Children Socialized?

Socialization is a learning process that begins shortly after birth. Early childhood is the period of the most intense and the most crucial socialization. It is then that we acquire language and learn the fundamentals of our culture. It is also when much of our personality takes shape. However, we continue to be socialized throughout our lives. As we age, we enter new statuses and need to learn the appropriate roles for them. We also have experiences that teach us lessons and potentially lead us to alter our expectations, beliefs, and personality. For instance, the experience of being raped is likely to cause a woman to be distrustful of others.

Looking around the world, we see that different cultures use different techniques to socialize their children. There are two broad types of teaching methods--formal and informal. Formal education is what primarily happens in a classroom. It usually is structured, controlled, and directed primarily by adult teachers who are professional "knowers." In contrast, informal education can occur anywhere. It involves imitation of what others do and say as well as experimentation and repetitive practice of basic skills. This is what happens when children role-play adult interactions in their games.

Most of the crucial early socialization throughout the world is done informally under the supervision of women and girls. Initially, mothers and their female relatives are primarily responsible for socialization. Later, when children enter the lower school grades, they are usually under the control of women teachers. In North America and some other industrialized nations, baby-sitters are most often teenage girls who live in the neighborhood. In other societies, they are likely to be older sisters or grandmothers.

Social Survival :

Physical contact with others is essential to meet our social and emotional needs. The very survival of the individual and the group depends on its members being properly socialized.

Feral Children

Feral means untamed, savage, and wild. Feral children literally describe children raised in the wild by wild animals. Appelbaum and Chambliss contend that numerous accounts exist which describe children raised by animals. They argue that most stories of children raised in the wild are untrustworthy.

In general, the explanation that "wild children" are raised by wild animals is more than likely an excuse to cover up extreme child abuse. On occasion, children are discovered who have few social skills and who lack the ability to speak. Upon closer inspection, it is discovered that these children suffer from extreme social isolation.

Children Raised in Isolation

There are numerous accounts of children raised in near total isolation. Appelbaum and Chambliss introduce us to a girl named "Genie." Genie was raised in near isolation for the first twelve years of her life. She was often strapped to a child's potty or confined to a sleeping bag. She saw only her father and mother and this contact was occurred only at feeding. Needless to say, she failed to develop social skills.

It is apparent that sever social isolation contributes to poor social development, but it's difficult to prove "scientifically." Social workers encounter children raised in isolation at the end of the process of isolation. (Presumably, the children are removed to more "humane" surroundings.) It's impossible to say whether the "wild" behavior is a result of the isolation or the result of genetic problems that may have caused the isolation in the first place.

Ethics rule out doing experiments on the effects of isolation on children. One cannot simply isolate a child from human contact to see what happens. There fore, research on isolation has to focus on children who have experienced isolation in the past or it has to investigate the effects of isolation on animals.

Institutionalized Children: Rene Spitz

Rene Spitz explored the development (or lack of development) of institutionalized children. In the 1945 study involving human babies, Spitz's followed the social development of babies who, for various reasons, were removed from their mothers early in life. Some children were placed with foster families while others were raised in institutions (e.g., a nursing home). The nursing home babies had no family-like environment. The setting was very institutional. Care was provided by nurses who worked eight hour shifts. The babies raised in the nursing home environment suffered seriously. More than a third died. Twenty-one were still living in institutions after 40 years. Most were physically, mentally, and socially retarded.

The Harlow Study

The importance of the social environment is demonstrated by Harry and Margaret Harlow. In a laboratory setting, the Harlow's removed baby monkeys from their mothers at birth. The babies were provided with all the necessities of life such as food and warmth (temperature), but the babies had no contact with other monkeys. Bazaar behavior developed. The Harlow's concluded that social isolation caused the monkeys raised in isolation to develop abnormally.

Gender Socialization and Gender Roles

Henslin (1999:76) contends that "an important part of socialization is the learning of culturally defined gender roles." Gender socialization refers to the learning of behavior and attitudes considered appropriate for a given sex. Boys learn to be boys and girls learn to be girls. This "learning" happens by way of many different agents of socialization. The family is certainly important in reinforcing gender roles, but so are one’s friends, school, work and the mass media. Gender roles are reinforced through "countless subtle and not so subtle ways"

Re socialization: 

Re socialization refers to the process of discarding former behavior patterns and accepting new ones as part of a transition in one's life. This occurs throughout the human life cycle (Schaefer & Lamm, 1992). Re socialization can be intense with the individual experiencing a sharp break with past and the learning and exposure to radically different norms and values. An example would be the experience of a young man or woman leaving home to join the Marines