self - ReviseSociology

Symbolic Interactionism and Socialisation

socialisation is an active process of social interaction

Symbolic Interactionists see socialisation as an active process in which social interaction between children with adults and other children play a crucial role.

Gerald Handel drew on the work of George Herbert Mead to develop a symbolic interactionist perspective on socialisation and the development of the self, and he is the main theorist considered below.

Social Interaction and biological development

Social interaction is a crucial part of the biological development of the child.

The common sense view of child development is that biology comes first and once the child has the physical and brain capacities to walk and talk, then they walk and talk, but for Handel biological development and social interaction work and develop together.

A newborn child is unable to co-operate with others and take part in society because they are physically undeveloped and are unsocialised.

As the child gets older they mature physically and become socialised, both of which gradually allow them to function as a member of society.

A young child is dependent on its carers for its survival, but even this requires interaction between the child and the caregivers (crying is a basic form of communication), and social interaction is a vital part of a child’s intellectual and emotional development.

Intellectual capacities are developed through a child interacting with others in the same way in which muscles are developed through their physical usage.

Take the development of language for example: social interaction is absolutely essential for a child to develop the capacity to think in words and to speak and communicate. Without social interaction, language remains undeveloped as does the part of the brain which processes language.

Empathy, Communication and the Self

The process of socialisation allows the child to develop three key capacities:

The development of a self-concept. Following Mead, the development one’s self-concept is inherently social. It involves considering how other people see my own actions, and through this process the child learns to self-regulate by avoiding actions others don’t approve of and vice-versa for approved-of actions. In this way, by reflecting on the ‘looking glass self’ the individual comes to develop a sense of their own self as distinct from others.
The ability to empathise. Developing empathy is an integral part of developing a self-concept since it involves putting yourself in the shoes of others and considering how one’s actions make other people. Through doing this the child learns empathy.

The ability to communicate. Socialisation is inherently communicative, from the very early stages of non-verbal communication to the later development of language with its more complex grammatical forms and nuances of meaning.

So for Handel the process of socialisation simultaneously involves the individual developing a unique sense of self, but also a sense of their social self, and through socialisation they learn to regulate their behaviour so that they take account of the reactions of others, rather than just individuals doing whatever they want all the time.

Agencies of socialisation and peer groups

In order to fully understand the process of how a child is socialised we need to take a close, in-depth look at the perspectives of both the adult agents of socialisation such as parents and teachers and child’s peer group, or the other children they are socialised with.

Agents of socialisation

From an interactionist perspective adult agents of socialisation have a lot of freedom to socialise their children in different ways. There are many different styles of parenting practice for example, and most parents are, for the most part, left alone with their children for MOST of the time to socialise them as they see fit. Thus we should not expect all children in a society to be socialised in the same way.

Granted, there are laws and guidelines outlining how parents and teachers should interact with children, but these set very broad limits and the State rarely intervenes in any major ways in the socialisation of most children, and within the broad limits set there is a lot of room for variations in socialisation depending on the parents and teachers educational background, religion, politics, ethnicity, or just their personalities.

Peer groups

Children play a more active role in their own social interaction with other children compared to adults, and the opinions of other children are often perceived as important by children themselves.

Thus socialisation within the peer, or reference group is an important aspect of the child’s development.

Socialisation within the peer group operates differently to socialisation with adult agents.

Children take part in making up the rules of engagement rather than just being expected to follow rules laid down by adults.

Peer groups tend to seek more immediate gratification while adults try to stress deferred gratification.
Peer groups provide an alternative to adult standards of normative behaviour, which may come into conflict with those standards!

Peer groups are not just important for child socialisation, they also play a role in adult socialisation and adults go through changes, such as taking on a new job, for example.

Socialisation and conflicting norms

Handel sees conflict over appropriate norms of behaviour as a normal part of socialisation.

There will be conflict over what the child wants, possibly reinforced by the peer group (‘more cake now’) and what the parents expect, for example.

There will also likely be conflict when children and adults who have different histories of socialisation come into contact in certain social contexts, because of the wide variety of social norms in a society.

However there is also a sense of ‘societal demand’ – society as a whole has broad norms which nearly everyone understands they need to abide by and so for the most part we can settle our differences peacefully.

Evaluation

This is a more nuanced and complex theory of socialisation than that offered by Functionlists and Marxists which recognises that children play an active role in their own socialisation and are not just passive sponges.

Handel’s account is both too general (not in-depth enough) and takes too little account of structural features of society such as social class.

Signposting

This material is mainly relevant to the Culture and Identity option, which is sometimes taught within first year A-level Sociology.

Sources/ find our more

Gerald Handel (Wikipedia entry)

Part of this post was adapted from Haralambos and Holborn (2013) Sociology Themes and Perspectives 8th Edition.

What is Socialisation?

Socialisation is learning the norms and values of a society.

Socialisastion refers to the social processes through which new members of society develop awareness of social norms and values and help them achieve a distinct sense of self. It is the process which transforms a helpless infant into a self-aware, knowledgeable person who is skilled in the ways of a society’s culture.

Socialisation is normally discussed in terms of primary socialisation, which is particularly intense and takes place in the early years o life, and secondary socialisation, which continues throughout the life course.

Stages of Socialisation

Socialisation takes place through various agencies, such as the family, peer groups, schools and the media.

The family is the main agent during primary socialisation, but increasingly children attend some kind of nursery schooling from a very young age. It is in the family that children learn the ‘basic norms’ of social interaction – in Britain such norms include learning how to walk, speak, dress in clothes, and a whole range of ‘social manners’, which a taught through the process of positive and negative sanctions, or rewarding good and punishing bad behaviour.

In modern societies, class gender and ethnic differences start to affect the child from a very young age and these influence patterns of socialisation. Where gender is concerned, for example, children unconsciously pick up on a range of gendered stereotypes which inform the actions of their parents, and they typically adjust their behaviour accordingly.

In adulthood, socialisation continues as people learn how to behave in relation to new areas of social life, such as work environments and political beliefs. Mass media and the internet are also seen as playing an increasing role in socialisation, helping to shape opinions, attitudes and behaviour. This is especially the case with the advent of new media, which enable virtual interactions via chatrooms, blogs and so on.

Taken together, agencies of socialisation form a complex range of contrary social influences and opportunities for interaction and it can never be an entirely directed or determined process: humans are self-aware beings capable of forming their own interpretations of the messages with which they are presented.

Criticisms of the Concept of Socialisation

The main criticism of theories of socialisation is that they tend to exaggerate its influence. This is particularly true of functionalism which tended to see individuals as cultural dopes, at the mercy of socialising agencies.

Dennis Wrong (1961) took issue with what he saw as the ‘oversocialised concept of man’ in sociology, arguing that it treats people as mere role-players, simply following scripts.

Today, theories of society and cultural reproduction are much more likely to recognize that individuals are active players and that socialization is a conflict-ridden and emotionally charged affair, and the results of it are much less predictable than functionalist theories suggested in the 1950s.

Signposting

Socialisation is one of the most fundamental concepts within A-level sociology and should be taught as part of an introduction to sociology.

Giddens’ Modernity and Self Identity – in 14 bullet points

A brief post covering the relationship between self and society in late-modernity according to Anthony Giddens, covering concepts such as Globalisation, abstract systems, ontological security, manufactured risks, narcissism and fundamentalism.

This is very much my own reading of Giddens’ text – Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age.

Gidden’s Key Ideas about Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Taken from Modernity and Self Identity – And Against Post Modernism)

There is a global structure – e.g. it’s Capitalist and Nation States remain powerful, but it’s dynamic, constantly changing, and not predictable.

Institutions (political and economic) are ‘reflexive’ – they try to ‘steer’ events in the future in the light of existing and continually updating (imperfect) knowledge.
There are significant global problems (manufactured risks) which we all face and none of us can escape – e.g. Global Warming. These are real, objectively existing problems, not hyperreal, and they bind us together, even if many of us fail to accept this.
The increased pace of change and Uncertainty are a fundamental part of late-modernity.

Globalisation penetrates our lifeworlds through abstract Systems (money, clock time, expert systems, especially science).
The media is more important and influential in late-modern society, but Giddens rejects the concept of hyperreality – the main significance of the media is that it makes us more aware of diversity and of the fact that there are many different ways of living.
In Late Modern (not Post-modern) Society, there is what Giddens calls a ‘duality of structure’ – social structures both empower us and constrain us (differentially, and broadly along the lines of class, gender and ethnicity, although not perfectly) – people are not just ‘free’ to do whatever they want – their freedom comes from existing structures – think of your typicaly fashion blogger on YouTube for example – you may think of them as ‘free’, but they are fundamentally dependent on global capitalism, a monetary system, and the infrastructure of media technology.

In terms of the self – Identity is no longer a given – we no longer have a pre-existing identity based on our gender, class, family or locality, everything is open to questionand we are forced to contunally look at ourselves and continuously ask the question ‘who am I’ – identity becomes a task, something we must do for ourselves, and nearly every aspect of our lives becomes something we need to reflect on as a result.
It is for this reason that we become concerned with constructing a ‘Narrative of Self’ – A coherent life story, so that we can convince ourselves that we have a stable identity through time. Constructing a self-identity takes a lot of time and effort.
Therapy emerges as a new expert system to help people in the process of continual identity reconstruction – especially useful at epochal moments like divorce.

The construction and expression of the self becomes the new norm – there are many ways we can do this – mainly through consumption (buying and doing stuff), through relationships, and through developing bodily regimes (health regimes).
An unfortunate consequence of this focus on the self is the rise of Narcissism, with very few people asking moral and existential questions about existence.
However, this process is dialectical and New Social Movements (e.g. the Green Movement) which do consider moral and existential issues – in which people attempt to incorporate moral and existential questions into the construction of their ‘political’ identities.

Late Modernity produces various ‘Generic’ Types of Identity – The Narcissist, the Fundamentalist, both are extreme expressions of the same social system.