Name: Recto, Judiel Ann R.

Date: October 21, 2019

Schedule: 5:30pm-8:00pm Professor: Felicidad De Ocampo

ASSIGNMENT

Socialization

- is the learning process where the individual acquires a status, plays a corresponding role
and emerges with a personality. Social status refers to the social position of a person in
the group. Ascribed status is determined by birth where a person has no choice like sex or
age. Achieved status refers to the status which the person attains through his efforts,
intelligence and choice. On the other hand, social role refers to the functions, duties,
responsibilities and behavioral expectations attached to the social status.

Process of Socialization

The infant is born into a group. Without this group he may not survive, because unlike
most animals, he has a period of long dependency. He is helpless physically but all the time his
brain works and gathers impressions which he uses later in life.

His first experiences are in the matter of alleviating his hunger, physical discomfort and
learning how to obtain and satisfy his needs.

The satisfaction of the child’s needs comes from the actions of others-hunger is assuages
by feeding, discomfort is alleviated by changing his diapers, by bathing, wrapping blankets
around him to keep him warm, and responding to certain cries and actions. He learns how to get
these attentions by certain noises or movements. Eventually a relationship is established between
him and the people around him. He learns to smile, to coo , to wiggle his toes and arms to attract
attention. At this stage he needs not only food but also the loving touch, affectionate hugging and
the presence of those others than himself.

As time goes on the child learns to view himself as others view him. In 1902 Charles
Horton Cooley provided a classic description of this phenomenon and called it the looking glass
self. According to Cooley there are three steps in this process:
 1. We imagine how we appear to others.
2. We imagine how others judge our appearance.
3. We develop feelings about and responses to these judgements.

We get our self-image from the way others treat us. Their treatment is like a mirror
reflecting our personal qualities. If according to us others see us as intelligent or respectable it is
because others see us as such. Usually we live up to this image.

Importance of Socialization

The process of socialization plays a very important role in the development of every
individual and in the history and life of every community.

Socialization is vital to culture. Socialization is important to societies as, it is to individuals.

It is through this process of socialization that every society transmits its culture to succeeding
generations. Through this continuing process, each generation acquires the elements of its
society’s culture-its knowledge, symbols, values, norms, beliefs, etc.

Socialization is the vital link between cultures. If this process of cultural transmission is
disrupted, a culture disintegrates or even dies. An example of cultural disintegration is what
happened during the so-called Dark Ages. People lived in Western Europe for approximately 500
years, largely unaided by the advances made by the Greeks and the Romans at the heights of
their culture. Isolationism is one factor that prevented the influence.

Socialization is vital to personality. The process of socialization also plays a very vital role
in personality formation and development. The training of every child received through the
process of socialization greatly affects his personality. Human infants develop social attachments
when they learn to feel for others and see that others care for them. Again, the element of
isolationism affects the personality development of an individual.

Socialization is vital to sex-role differentiation. Socialization provides every individual he

expected role he or she is to play in the society according to their sexes.

In the early years, it was believed that differences in behavior between boys and girls, me
and women, were “inborn” and “natural”. Biological factors determined the abilities, interests,
and traits of the sexes. Biology not only made men bigger and stronger, generally, than women,
it also endowed them with instincts for hunting, fighting, and organizing. Biology gave women
the ability to bear children, and instinct to complement them-gentleness and domesticity.

Socialization, rather than biology, determined behavioral differences between men and
women. Although the truth probably lies somewhere between the explanations, there is mounting
evidence that upbringing may have more impact than biology in shaping sex roles.

Training children in behavior appropriate to their sex starts in infancy and continues into
adolescence. Almost unconsciously at first, parents usually handle baby girls more warmly and
affectionately than boys and are more tolerant of physical aggressiveness in boys. Quite soon,
however, the pattern becomes deliberate. Usually, little boys are expected to act like “big boys”;
behavior that is dependent and “sissyish” is highly discouraged.

On the other hand, dependent or clinging behavior on the part of a little girl is more likely
to be accepted by their parents. She is expected to be docile and compliant. Her parents probably
will give her a doll and its carriage and toy dishes; she is already being socialized for the role of
mother and housewife. Gifts to boys are usually toy guns, rockets, war tanks, etc. He is being
socialized to be aggressive, adventurous, and competitive.

Many Filipino parents would tolerate their girls’ playing and enact roles in their bahay-
bahayan, and the boys, in their war games.

Social Frame of Reference

As the child is socialized into the society, he learns many things. The accumulated
experience of this individual in his society forms the background from which he undergoes new
experiences. The sociologists say that the culture becomes “internalized,” that the individual
“imbibes” it, and that in this way, “from the inside,” it continues to influence his conduct. Hence,
the culture is not merely external to the individual. The ways of life he has learned, the ideas he
holds, the values he treasures, all in some way come originally from outside of him. These are
the results, the products, the materials of the socialization process.

It is very clear that any person tends to meet new experiences and to interpret current
happenings in the light of these past experiences. In a sense, he tends to think and act according
to the degree of conformity that he has achieved.
 The social frame of reference has the social experiences of the individual as its current.
These are the vantage points of reference and of comparison against which he forms opinions
and judgments and according to which he behaves, often without any conscious reflection. As
described by Fichter, this is the storehouse in which a person readily finds how he is expected to
behave in the usual and frequently repeated situations of social life. It is also the storehouse in
which he draws for similarities out of the past when he is confronted with a novel social
situation.

Fichter provides the following levels in the analysis of the social frame of reference. He
said that social experience is (1) common to all human beings, (2) unique to each person, and (3)
specific to a particular culture and society.

These three aspects of social experiences can be demonstrated with numerous examples.
Friendship and the primary group are found wherever human beings live in society; but each
person experiences friendship in a unique manner. The manner in which friendship is
demonstrated and symbolized differs from one society to another. In one society, adult males
who are friends greet each other with a kiss on the cheek, in another society with an embrace,
and still in another society, by shaking hands.

Social Learning

The process of socialization can ultimately be reduced to the fact that the individual learns
by contact with society. The process refers not to individual knowledge, which also comes from
contact with others, but to shared knowledge which has social significance. From this point of
view, the manner in which he learns does not differ from that of simple learning and social
learning is not in who learns, or in how he learns, but in what he learns.

Certain terms of the learning process will be useful. There is the drive- the biological
impulse, subconscious wish, or conscious desire- to acquire certain satisfactions. This
characterizes the human being that drives him to want to learn. The cue is the characteristic of
the idea, object, or situation to which the person is drawn. The interaction between the learner
and the thing learned is called a response. It is what occurs when the particular drive in the
individual is coordinated with the particular cue in the object. The reward refers to any object or
event which strengthens or makes easier the responses of the individual in striving to learn.

From the point of view of social science, there are certain conditions and qualifications
surrounding the process of social learning. All of these have to do with the process of learning in
relation to other persons. The process of learning in social situations is a process that occurs with
and among the people and therefore always involves social relations.

The following are some of the numerous subprocesses in social learning:

 1. Imitation. This is the human action by which one tends to duplicate more or less or
exactly the behavior of others. It is commonly recognized not only in the way children
“ape” their parents but also in the way adolescents and even mature adults take on the
characteristics of people whom they appreciate and admire.
2. Suggestion. Suggestion is a process outside the learner. It is found in the works and
actions of those who are attempting to change the behavior of the learner. A person may
“take a suggestion” not only from the conscious and deliberate persuasion of another but
also without the other person knowing it.
3. Competition. It is a stimulative process in which two or more individuals vie with one
another in achieving knowledge. It is particularly important in social learning of children
because it is often involved in the desire of the child to obtain the approval of others.
Competitive learning is a clear indication that people tend to learn and to conform to the
approved ways of behaving in society and to shun the ways that are disapproved.

It is clear that the essential prerequisites of social learning are contact and communication.
Babies and their caregivers may communicate nonverbally through touching and nonlinguistic
verbalizations (cries, giggles, humming, etc.), but they cannot communicate as socialized people
normally do, that is, through the manipulation of symbols. Human life is quite different from that
of other animals because people are able to use languages or symbols systems to communicate.

A symbol is anything that is used to represent something else. Symbols may resemble what
they stand for (a stick figure may represent a person) and they may be abstract (H2O to represent
water. In the use of the computer, symbols are utilized. What is important in the use of symbols
is the sharing of meanings.

George Mead, an early symbolic interactionist, argued that human beings were the only
animals who could manipulate symbols or communicate through language. He argued that other
animals’ apparent usage of signs was instinctive. It has been proven by linguists and other
researchers that no other animals except man can assign meanings to symbols. Man, therefore, is
the only being that lives in a world of symbolic meaning. If humans could not manipulate
complex symbol systems, what could social life be like?

Dynamics of Socialization

FUNCTIONAL APPROACHES

- functionalism approaches socialization from the perspective of the group rather than the
individual
- from it, we gain the image of people adapting to the attitudes of others, conforming to the
role expectation, and internalizing the norms and values of their community.
SYMBOLIC INTERACTION

- people employs symbols to convey meaning to one another.

- define situations, negotiate interaction and order, and construct reality
- according to symbolic interactionists, we not only attribute meanings to other people and
the world about us, but we also attribute meanings to ourselves

CHARLES HORTON COOLEY

Looking-glass self

- we mentally assume the stance of other people and look at ourselves as we believe these
others see us.
- involve three processes: presentation, identification, subjective interpretation

GORGE HORTON MEAD

- believe that the self is compose of two parts: the active, spontaneous, idiosyncratic self,
which we called “I” and the social self which he called “Me”

Generalized others

- children develop a generalized impression of what people expect from them and of where
they fit in the overall scheme of things.

CONFLICT THEORY AND SOCIALIZATION

- The conflict perspective puts the experience of socialization in a different light.

- This theory argues that children rearing practices by social class and affect the life
chances of those being socialize

Components of Socialization

The process of social interaction has at least four major components: (1) the end or goal it
is intended to achieve; (2) the motivation for its being undertaken; (3) the situation or context
within which it takes place; and (4) the norms or rules that regulate it.

Goals and motivations. Goals and motivations are often related and used interchangeably.
The goal is the state of affairs one wishes to achieve. On the other hand, motivation is a person’s
wish or intention to achieve a goal. Hence, a behavior such as reflex has no goal and
consequently no motive.

Social interactions may have numerous goals and a variety of motivations as well. The goal
of social interaction may often be obvious, though human motivations are often very
complicated.
 Contexts. Where a social interaction takes place makes a difference in what it means.
Edward T. Hall identified three elements that define the context of a social interaction: (1) the
physical setting or place, (2) the social environment, and (3) the activities surrounding the
interaction-preceding it, happening simultaneously with it, and coming after it.

Norms. Norms refer to the rules that regulate the process of social interaction. Human
behavior is not random.

Conflict. In cooperation interaction, people join forces to achieve a common goal. By

contrast, people in conflict struggle with one another for some commonly prized object or value.
In a conflict relationship, a person can gain only at someone else’s expense. Conflict arises when
people or groups have incompatible values or when the rewards or resources available to a
society or its members are limited. Thus, conflict always involves an attempt to gain or use
power.

Many people view conflict negatively because the process of conflict usually leads to
unhappiness, if not violence. Nevertheless, conflict appears to be inevitable in every human
society. It is said that a stable society is not a society without conflicts by justly or brutally
suppressing them temporarily. Conflicts in terms of social in the final analysis the process must
have brought about societal balance and stability.

Coercion. This is a special kind of conflict that can occur when one of the parties in a
conflict is much stronger that the other. Here, the stronger party can impose its will on the
weaker, as in the case of a parent using the threat of punishment to impose a curfew on an
adolescent child. The process of coercion rests on force or the threat of force, but usually it
operates more subtly.

Competition. The fourth type of social interaction is competition. It is a form of conflict in

which individuals or groups confine interaction in the modern world.

Agencies of Socialization

It may be said that any person or institution that shares a person’s values and behavior is an
agent of socialization. Although these agents are particularly important in the early years of the
life cycle, socialization is a lifetime process that continues across the entire life span. To be
effective, it appears that the socializer must be respected by the person to be socialized.

Most important socialize in our lives fall into five major categories-the family, peer groups,
the media, the school, and the workplace.

The family. The family is the basic unit of any society; it serves as the primary agency for
socialization. However, it could be said that the society is the main agency of socialization.
Between the individual and society, there are certain institutions that play this role.
 Peer groups. In the Philippines, and in other countries of the world, the peer group plays a
very important role in the process of socialization. Children are relatively equal, while the
inequality of parents and children enables parents to force children to obey rules rank (as child
and as student), peers “stand in the same relation to persons in authority” and therefore see the
world through the same eyes.

The media. The media, like television, radio, and other broad-cast media as well as print
media, play a very important role in the process of socialization. The radio or television program
to which the child is exposed will certainly influence his personality, values, and belief system.

The school. The school is an institution that is established explicitly for the purpose of
socializing people. In modern societies the school is considered the primary agent for weaning
children from home and introducing them into the larger society. Here, it can be said that life is a
drastic change from home to school. In the families, relationships are built upon emotional ties.
At school, children are expected to obey not because they love their teachers or depend on them
but because rules are rules and must be obeyed.

The workplace. Formal socialization takes place in the workplace. However, much of the
organization’s values and outlook happen informally. Learning the skills and orientation to one’s
job means socialization at the workplace.

The church. The church to which the individual is introduced will certainly affect his being.
The religious beliefs, as well as practices will surely influence the individual’s belief system and
value judgments.

The neighborhood. Street corner education is very common in the country. The child is
introduced to the realities of life in the neighborhood. He learns particular sets of values and
beliefs from the people in the neighborhood. This is so since privacy to many individuals means
going out of their homes and staying in the neighborhood, particularly with children of the same
age.

Social Stratification

Social stratification refers to the ranking of individuals and groups in any given society. It
is a basic component of social organization. It is found in all human groups. It contains strata that
sh1re unequally in the distribution of societal rewards.

Social stratification tends to be transmitted from one generation to another. The families
are ranked as a whole, so that their positions in the hierarchy are significant in delimiting the
range of resources and opportunities available to the members.

Social stratification is the hierarchical arrangement and establishment of social categories

that may evolve into social groups as well as of statues and their corresponding roles.
 Social stratification may be viewed as a social structure, as a social process, or as a social
problem.

As a social structure, it may be viewed as the differentiation of statues and social roles into
ranked orders. This is what sometimes sociologists term as “institutionalized inequality.” As a
social process, it may be viewed as the splitting up of society into social categories that develop
into social groups cooperating, competing, conflicting-for the status quo or social change. As a
social problem, it involves bitter feelings of discontent and of strong demands for equality or
“social justice”.