3.2.3
Secondary Socialisation
Secondary Socialisation: The Education System
Secondary Socialisation: The Education System
Secondary socialisation refers to aspects of socialisation existing beyond the family. Agencies of socialisation include the education system, peer groups, the workplace, the media, and religious institutions.
Secondary socialisation
Secondary socialisation
- Secondary socialisation involves agencies that contribute to the formation of new social identities which are much more fluid and changeable through the lifespan.
- Agencies of socialisation include the education system, peer groups, the workplace, the media, and religious institutions.
The education system
The education system
- School is where children learn about the society in which they live, such as history and religion.
- Schools also teach about values and norms - things that children will need to adhere to when they become adults.
- School and classroom rituals reinforce what society expects from children. Teachers act as role models and leaders.
Functionalists
Functionalists
- Functionalists (e.g. Durkheim) view school as a ‘society in miniature’ (a small scale version of wider society), the purpose of which is to prepare young people for adulthood.
- Parsons (a functionalist) believed that school was a bridge between those values learned as part of a family and the more universal values of society as a whole.
- These values are learned through both the overt and hidden curriculum.
Marxists and feminists
Marxists and feminists
- Marxists (e.g. Bourdieu, Bowles and Gintis, and Althusser) believe that the purpose of school is to reproduce and legitimise ruling class ideology and culture while encouraging the acceptance of social inequalities.
- Feminists believe that the role of schooling is to reproduce patriarchy and the different gender identities of men and woman.
Secondary Socialisation: Peer Groups & the Workplace
Secondary Socialisation: Peer Groups & the Workplace
Secondary socialisation refers to aspects of socialisation existing beyond the family. Agencies of socialisation include the education system, peer groups, the workplace, the media, and religious institutions.
Peer groups
Peer groups
- Peer groups are those people who are of a similar status, for example, a student will be part of a group of other students, and this group would represent their peer group.
- The desire for approval from our peer group is a powerful socialising influence.
Peer-group pressure
Peer-group pressure
- Peer-group pressure to conform may influence an individual’s self-identity and behaviour and may promote conformity to the wider norms of society.
- In some cases, peer-group pressure can promote deviance from wider societal norms.
The workplace
The workplace
- Our ability to find and keep a job, suggests that a person is beginning to conform to the wider norms of society.
- The conformity also includes the ability to communicate and get along with work colleagues at all levels.
The workplace cont.
The workplace cont.
- Although people are socialised into their culture from birth, workers need new socialisation into the workplace.
- This is in terms of material culture (e.g. how to operate the copy machine) and nonmaterial culture (e.g. whether it’s okay to speak directly to the boss or how the refrigerator is shared).
- Different jobs require different types of socialisation. In the past, many people worked a single job until retirement. Today, the trend is to switch jobs at least once a decade.
The government
The government
- Many of the rites of passage people go through today are based on age norms set up by the government.
- Being defined as an “adult” usually means being 18 years old. This is the age at which a person becomes legally responsible for themselves.
- 65 is the start of “old age” since most people become eligible for senior benefits at that point.
Age norms
Age norms
- Each time we join one of these new categories - senior, adult, taxpayer - we must be socialised into this new role.
- These age norms mark the points at which we need socialisation into a new category.
Secondary Socialisation: Mass Media and Religion
Secondary Socialisation: Mass Media and Religion
Secondary socialisation refers to aspects of socialisation existing beyond the family. Agencies of socialisation include the education system, peer groups, the workplace, the media, and religious institutions.
Mass media
Mass media
- The media is one of the main sources of information, ideas, norms, and values.
- The media share and spread images and attitudes than influence people’s values, behaviour, and identities.
- With the average person spending over four hours a day in front of the TV (and children averaging even more screen time), media greatly influences social norms (Roberts, Foehr, and Rideout 2005).
Sociological perspectives
Sociological perspectives
- Functionalists believe that the media provide a beneficial socialising function in society by building value consensus and social stability.
- Feminists see the media as promoting sexists images and ideas, reproducing patriarchy and inequality.
Marxists - media
Marxists - media
- Marxists see the media as a form of repressive social control, lulling the masses into passive, unquestioning and mindless conformity through the consumption of mass culture, and reproducing negative stereotypes of different social groups.
Religious institutions
Religious institutions
- Functionalists (e.g. Durkheim) believe that religion promotes a set of beliefs and moral codes that contribute to value consensus; this promotes social harmony and helps to integrate people into the culture of society.
Marxists - religion
Marxists - religion
- Marxists see religion as part of the ruling class ideology and culture, which helps to legitimise and maintain the power of the ruling class.
- Althusser (a Marxist) saw religion as an ideological state apparatus, which spreads the dominant ideology and creates a hegemony (the acceptance of the people that their position is unchangeable and inevitable.)
Marxists and feminists
Marxists and feminists
- According to Marxists, religion acts as the ‘opium of the people’, cushioning the pain of oppression and exploitation in unequal societies, promoting acceptance of an unequal, class-divided and conflict-ridden society.
- Feminists see religion as a source of patriarchy and patriarchal values.
1Theory & Methods
1.1Sociological Theories
1.2Sociological Methods
2Education with Methods in Context
2.1Role & Function of the Education System
2.2Educational Achievement
2.3Relationships & Processes Within Schools
3Option 1: Culture & Identity
3.1Conceptions of Culture
3.2Identity & Socialisation
3.3Social Identity
3.4Production, Consumption & Globalisation
4Option 1: Families & Households
4.1Families & Households
4.2Changing Patterns
4.3The Symmetrical Family
4.4Children & Childhood
5Option 1: Health
5.1Social Constructions
5.2Social Distribution of Healthcare
5.3Provision & Access to Healthcare
5.4Mental Health
6Option 1: Work, Poverty & Welfare
6.1Poverty & Wealth
7Option 2: Beliefs in Society
7.1Ideology, Science & Religion
7.2Religious Movements
7.3Society & Religion
8Option 2: Global Development
8.1Development, Underdevelopment & Global Inequality
8.2Globalisation & Global Organisations
8.3Aid, Trade, Industrialisation, Urbanisation
9Option 2: The Media
9.1Contemporary Media
9.2Media Representations
10Crime & Deviance
10.1Crime & Society
10.2Social Distribution of Crime
Jump to other topics
1Theory & Methods
1.1Sociological Theories
1.2Sociological Methods
2Education with Methods in Context
2.1Role & Function of the Education System
2.2Educational Achievement
2.3Relationships & Processes Within Schools
3Option 1: Culture & Identity
3.1Conceptions of Culture
3.2Identity & Socialisation
3.3Social Identity
3.4Production, Consumption & Globalisation
4Option 1: Families & Households
4.1Families & Households
4.2Changing Patterns
4.3The Symmetrical Family
4.4Children & Childhood
5Option 1: Health
5.1Social Constructions
5.2Social Distribution of Healthcare
5.3Provision & Access to Healthcare
5.4Mental Health
6Option 1: Work, Poverty & Welfare
6.1Poverty & Wealth
7Option 2: Beliefs in Society
7.1Ideology, Science & Religion
7.2Religious Movements
7.3Society & Religion
8Option 2: Global Development
8.1Development, Underdevelopment & Global Inequality
8.2Globalisation & Global Organisations
8.3Aid, Trade, Industrialisation, Urbanisation
9Option 2: The Media
9.1Contemporary Media
9.2Media Representations
10Crime & Deviance
10.1Crime & Society
10.2Social Distribution of Crime
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