The Role of Socialisation (AQA A-Level Sociology): Revision Notes
The Role of Socialisation
Understanding different theoretical perspectives helps us develop arguments about how socialisation functions in society. Each perspective offers unique insights into this crucial social process.
Examining multiple theoretical perspectives allows you to develop well-rounded arguments and critical analysis skills when discussing how socialisation shapes individuals and society.
Functionalist perspective
Functionalists view socialisation as beneficial for society as a whole. They believe the primary role of socialisation is to integrate individuals into society and ensure social cohesion.
Talcot Parsons argued that socialisation helps people internalise the values from their cultural system. These values then guide behaviour when people perform their various social roles - whether as mothers, employees, sons, or neighbours. Role expectations reflect the key values of the cultural system, and Parsons believed that individual behaviour is powerfully influenced by cultural impact, particularly through socialisation.
Parsons described the family as functioning like a 'personality factory' that moulds and shapes human identity according to shared cultural patterns. This concept emphasises how families systematically create personalities that fit society's needs.
The socialisation process involves gradual adjustments to a child's personality system as they encounter increasingly complex social relationships - first with mother-child relations, then broader family interactions, and finally with people outside the family.
This perspective emphasises that people are essentially products of the values, beliefs and expectations operating in their social systems. It represents a structuralist approach where social structures shape human behaviour more than individuals can change society.
Through socialisation, children learn their culture's content and the norms that define their social roles. People learn to conform to role expectations through a system of rewards and punishments, initially from family members and later from wider society. The family serves as the primary location where children first learn communication skills, appropriate behaviour, and general knowledge about society. Religion acts as another key agent of socialisation that reinforces collective unity and social solidarity within groups.
Feminist perspective
Feminists see socialisation as a mechanism that reinforces inequalities between genders. They particularly focus on how education serves as an agent of secondary socialisation that helps impose patriarchy.
The education system reinforces the ideology that men hold authority, while the hidden curriculum contributes to this pattern. This hidden curriculum refers to the unintended lessons students learn beyond the official syllabus.
The hidden curriculum includes all the informal lessons, values, and social norms that students learn in school beyond the official academic content. It's called "hidden" because these lessons aren't explicitly taught but are absorbed through the school's culture and practices.
Tim Heaton and Tony Lawson (1996) identified the hidden curriculum as a major source of gender socialisation within schools. They found evidence of this in several areas:
- Textbooks that teach children from early ages that males dominate within families
- Subject choices aimed at specific gender groups (food technology targeting females, reflecting traditional housework and cooking roles)
- Sports segregated by gender (boys playing rugby and cricket, girls playing netball and rounders)
- Female teachers predominating in schools, but senior management positions remaining mainly male-dominated
Despite national curriculum reforms, many feminists argue that schools continue creating gender inequality. Students' A-level choices still follow traditional patterns of gender segregation, suggesting that socialisation continues to channel young people into gendered pathways.
Marxist perspective
Marxists argue that society is characterised by social inequality and class exploitation, maintained through ruling-class ideology. This ideology - the set of ruling-class ideas and attitudes - gets transmitted via the socialisation process.
From a Marxist viewpoint, socialisation's role is to encourage people to accept the beliefs and values of the dominant class. All socialisation agencies participate in promoting these beliefs and values. For example, Marxists argue that religion encourages conformity and acceptance of hierarchy, serving the interests of the wealthy and powerful.
Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis (1976) argued that schooling instils values such as punctuality, discipline, obedience and diligence within individuals - qualities that Marxists see as necessary for a capitalist workforce. This demonstrates how education serves economic rather than purely educational purposes.
The hidden curriculum therefore serves to preserve the economic status quo by maintaining social control.
The Marxist argument suggests that socialisation functions to get people to accept dominant class beliefs and values, ensuring the continuation of existing power structures.
Social action theory
Social action theory places greater emphasis on how individuals create their own identity through interaction with others. This approach views socialisation as a negotiated process rather than simple programming.
Unlike structural approaches (Functionalist and Marxist), social action theory recognises that individuals have agency and actively participate in creating their own identities through social interactions.
George Herbert Mead explained that self-development occurs during socialisation through social interaction. He emphasised that play is crucial to self-development, as through play children develop into social beings. Taking the role of others allows children to understand how their actions generate specific social reactions.
Significant others play an important role in helping children see how their actions create particular social responses. This perspective recognises individual agency in the socialisation process, suggesting people actively participate in creating their identities rather than passively receiving them.
Research focus: The looking-glass self
Charles Cooley's (1998) theory of the looking-glass self explains how a person's self-image develops through social interactions with others. Rather than knowing ourselves directly, our self-perception comes from how we believe others perceive us.
The Looking-Glass Self Theory: Three Key Elements
Charles Cooley identified three stages in how we develop our self-image:
- How we imagine we appear to others - We form ideas about how other people see us
- The judgement we imagine other people may be making about us - We consider what others might think about our appearance or behaviour
- Our self-image based on the evaluations of others - We develop our sense of self based on these perceived judgements
Practical Example: If parents, relatives and other important people treat a child as smart, they will tend to raise them with certain expectations. As a consequence, the child will eventually believe they are smart. The way others perceive and treat us shapes how we see ourselves.
This process begins in childhood and continues throughout life.
Postmodernist perspective
Postmodernist theorists such as Baudrillard, Lyotard and Jameson argue that culture and identity have become much more important in the twenty-first century. They suggest there has been a loss of faith in grand belief systems or meta-narratives.
Postmodernists believe that norms and values in our society are not simply transmitted through agents of socialisation to benefit wealthy businesspeople. Instead, they argue that in a postmodern society celebrating diversity, we as consumers choose our identity and pick up the norms and customs of our society ourselves through personal experience.
Meta-narratives are grand, overarching belief systems or ideologies that claim to explain everything about society and human experience. Examples include religious worldviews, political ideologies like Marxism, or scientific rationalism.
Postmodernist sociologists emphasise both the shifting interpretation of 'self' for individuals and the degree of choice available, whereas more traditional views see identity as shaped in more deterministic ways (for example, by social class).
This perspective suggests that socialisation in contemporary society involves more individual choice and flexibility in identity formation, rather than rigid transmission of predetermined roles and values.
Key Theoretical Perspectives on Socialisation:
- Functionalists see socialisation as beneficial for society, integrating individuals and transmitting shared norms and values to maintain social order
- Feminists focus on how socialisation reinforces gender inequalities, particularly through the hidden curriculum in education systems
- Marxists view socialisation as a form of social control that maintains class inequality by promoting ruling-class ideology
- Social action theorists emphasise individual agency in socialisation, seeing it as a negotiated process where people actively create their identities
- Postmodernists argue that contemporary socialisation involves more choice and flexibility, with individuals selecting their identities rather than having them imposed