How Does Socialization Work?
Consider your definition of socialization:
• How does society socialize its members and get its members to acquire “cultural competency?”
• Socialization is a dynamic process in which an individual develops his/her social self.
• A social self is the “relatively organized complex of attitudes, beliefs, values and behaviors associated with an individual” (McIntyre 152).
The Looking-Glass Self: Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929)
Ø The social self arises through interaction with others.
As we see our face, figure, and dress in the glass [the mirror] and are interested in them because they are ours, and pleased or otherwise with them according as they do or do not answer to what we should like them to be, so in imagination we perceive in another’s mind some thought of our appearance, manner, aims, deeds, character, friends, and so on, and are variously affected by it. (1902, 152)
Three Principal Elements for Cooley’s Idea of the Social Self
Cooley argued that the social self is constructed as a result of this reflective process.
Ø We learn to use this looking glass, and thus, learn who our selves are, in the intimacy of primary groups, especially the family.
Ø Children have strong motives to learn to use the looking-glass technique.
The “I” and the “Me”: George Herbert Mead (1863-1931)
àMead’s ideas about socialization were similar to Cooley’s but with more detail.
àSelf involves two phases, the “Me” and the “I”
The “Me” / The “I”The social self is a product of the ongoing interaction between the “Me” and the “I.”
Children are not born with the “Me” and the “I;” they need to be developed.
Children’s play is first exposure to taking on roles of others and seeing themselves as others might see them.
Sociologists today see social self as constantly evolving, a life-long process.
“Self”- evolves continually as it interacts with a variety of agents of socialization.
Agents of socialization: