Cambridge International AS & A Level DRAFT

Sociologyfor Cambridge International AS & A Level

Chris Livesey and Jonathan Blundell

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Cambridge IGCSE® English Language Coursebook, Third edition with CD-ROM is tailored to the latest Cambridge IGCSE English Language syllabus (0610) and endorsed for full syllabus coverage by Cambridge International Examinations. Cambridge IGCSE® English Language Coursebook, Third edition with CD-ROM is tailored to the latest Cambridge IGCSE English Language syllabus (0610) and endorsed for full syllabus coverage by Cambridge International Examinations. Cambridge IGCSE® English Language Coursebook, Third edition with CD-ROM is tailored to the latest Cambridge IGCSE English Language syllabus (0610) and endorsed for full syllabus coverage by Cambridge International Examinations. Cambridge IGCSE® English Language Coursebook, Third edition with CD-ROM is tailored to the latest Cambridge IGCSE English Language syllabus (0610) and endorsed for full syllabus coverage by Cambridge International Examinations.

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Second edition

DRAFT

© Cambridge University Press 2019

Chris Livesey and Jonathan Blundell

Cambridge International AS & A Level

SociologyCoursebook

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DRAFT


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Introduction iv

Syllabus coverage v

How to use this book vi

1 Socialisation and the creation of social identity 2

2 Methods of research 42

3 The family 81

4 Education 120

5 Globalisation 159

6 Media 204

7 Religion 246

8 Preparing for assessment 284

Bibliography 290

Index 320

Acknowledgements 00

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Contents


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This book aims to provide you with the knowledge and understanding to aid your learning of Sociology and to help you prepare for your AS and A Level exams. It has been designed and written to reflect changes to the Cambridge International AS & A Level Sociology syllabus (9699) for examination from 2021. This book has been designed to:

• help you understand exactly what is required by the structure of the new syllabus in terms of content and skills

• provide content clearly focused on this structure; a central feature of the text is complete coverage of the syllabus content.

This book can be used both for individual work and if you are part of a larger teaching group.

ContentThe structure of each chapter reflects the order of the content of the syllabus. This allows you to track your progress through the syllabus in a logical way.

AS Level consists of three compulsory topics, covered in the first three chapters of this book.

Chapter 1: Socialisation and the creation of social identity. This considers the process of learning and socialisation, and social identity and change.

Chapter 2: Methods of research. This looks at the range of methods available to sociologists, including the methods’ strengths and limitations, and the process of designing research. It also covers key ideas used to assess the value of different research methods, the issues raised about research design and the debate about whether sociology can and should be based on the natural sciences.

Chapter 3: The family. This considers theories of the family and social change and family roles and changing relationships.

The first two of these, Socialisation and the creation of social identity and Methods of Research, are examined on Paper 1. The Family is examined on Paper 2.

For A Level, as well as the AS Level content, there is one compulsory topic and three optional topics. You will need to study at least two of the optional topics.

Chapter 4: Education (compulsory). This considers education in social context and structures and processes within schools.

Chapter 5: Globalisation (optional). This considers globalisation and social change and the consequences of globalisation.

Chapter 6: Media (optional). This considers ownership and control of the media and media representations and effects.

Chapter 7: Religion (optional). This considers religion and social change and religious movements.

Education is assessed on Paper 3, and the three optional topics are assessed on Paper 4.

Chapter 8 offers tips and techniques for preparing for assessment. These range from basic revision through assessment techniques, to timing and planning.

Throughout the topics, there are key concepts which will help you develop a deep understanding of sociology and make links between different parts of the course. These are inequality and opportunity; power, control and resistance; social change and development; socialisation, culture and identity; and structure and human agency.

Introduction


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Syllabus coverageSyllabus reference Chapter number Coursebook section headingPaper 1 – Socialisation, identity and methods of research1. Socialisation and the creation of social identity

Chapter 11.1 The process of learning and socialisation 1.1 The process of learning and socialisation1.2 Social control, conformity and resistance 1.2 Social control, conformity and resistance1.3 Social identity and change 1.3 Social identity and change2. Methods of research

Chapter 22.1 Types of data, methods and research design 2.1 Types of data, methods and research design2.2 Approaches to sociological research 2.2 Approaches to sociological research2.3 Research issues 2.3 Research issuesPaper 2 – The family3. Theories of the family and social change

Chapter 3

3.1 Perspectives on the role of the family 3.1 Perspectives on the role of the family3.2 Diversity and social change 3.2 Diversity and social change4. Family roles and changing relationships4.1 Gender equality and experiences of family life 3.3 Gender equality and experiences of family life4.2 Age and family life 3.4 Age and family lifePaper 3 - Education5. Education and society

Chapter 4

5.1 Theories about the role of education 4.1 Theories about the role of education5.2 Education and social mobility 4.2 Education and social mobility5.3 Influences on the curriculum 4.3 Influences on the curriculum6. Education and inequality6.1 Intelligence and educational attainment 4.4 Intelligence and educational attainment6.2 Social class and educational attainment 4.5 Social class and educational attainment6.3 Ethnicity and educational attainment 4.6 Ethnicity and educational attainment6.4 Gender and educational attainment 4.7 Gender and educational attainmentPaper 4 – Globalisation7. Key debates, concepts and perspectives

Chapter 5

7.1 Perspectives on globalisation 5.1 Perspectives on globalisation7.2 Globalisation and identity 5.2 Globalisation and identity7.3 Globalisation, power and politics 5.3 Globalisation, power and politics8. Contemporary issues8.1 Globalisation, poverty and inequalities 5.4 Globalisation, poverty and inequalities8.2 Globalisation and migration 5.5 Globalisation and migration8.3 Globalisation and crime 5.6 Globalisation and crimePaper 4 – Media9. Ownership and control of media

Chapter 6

9.1 The traditional and the new media 6.1 The traditional and the new media9.2 Theories of the media and influences on media content 6.2 Theories of the media and influences on media content9.3 The impact of the new media 6.3 The impact of the new media10. Media representation and effects10.1 Media representations of class, gender, ethnicity, and age groups 6.4 Media representations of class, gender, ethnicity, and age groups10.2 Different models of media effects 6.5 Different models of media effects10.3 The impact of the media on behaviour 6.6 The impact of the media on behaviourPaper 4 – Religion11. Religion and social order

Chapter 7

11.1 Religion and society 7.1 Religion and society11.2 Religion and social order 7.2 Religion and social order11.3 Religion as a source of social change 7.3 Religion as a source of social change12. The influence of religion12.1 The secularisation debate 7.4 The secularisation debate12.2 Gender, feminism and religion 7.5 Gender, feminism and religion12.3 Religion and postmodernity 7.6 Religion and postmodernity


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Chapter 3The familyLearning objectivesBy the end of this chapter you will understand:

■ Theories of the family and social change:■ Perspectives on the role of the family■ Diversity and social change

■ Family roles and changing relationships:■ Gender equality and experiences of family life■ Age and family life

Before you startHow would you explain what is meant by the word ‘family’? Are there different types of family?

Are families different in other societies?

Reflection: Compare your answers with those of others. What changes would you now make to your original answers?

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Chapter 1Socialisation and the creation of social identityLearning objectivesBy the end of this chapter you will understand:

■ The process of learning and socialisation■ Social control, social conformity and resistance■ Social identity and change

Before you startThis chapter starts with questions about how it is that we become members of human groups. These include:

• How do we learn to get on with others?

• Are the ways we behave shaped more by nature or by the way we are brought up?

• How do we learn to judge what others think of us and how they will react to what we do and say?

• Are we able to affect the social reality around us?

• Think about each of these questions in relation to your own life, then share your ideas with a partner.

Reflection: How much control have you had over things that have happened in your life so far? How much has been decided for you by others?

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This book contains a number of features to help you in your study.

Each chapter begins with a set of Learning objectives that briefly set out the points you should understand once you have completed the chapter.

Before you start activities are designed to activate the prior knowledge you need for each unit.

Each chapter contains multiple Activities. These are a mixture of individual and group tasks to help you develop your skills and practise applying your understanding of a topic.

Key terms are important terms in the topic you are learning. They are highlighted in black bold and defined where they first appear in the text.

Key concept boxes contain questions that help you develop a conceptual understanding of sociology, and how the different topics you study are connected.

Reflection boxes help you to think about your learning, and how you can enhance your independent learning skills.

Think like a sociologist boxes contain prompts and questions that go beyond the syllabus to help you understand how Sociology can be applied in the real world. They are an opportunity to use your skills in evaluation and analysis.

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Cybercrimes include:

• spreading viruses and malware

• fraud and identity theft

• theft of intellectual property rights

• trade in illegal drugs and other illegal goods conducted via the internet

• cyberterrorism (e.g. an attack on a government’s websites)

• scams and phishing

• obscene or offensive content.

Cybercrimes raise difficulties for policing because the crimes cross national boundaries: victims and offenders may live in different parts of the world. Countries have different laws and may not agree on what is a crime (e.g. definitions of obscenity may differ, while some countries may not tolerate opinions that can be expressed

elsewhere). The internet developed without co-ordination or control and remains to a large extent beyond the control of individual governments. At the same time, cybercrimes are constantly evolving, so that police and other enforcement agencies have to struggle to keep up. For example, they have to monitor the ‘Darknet’, the parts of the internet not reached by search engines and where criminals try to act undetected, using specialised software to remain hidden. Activities include the selling of drugs and weapons and distribution of counterfeit identities and of child abuse material.

THINK LIKE A SOCIOLOGIST

In what ways might studying sociology be useful to someone hoping to work for a police force that has to tackle global crimes?

E

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How to use this book

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Direct political rule has ended but the underdeveloped countries remain tied to the former colonial powers through:

• indirect political rule through the support of (corrupt) local elites who make political and economic decisions that favour the interests of dominant nations

• trade agreements that give exclusive access to raw materials, such as oil, to TNCs

• aid only being provided on the condition that the underdeveloped society allows access to its internal markets.

Figure 5.7: Until 1947, India was a British colony (here we have a scene from modern Mumbai).

Dependency theories not only locate development within a global context, they also focus on the idea that international investment and trade are not necessarily mutually beneficial. In some situations, they can be exploitative. From a Marxist perspective, inequalities between developed and underdeveloped societies are part of global capitalism. Put simply, the developed dominate at the expense of the underdeveloped.

ACTIVITY

In a small group, write lists of the benefits and costs of the colonial relationship for each society.Which of the points on the list are still relevant today, after colonialism?

Dependency theories emphasise the exploitative relationship between colonisers and colonised, it is not only or always the colonisers that benefit. Colonies may benefit from the development of their political and economic infrastructure. Also, in the postcolonial era, developing countries may benefit from their relationship with former colonisers, with the latter providing privileged access to technology, markets, expertise and capital investment.

Dependency theory claims that local elites are co-opted into the exploitation process as agents of international capitalism. However, critics of dependency theory have pointed out that while elite corruption may contribute to underdevelopment, this is not always or necessarily the case; indigenous political movements have succeeded in developing the political and economic structures of formerly dependent countries while simultaneously developing a more equitable relationship with developed countries.

Finally, some actions by developed nations to aid underdeveloped nations are not always prompted by economic self-interest. The promotion of political stability, the reduction of human suffering and the advance of environmentalist policies are all aspects of a less exploitative relationship.

ACTIVITY

Identify two differences between modernisation and dependency theories.How would each theory account for the fact that some less developed countries have made progress and others have not?

A further criticism of both approaches is that globalisation has made the process of development seem more complex. Modernisation does not seem to be a simple one-way movement, nor does dependency simply involve peripheral countries being exploited by the core. For example, rapid industrialisation in semi-peripheral regions, such as China, has both favourable and unfavourable consequences:


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be sensitised to violence by the media; representations of violence may lead people to avoid and reject violence. This applies particularly to news reporting where seeing the effects of violence may lead people to be more aware and try to reduce violence. For example, the Parkland, Florida, school shooting on 14 February 2018, which most people only knew of from media coverage, led to demands for greater gun control in the USA.

All attempts to prove a link between media and violent behaviour are limited by the fact that people have behaved violently throughout history, and before there were mass media. The question then can only be to what extent the media might have led to a higher level of violence than would otherwise have been the case. In fact, and despite recent wars such as that in Syria and terrorist attacks, the long-term trend according to Pinker (2012) is to a decline in violence. Regardless of individual acts such as the Columbine School shooting, the age of the mass media has coincided with less, rather than more, violence.

Sensitisation: when media coverage makes audiences more aware of a problem or issue and leads them to change their attitudes or behaviour in positive ways

KEY TERM

The impact of the media on crime, including deviance amplification and moral panicsWilkins (1964) developed the concept of deviance amplification to show how the development of crime and deviance involves a positive feedback loop:

• Initial or primary deviance is identified and condemned by the media, which leads to …

• the deviant group becoming socially isolated and resentful. This behaviour leads, through a general media labelling process, to …

• an increased social reaction (including the development of a moral panic) by the media, politicians and formal control agencies; there is less toleration of the original deviant behaviour. This develops into …

• secondary deviation, involving an increased level of deviance. As a consequence …

• the reaction from the media, politicians and police increases, leading to new laws (the criminalisation of

deviants) or increased police resources to deal with ‘the problem’.

Deviance amplification: theory of deviance that argues that a range of social reactions, particularly those put together through the media in terms of moral panics, have the effect of creating more serious forms of crime.

KEY TERM

In this way, each group, deviant and control, feeds off the actions of the other to create a ‘spiral of deviance’. Moral panics created by the media are a crucial component of this.

Primary deviance

Isolation and alienation

Increased social reaction

Secondary deviance

Social reaction

Increased deviance

Figure 6.10: Deviancy amplification spiral

The idea of a moral panic was developed by Stanley Cohen (1972). In a moral panic, media coverage creates a society-wide feeling of panic about a particular issue or group. This happens through sensationalised and exaggerated reporting (conforming to news values), prediction of further trouble and symbolisation, in which particular styles of, for example, appearance or behaviour, are linked to the issue or group. In Cohen’s case study, the moral panic was focused on two teenage groups who became ‘folk devils’, standing for everything that was supposedly going wrong in the UK in the 1960s. Later teenage subcultures, and other groups such as immigrants and welfare claimants, have also been the folk devils in moral panics. The panic leads to demands on police, politicians and others to act strongly against the folk devils.

Although the media is central to the development of moral panics, their precise role is explained differently by different sociological approaches.

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Figure 2.16: How do semi- and unstructured interviews facilitate the recovery of subjective meaning?

We can summarise interpretivist methodology as follows:

• The primary aim is to describe social behaviour in terms of the meanings and interpretations of those involved.

• Behavioural rules are context bound; they change in subtle ways depending on the situation.

• Uncovering and describing behavioural rules involves the close study of people’s behaviour; the researcher must gain a good understanding of the context within which such rules are created. This is why researchers in this methodology often use participant observation.

• Participation can be desirable because this gives the researcher a deeper insight into behaviour, the kind of ‘objective detachment’ valued by positivists is explicitly rejected. Sociologists should not be objective and should acknowledge their values rather than try to be value-free in their research.

• While reliability is important, interpretivists place greater emphasis on achieving validity.

How do the different approaches of positivism and interpretivism relate to the debate about the relationship between structure and agency?

KEY CONCEPT

The debates about whether sociology can/should be based on the methods and procedures of the natural sciences and the role of values in sociological researchDefining scienceScience is a way of producing a particular kind of knowledge, one that is factual and objective rather than based on opinion, guesses or faith. Science involves identifying a problem to study, collecting information about it and offering an explanation for it. Science, therefore, is a methodology – a way of producing knowledge that has two main qualities:

1 It is reliable. This refers to the idea that it is possible to check the accuracy of a piece of research by repeating (replicating) it to see whether the same, or very similar, results are obtained.

2 It is valid. Data are only useful if they actually measure or describe what it claims to measure or describe. It is possible to measure the extent of crime using government crime statistics. However, the validity of these statistics may be limited if they only record crimes that are reported to the police because many crimes go unreported.

So, a scientific methodology encompasses certain procedural and ethical rules that should be followed in order to ‘do science’.

Procedural rulesScientific knowledge is created by following a set of procedures, agreed by the scientific community, that control how data can be collected and analysed. The hypothetico-deductive method is a standard example of a scientific procedure. A scientific procedure generally begins with a hypothesis or research question. This question must be tested or answered by the systematic collection, presentation and analysis of data. A crucial idea here is that any conclusions drawn from scientific research have not been disproven or shown to be false in the course of testing them against the available evidence. This procedure gives scientific knowledge greater plausibility because it is based on tested facts rather than untested opinions. It also gives this knowledge a crucial quality: the ability to make



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Reflection: How would the context affect what types of evidence you focused upon?

Arguments and evidence about the extent to which human behaviour is influenced by the media

How do the debates about how media affect human behaviour help us understand how behaviour is both shaped by social forces and itself helps to shape the social world?

KEY CONCEPT

Conventional analysis of the media’s impact on behaviour tends to focus on its negative impact. This ranges from encouraging violence to creating a passive, manipulated audience. However, it also important to understand the positive effects that the media can have.

There are three key ways to view negative media impacts:

1 Across society as a whole, which involves noting some general economic, political and cultural negatives.

2 Across social groups – as an example we can look at how the media contributes to moral panics.

3 At the individual level, where we can look at the media as a causal or contributing factor to violent behaviour.

In economic terms, large media corporations divide up global markets and operate as controlling groups (oligarchies) that:

• prevent entrance to media markets

• restrict competition

• limit consumer choice.

Lechner (2001) argues that this creates media homogenisation by developing a ‘consumerist culture, in which standard commodities are promoted by global marketing campaigns to create similar lifestyles’.

Politically, one impact of new media in particular has been the extension of surveillance and a loss of personal privacy. Governments and private companies have exploited the capacity for information gathering provided by new media to extend population surveillance. Mobile phone and satellite technology, for example, can be used

both to track individuals and to monitor their contacts, while social networking sites collect, store and sell extensive personal information about users to advertisers.

Culturally, global media encourages a cultural hegemony that colonises local cultures with the products and lifestyles of dominant cultures. One example of this is the global domination of the US film industry or the influence of brands such as Coca-Cola and Nike. On a more individual level, Kraeplin (2007) notes how ‘popular teen magazines link appearance and consumerism’. Here, globalised media contributes to the development of a consumption culture in which the buying of goods and services, from mobile phones to social networks funded by advertising, is an end in itself.

These negative impacts are explained by traditional Marxists in terms of manipulation theories. These suggest that the media directly influences audience perceptions and beliefs. In a mass society characterised by social isolation and alienation, the media becomes a source of mass culture through the agency of what Adorno and Horkheimer (1944) termed a ‘culture industry’. Audiences are uniquely receptive to whatever the media transmits because there are few links to alternative sources of information.

The media reflects other forms of industrial production in capitalist society by creating various elements of a popular culture, such as film, magazines, comics and newspapers. These are all consumed uncritically and passively by the masses. Through control of the culture industry, a ruling elite is able to keep its power.

6.6 The impact of the media on behaviourArguments and evidence about the extent to which violent media leads to violent behaviourThe idea that exposure to violent media, from television and internet depictions of real-life violence to violent films and video games, contributes to or causes violent behaviour, especially among vulnerable groups, is a pervasive one across many cultures. However, evidence for this is not as definite as some sections of the media suggest.

One of the most common explanations of how the media may lead to violent behaviour is imitation. This explanation stems from social learning studies such as Bandura et al.’s (1961)‘Bobo doll’ experiment. Different

Chapter 6: Media



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How to use this book

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SummaryYou should know:

■ Trends affecting the organisation of the media include:■ cross media ownership■ digitalisation■ media conglomerates■ social media.

■ There are debates about who controls the media.

■ There are differences between the traditional media and new media.

■ One view is that the traditional media have been undermined by the growth of new media.

■ Theories of the media and of influences on media content include:■ pluralism■ Marxism and neo-Marxism■ postmodernism.

■ The selection and presentation of news is influenced by a range of factors.

■ The product of media content can be understood through the concepts of mass manipulation and hegemony.

■ Media content is also influenced by censorship.

■ Ways in which the media influence the political process include:■ agenda setting■ opinion polls■ news reporting.

■ The new media contribute to globalisation.

■ The new media challenge existing power structures.

■ There is a debate between digital optimism and digital pessimism.

■ The new media have an impact on social identities and interpersonal relationships.

■ Class, gender, ethnicity and age groups are represented in the media.

■ The media contribute to gender socialisation.

■ There have been moral panics around class, gender, ethnicity and age groups.

■ There is a relationship between media and popular culture.

■ Direct effects models of media influence include the hypodermic syringe model.

■ Indirect effects models of media influence include:■ the uses and gratifications model■ the two-step flow model■ the normative model■ the cultural effects model.

■ There are debates about the strengths and limitations of these models.

■ There are different arguments and evidence about the extent to which human behaviour is influenced by the media.

■ There are different arguments and evidence about the extent to which violent media lead to violent behaviour.

■ The media have an impact on crime through deviance amplification and moral panics.

■ There are ways in which the media may have a positive impact on human behaviour.

■ There are ways in which people may be affected by media sensationalism and stereotyping.

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while maintaining the focus of the research, which can require considerable skill. There may also be problems with representativeness: if in a carefully selected group of ten, one person does not show up, the sample becomes unrepresentative.

Group interviews are also at risk from another type of ‘interview effect’, which has been called ‘Groupthink’. This refers to the pressure people feel to arrive at ‘desired outcomes’, such as saying what they believe the researcher or the rest of the group wants to hear. Group interviews also run the risk of simply reflecting a ‘group consensus’ rather than revealing what individuals really believe; individuals may not want to say what they really think if they feel that they are on their own.


In what ways is conducting a focus group interview like chairing a business meeting?

ObservationObservational methods are based on the idea that data are more valid if they are gathered by seeing how people behave, rather than taking on trust that people do what they say they do. There are two main observational techniques: non-participant and participant.

Participant observationParticipant observation is when the researcher takes part in the behaviour being studied. It is based, in part, on what Weber (1922) termed verstehen – ‘to understand by experiencing’ or, as Mead (1934) described it, the researcher’s ability to take the part of the other and see things from their viewpoint (empathy). Participant observation can take two forms: overt and covert.

Overt participant observation involves participating in the behaviour of people who know they are being studied. The researcher joins the group openly, and usually conducts the research with the permission and cooperation of the group (or significant members of the group).

KEY SOCIOLOGIST

Max Weber (1864–1920)The German sociologist Max Weber is, with Marx and Durkheim, seen as one of the ‘founding fathers’ of modern sociology. Much of his work develops an anti-positivist approach, rejecting the idea that there are social facts to be discovered and instead focusing on understanding the meanings that people attach to their actions. This led to the social action and interpretivist approaches within sociology. Weber’s concept of ‘verstehen’ (meaning ‘empathy’) is still

widely used. He argued that social life was complex so that it is pointless to look for single causes. He is also known for his essay ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’, in which he argued that capitalism developed in parts of Europe because religious beliefs encouraged people to save money, rather than spend it on worldly goods, and this saved money was then invested as capital in business. This challenges the Marxist view that ideology cannot bring about social change.

KEY SOCIOLOGIST

Harriet Martineau (1802–76)The idea of ‘founding fathers’ of sociology plays down the role of women such as Harriet Martineau, who helped shape sociology today. Martineau introduced sociology to Britain by translating Comte, and also conducted her own research while travelling around the United States. She argued that the study of society must include understanding the lives

of women, and also issues which tended to be ignored at the time, such as race relations and domestic life. She campaigned for women’s rights and the emancipation of slaves. She thus belongs at the start of a long tradition, involving many feminists, race theorists and others, of sociologists combining the study of society with advocating change and progress towards a better society.



What’s the evidence? boxes highlight important case studies that you may find useful for keeping track of pieces of evidence and understanding their purpose.

Key sociologist boxes highlight important sociological figures that you need to remember.

Each chapter ends with a Summary, Exam-style questions and a Sample answer and activity. The Summary is a brief summary of the main points in the chapter to help you revise.

Exam-style questions provide an opportunity to relate your learning to the formal assessment and practise writing longer answers.

The Sample answer and activity provide an example answer to one of the exam-style questions, with an explanation of why that answer is successful, and an activity to help you build on your understanding.

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Figure 3.11: Why do women do more domestic labour than men?

Although more women are now in paid employment, women still do the majority of work within the home. This is particularly evident in families with dependent children. Women in this situation generally perform many of the boring aspects of childcare, such as feeding and clothing, while men focus on the less boring and more pleasing, such as playing with their children. Willmott (2000), however, argues there is less dependence on ‘traditional roles when dividing up tasks in the home’. Changing family (and wider social) relationships mean that domestic labour is ‘negotiated by every couple depending on their individual circumstances’. The significant factors in deciding ‘who does what’ in the family are time and preference, not gender.

Cultural beliefs about male and female abilities and roles may also help explain domestic labour differences. Pilcher (1988) found that older people, unlike their younger peers (counterparts), did not talk about ‘equality’ but instead thought about gender roles, responsibilities and relationships in traditional ways. This reflected their socialisation and life experiences, where men undertook limited household work, married women had limited involvement in paid work and domestic labour was divided by gender.

Sullivan et al. (2008) suggest that industrial societies have experienced a ‘quiet revolution’ in conjugal roles based on a general acceptance of gender equality. Evidence for this can be seen in:

• men doing a greater share of housework and women less

• men spending more time on childcare

• the family group becoming more home-centred.

Another new development is the idea in the media of the New Man, who combines traditional male ideas (masculinity) with taking on a greater share of domestic work and being a ‘good’ father fully involved in raising his children.

New Man: a man who combines the provider (breadwinner) role with a greater share of domestic labour and childcare.

KEY TERM

ACTIVITY

Design a short questionnaire for members of your class, to find out what they do to help with domestic work. If you are in a mixed class, consider whether there are differences between girls and boys in what domestic work they do.Analyse your findings. What factors might explain the results?

WHAT’S THE EVIDENCE?

Technology, Culture, Family: Influences on Home LifeBy Elizabeth Silva, Palgrave 2010Silva used interviews and participant observation with a small sample of families in the United Kingdom to research how technology affected the domestic division of labour in relation to gender. Homes now have more technology than in the past, and many devices are marketed as ‘time saving’ and reducing effort. Silva found that the saving of time was unequal between men and women. The washing machine was chosen by nearly all the women in the sample as the most useful piece of technology, with most using it many times a week, depending on the numbers of children. But their male partners had very different ideas about what technology was useful, and little interest in washing machines; as far as some were concerned, the washing machine was too complicated to use and they left all the laundry to their wives. So the technology reinforced a gendered division of tasks in the home and placed further demands on women.

FunctionalismTraditional functionalist approaches see family development in evolutionary terms. From this perspective, uneven gender relationships, where males and females have separate roles characteristic



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Exam-style questionsPaper 4: 1 hour and 45 minutes

All questions on globalisation are 35-mark essay questions.

1 ‘Globalisation is leading to a single homogenous global culture.’ Evaluate this view.

2 ‘There is no agreement on who benefits from globalisation.’ Evaluate this view.

3 ‘Nation states are unable to tackle global social and environmental problems.’ Evaluate this view.

4 ‘Globalisation is improving life chances in developing countries.’ Evaluate this view.

5 ‘Transnational organisations have been successful in tackling global inequalities.’ Evaluate this view.

6 ‘Global migration has more positive effects than negative ones.’ Evaluate this view.

7 ‘The new types of crime created by globalisation are difficult to police and prosecute.’ Evaluate this view.

8 ‘Globalisation involves the universal spread of democracy and human rights.’ Evaluate this view.

Sample answer and activity

Question 1 answer1 ‘Globalisation is leading to a single homogenous global culture.’ Evaluate this view.

Here is a paragraph from an answer to this question:The view that the globalisation is leading to a single homogenous global culture is held by globalisation sceptics. They argue that globalisation involves the spread of Western ideas, values and cultural practices and that this reduces the cultural diversity that there has been throughout history. One way this can happen is through Coca-colonisation, where the global reach of transnational corporations such as Coca-Cola leads to a consumer society in which the same commodities are promoted in global marketing campaigns, leading to a similar lifestyle around the world. This creates a single homogenous global culture. Because the origins of the commodities and practices are in the developed world, this is also called Westernisation. Local cultures are diminished and may even disappear; for example people may use a local language less and speak English more, or adopt a Western style diet based on imported processed and packaged foods, leading to increased health problems. This is cultural imperialism, with Western lifestyle set up as the ideal to which all should aspire. However, traditional cultures often manage to survive and may even become stronger as people defend them against cultural imperialism.



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Set 1 Question 3b answer3 ‘Marriage has become less important in modern societies.’

(b) Using sociological material, give one argument against this view. [6]Having explained this view in an answer to 3a, you now have to give an argument against this view. The answer to 3a may have included, for example, points about the increase in divorce, the increase in cohabitation and the growth of alternatives to the family and marriage. Here is an example of a good answer to 3b. Notice that the answer is clear and developed, and uses sociological terms when appropriate.

One argument against this view is that although there has been a decline in the number of marriages, this does not mean marriage is no longer important. There could not be divorces unless people were getting married first. Those who divorce often marry again, creating a reconstituted or blended family, suggesting that marriage is important to them as individuals. This has led to serial monogamy becoming a common pattern; again, this involves people being married for significant parts of their lives, though not having one marriage partner for life as used to be the case. This suggests that marriage is still important. Same sex couples now have the right to marry in some countries and have taken advantage of this, showing that marriage even has appeal to those who were previously excluded from it. Even for those who do not marry, marriage may be a goal they aspire to, as it is still highly valued and seen by many as a desirable state. This is evident in the media, where a ‘happy ending’ to a romantic story may involve marriage.

Point 1: An argument can involve several points; here there are ideas about divorce, remarriage, serial monogamy and same sex marriage. There is a line of reasoning that connects these and makes them together a good answer to the question.

Point 2: The answer wisely avoids discussing how these changes have come about. The question is about modern societies; sometimes it can be helpful to explore differences between now and the past but here it is better to concentrate on ‘today.

ACTIVITY

Here is the opening of a possible alternative answer, which considers theory. Try to complete it using theories, names and key words whenever possible:

The view that marriage has become less important would be challenged by functionalist and New Right sociologists, who argue that although there may be fewer marriages, marriage is still important because it creates nuclear families which still carry out functions and are essential for the well being of society.

Chapter 3: The family



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Chapter 1Socialisation and the creation of social identityLearning objectivesBy the end of this chapter you will understand:

■ The process of learning and socialisation■ Social control, social conformity and resistance■ Social identity and change

Before you startThis chapter starts with questions about how it is that we become members of human groups. These include:

• How do we learn to get on with others?

• Are the ways we behave shaped more by nature or by the way we are brought up?

• How do we learn to judge what others think of us and how they will react to what we do and say?

• Are we able to affect the social reality around us?

• Think about each of these questions in relation to your own life, then share your ideas with a partner.

Reflection: How much control have you had over things that have happened in your life so far? How much has been decided for you by others?

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1.1 The process of learning and socialisationCulture, roles, norms, values, beliefs, customs, ideology, power and status as elements in the social construction of reality

Defining societyWhile ‘a society’ is a simple concept – we all probably understand what is meant by Indian, Mauritian, Nigerian or British society – it is more difficult to define. One key feature, however, is that people see themselves as having something in common with others in their society and, by extension, they consider themselves to be different from people in other societies. In this respect, different societies involve two types of space:

1 Physical space, in the sense of a distinctive geographical area marked by either a physical border, such as a river, or a non-physical border – perhaps a made up line that marks where one society ends and another begins.

2 Mental space, which separates people based on the beliefs they have about the similarities they share with people in ‘their’ society and the differences from people in other societies.

It seems straightforward to define a society in terms of physical space – Mauritius occupies a certain geographic area, Nigeria another and India yet another. Yet in itself this space is a mental construction; we are simply giving a particular meaning and importance to what is effectively a line on a map.

Anderson (1983) describes societies as ‘imagined communities’ – things that exist only in the mind. He points out that ‘the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion’. Societies are mentally constructed by:

• geographic borders that set physical boundaries – we might, for example, consider that everyone born within these borders belongs to a particular society

• a system of government, which may involve, for example, a royal family (monarchy), parliament and civil service

• common language, customs and traditions that people share

• a sense of belonging and identification that involves developing the view that ‘our’ society is different from other societies; Indians, for example, may see themselves as different from Pakistanis or Bangladeshis.

The social construction of realitySocieties are mental constructions, therefore their reality is socially constructed. To understand how this occurs, we need to explore the concept of culture. Culture refers to a ‘way of life’ that has to be taught and learnt through primary and secondary socialisation. We can develop this concept to understand how culture contributes to the social construction of reality. Cultures are ‘dynamic’ and constantly changing. All cultures have two basic parts:

1 Material culture involves the physical objects (‘artefacts’), such as cars, phones and books that a society produces and that reflect cultural knowledge, skills and interests.

2 Non-material culture consists of the knowledge and beliefs valued by a particular culture. This includes religious and scientific beliefs, as well as the meanings people give to material objects. Merton (1957) suggested that objects such as cars, houses and clothes can function in two ways. Their manifest function refers to the purpose for which they exist; clothes, for example, function to keep you warm. Their latent function, however, may be hidden. For example, material objects may function as status symbols – owning something a culture feels is desirable says something about you to others.

Customs: established and accepted cultural practices and behaviours.

Culture: the way of life of a particular group of people, taught and learnt through socialisation.

Socialisation: the process through which people learn the various forms of behaviour that go with membership of a particular culture. Young children, for example, must learn the roles, norms and values they will need to become full members of their society; these are things children do not acquire ‘naturally’.

Social construction: the idea that our perception of what is real is created through a variety of historical and cultural processes, rather than something that is fixed and naturally occurring. Different societies, for example, construct male and female identities differently.

KEY TERMS

Chapter 1: Socialisation and the creation of social identity


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Figure 1.1: A map of Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean, which has an ethnically diverse population: about 68% are Indo-Mauritian, 25% are Creole (African descent or mixed race) with smaller numbers of Franco-Mauritian and Sino-Mauritians. How are societies ‘imagined communities’?

The idea that cultural objects can have different meanings suggests that cultural interaction, especially in contemporary societies, is both sophisticated and complex. The more sophisticated the interaction in any society, the more open it is to misunderstanding.

In order to make sense of cultural interaction, therefore, we need to create common meanings and establish a structure within which behaviour can happen in predictable ways. For a society to function it must have order and stability, and for these to exist people’s behaviour must display patterns and regularities. While cultures may develop differently, they are all constructed from the same basic materials: roles, values and norms.

Roles: expected patterns of behaviour expected with each position that we hold, such as being a friend, student or teacher.

Values: beliefs or ideas that are important to the people who hold them. A value always expresses a belief about how something should be.

Norms: socially acceptable ways of behaving in different roles.

KEY TERMS

RolesRoles are a building block of culture for two reasons:

1 They are always played in relation to other roles. For someone to play the role of teacher, for example, others must play the role of student. Roles contribute to the creation of culture because they demand both social interactions – people have to cooperate to successfully perform certain tasks – and that people are aware of others. In this respect, roles help individuals develop the ability to form groups and communities. This is particularly the case when they involve role-sets; that is, when the role involves a set of different relationships with different types of people, such as a doctor’s relationship with patients, nurses, other doctors, patient’s relatives and so on. This adds a further dimension to the cultural framework because it locks people into a range of relationships, each with its own routines and responsibilities.

Reflection: Compare your examples of objects with a partner. Discuss to what extent your examples are the same and how you have identified other objects. Revisit your list and see whether there is anything you would change.

ACTIVITY 1.1

1 Explain how the phone can at the same time be an example both of material and non-material culture.

2 Identify other objects to which this also applies.

Figure 1.2: This phone is at the same time an example both of material and non-material culture.



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2 Every role has a name (or label). This name identifies a particular role and carries with it a sense of how people are expected to behave in any situation.

ValuesThese common expectations provide a sense of order and predictability because role play is guided by behavioural rules in two ways:

1 All roles have a prescribed aspect based on beliefs about how people should behave. Playing a role is guided (governed) by values that provide general behavioural guidelines – a teacher should teach their students, a parent should care for their child and so on.

2 Values provide only broad guidance for role behaviour. For example, it is understood that someone playing the role of teacher should teach, but values do not tell them how to play this role. The specific behavioural guides that tell people how to successfully play a role are known as norms.

NormsNorms are specific rules showing how people should act in a particular situation (whereas values give only a general idea). Norms, therefore, are rules used to perform roles predictably and acceptably. This is important, according to Merton (1938), because without order and predictability, behaviour becomes risky and confusing. He used the term anomie to describe a condition where people who fail to understand the norms operating in a particular situation react in a range of ways – from confusion, through anger to fear.

Anomie: a situation in which people are unable to predict the behaviour of others because the system of norms and values is not being followed.

KEY TERM

Goffman (1959) argues that norms are more open to interpretation and negotiation than either roles or values. This means that they can quickly adapt to changes in the social environment. There are many ways to perform a teaching role, depending on a range of personal and cultural factors, including the behaviour of those in the teacher’s role-set. Some teachers interpret their role as meaning that they need to be strict; others adopt a more friendly approach. However, these interpretations can change; even the strictest teacher may relax their approach at certain times.

Figure 1.3: How do different teachers interpret their roles differently?

BeliefsRoles, values and norms provide an important framework within which relationships can be ordered and made mainly predictable. A further layer of cultural structuring involves beliefs. These are the important, deep-rooted ideas that shape our values and are, in some respects, shaped by them. While all values express a belief, beliefs do not necessarily express a value. They are more general behavioural guidelines that include ideas, opinions, views and attitudes. These may, or may not, be true; what matters is that they are believed to be true. Beliefs in contemporary societies are many and varied, but they perform a significant structuring role when combined with ideologies, which are discussed later in the chapter.

The importance of socialisation in influencing human behaviour, including the nurture versus nature debateSocialisation is a process that describes how we are taught the behavioural rules we need to become both a member of a particular society/culture and an able social actor.

Biology, rather than culture, may influence some of the ways people behave. Like all animal species, humans seem to be programmed by their genes to some extent, for example, there seem to be ‘drives’ for procreation and for self-preservation. Genetics suggests that behaviour may be guided by instincts based on biological instructions that can be seen as part of ‘human nature’.

Instincts are fixed human features. These are things we are born knowing and our cultural environment plays little or no role in the development of these instincts, for example many females have a ‘mothering instinct’.



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A weaker expression of this idea is that people are born with certain capabilities that are then put into practice through environmental experiences. ‘Nature’ gives us strong hints about behavioural rules, but people are free to ignore those hints. If women have greater child-caring capabilities than men, then it makes genetic sense for them to take on a caring role within a family. However, this is not something their genes force them to do. One way to test whether nature, in the form of instincts, or nurture, in the form of socialisation, is the more important factor is to take advantage of a naturally occurring form of experimentation – the study of unsocialised or feral children.

Feral childrenFeral children have missed out on primary socialisation by humans. Examples attract a lot of media attention, but in most cases the evidence is very unclear (for example, it is usually uncertain how long the child was away from people) and some, often noted, cases have been proved fake. Feral children can be raised by animals or survive on their own.

Evidence of human infants raised by animals is rare and not always reliable. One recent example is Saturday Mthiyane, who was discovered in 1987, aged five, living with a pack of monkeys in South Africa and who years later still behaved in ways associated with monkeys rather than humans. However, evidence of children raised with little, or no, human contact is more common. A well-documented example is ‘Genie’, a 13-year-old Californian girl discovered in 1970. Pines (1997) notes that Genie had been ‘isolated in a small room and had not been spoken

to by her parents since infancy. She was malnourished, abused, unloved, bereft of any toys or companionship’. When Genie was found, ‘she could not stand erect … she was unable to speak: she could only whimper’.

Feral children are sociologically significant for two main reasons. First, when children are raised without human contact they fail to show the social and physical development we would expect from an ordinary raised child – for example, walking upright, talking, using a knife and fork. Children raised by animals behave as the animals do, suggesting that they learn by imitation. Second, if human behaviour is instinctive it is not clear why children such as Genie should develop so differently from children raised with human contact. We would also expect that, once returned to human society, feral children would quickly pick up normal human behaviours. This, however, is not the case, suggesting that if children miss out on socialisation by humans at an early stage in their life this cannot be corrected later.

Further evidence for the significance of socialisation is the fact that different cultures develop different ways of doing things. If human behaviours were governed by instinct, we would expect there to be few, if any, differences between societies. In fact, of course, there are huge variations between cultures, Sometimes, these cultural differences are relatively trivial. Billikopf (1999) discovered through his own experience that ‘in Russia, when a man peels a banana for a lady it means he has a romantic interest in her’. At other times, cultural differences are more fundamental. Wojtczak (2009) argues that in Victorian Britain most women ‘lived in a state little better than slavery’. As she notes: ‘women’s sole purpose was to marry and reproduce.’ This is not a situation we would recognise in British society today. If human behaviour was instinctive, it would be much the same, in any place or time.

ACTIVITY 1.2

Suggest ways in which feral children can be used to test the influence of nature or nurture on human behaviour.

Reflection: Consider the ‘Think like a sociologist’ box on page 7 and then come back to this activity. Looking at it again, would you define the problems in the same way, or is there anything you would do differently?Figure 1.4: Dani (above), often described as a feral child

because she was severely neglected for years. How do feral children demonstrate the importance of socialisation?



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Thinking about what you have learnt about feral children and the importance of primary socialisation, how would this knowledge and understanding be useful to people working with children, such as nannies and nursery teachers?

The ‘I’ and the ‘Me’Basic human skills have to be taught and learnt. The symbolic interactionist George Herbert Mead (1934) argued that the same was true of more advanced social skills. He claimed that the social context in which behaviour occurs conditions how people behave. While self-awareness – the ability to see ourselves as others see us and react accordingly – is often seen as an instinctive human skill, Mead argued that it is in fact learnt. It involves developing a concept of Self and this is what sets humans apart from animals. For Mead, ‘the Self’ (an awareness of who we are) has two related aspects:

• an ‘I’ aspect based around our opinion of ourselves as a whole. We each respond to the behaviour of others as an ‘I’. Mead called this the ‘unsocialised self’.

• a ‘Me’ aspect that consists of an awareness of how others expect us to behave in a given situation. Mead called this the ‘social self’ because it develops through socialisation.

We can illustrate these ideas in the following way. If you accidentally put your hand in a fire, the ‘I’ is expressed by how you react to the pain. The ‘Me’, however, specifically conditions how you choose to express that pain; your reaction will be conditioned by factors such as:

• who you are – whether you are adult or child, male or female and so on

• where you are – alone at home or in a public place

• who you are with – such as family, friends or strangers.

If you are a young child, for example, your reaction to being burnt may be to cry. If you are a young man, you may feel that crying is not a socially acceptable reaction – so you may swear loudly instead. Swearing loudly may be acceptable if you are at home by yourself, but may not be acceptable if you are fixing a stranger’s fire as part of your job. Similarly, if you had been messing around with friends when you burnt your hand, their reaction may be to laugh and make fun of your pain. Laughter would though not be an appropriate reaction if it was your child who had burnt their hand.

The presentation of selfIf the social context of an act changes both its meaning and how people react, it follows that an awareness of self is constructed and developed socially. Goffman (1959) argues that who we believe ourselves to be – our sense of identity – is also constructed socially through how we present ourselves to others.

Goffman proposed a model of self and identity in which he described social life as a series of dramatic episodes. People are actors. Sometimes, they write and speak their own lines – this is their personal identity. Sometimes, they follow lines that are written for them – the external influences that inform how people behave in particular situations and roles. For example, because we understand how our society defines masculinity and femininity, we know how we are expected to behave if we are male or female. We can also work out how others will react to our behaviour; we can see ourselves as others do and adjust our behaviour so as to try to make the impression on them that we want to achieve.

The idea of creating an impression is also significant in relation to how we present ourselves in different situations. Goffman suggests that when we adopt a particular identity, we ‘perform’ to others in order to ‘manage’ the impression they have of us. Identity performance, therefore, is about achieving a desired result: when you want to create a favourable impression on someone, you ‘act’ in ways you believe they will like. For example, if you want to be seen as a good Sociology student, you could carry around a textbook and a full folder of notes.

Fifty years before Goffman, Cooley (1909) suggested that in the majority of social encounters other people are used as a looking-glass self. They are like mirrors reflecting our self as others see us; when we ‘look into the mirror’ of how others behave towards us, we see reflected an image of the person they think we are.

The presentation of self always involves:

• The importance of interpretation: identities are broad social categories whose meaning differs both historically and across different cultures.

• The significance of negotiation. Identities are always open to discussion; what it means to be male, female, young, old and so on, is constantly changing as people ‘push the negotiated boundaries’ of these identities.

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Try to extend Goffman’s ideas about social life being like acting in a play. Think about stage and backstage areas, being off stage, other members of the cast, who the audience is and so on.

ACTIVITY 1.3

With a partner, suggest ways that you try to manage the impression people have of you. How can this impression be negotiated?

Reflection: Think about who you have talked to this week – have you modified your behaviour with them? If you had done something differently would it have changed your interaction with them?

AlternativesNot all scientific disciplines place the same emphasis on socialisation as sociology does when explaining how individuals become competent social actors. For example, biological ideas about evolution have sometimes been used to explain social development. These ideas range from relatively simple forms of ‘social Darwinism’, based on the idea that social life simply involves ‘the survival of the fittest’, to the more sophisticated arguments of sociobiology. In these, biological principles of natural selection and evolution are applied to the ‘human animal’ to produce what Wilson (1979) argued is a ‘biological basis’ for all human behaviour. He claimed that although human behaviour is not genetically determined, it is strongly influenced by ‘biological programming’ or ‘biogrammars’.

Wilson believed that these ‘biogrammars’ suggest that humans are likely to behave in particular ways.

For example, he believed that men and women are biologically programmed with different traits that lead them to perform different cultural roles:

• Women are passive, nurturing and caring, which makes them best suited to child-rearing.

• Male traits of aggression best suit them to a ‘providing role’ that translates into paid work in contemporary societies.

These arguments influenced sociology in, for example, the work of functionalist sociologists such as Parsons (1959a). He argued that in most societies, family roles are organised to reflect the belief that women play an expressive role – that of caring for others. Men, however, play an instrumental role – with a focus on providing for the family. Both of these roles are based, in part, on evolutionary biological principles.

While males and females can choose not to take these roles, Parsons believed, over-riding the biogrammar, behaviour that opposes this biological instinct is seen as a less efficient way of organising human cultural relationships. So, for example, men can take on the expressive role and women the instrumental role, but this is likely to cause social problems because it is not making the best use of the different capabilities of males and females.

Evolutionary psychology explains contemporary psychological and social traits in terms of the general principles of natural selection: those behaviours that are evolutionarily successful are selected and reproduced. In this way, various forms of social behaviour, such as family development and gender roles, can be explained as evolutionary adaptations occurring over many centuries. They represent successful adaptations to problems common to all human societies, such as how to raise children while also providing the things family members need for survival.

Psychology is, however, a diverse field and there are many different explanations for human development.

KEY SOCIOLOGISTS

Erving Goffman (1922–82)The Canadian-American social psychologist, Erving Goffman, built on the earlier work of Mead, Cooley and others, developing theories of social interaction. He developed the dramaturgical approach to studying interaction, exploring the ways in which individuals perform actions in a similar way to performers in a play. He was interested in everyday life and, as well as his theoretical work, he carried out ethnographic research,

most notably participant observation as an assistant in a mental institution, published as Asylums: Essays on the Condition of the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. His other best-known books are The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life, Stigma and Gender Advertisements. His daughter Alice is also a sociologist, known for her ethnographic work On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, about low-income African-American communities.

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These range from those focused on genetics (such as evolutionary psychology), through disciplines such as neuropsychology, to social psychological approaches broadly similar to the interactionist theories found in the works of Mead and Goffman.

Social psychology places greater stress on how environmental factors, such as family and work relationships, affect the development of genetic or psychological predispositions. Meins et al. (2002) noted that although there exists a genetic instinct for babies to become attached to their primary care-giver, this can be affected by environmental factors. The most important of these is the ability of the care-giver to recognise and understand the needs of the child.

ACTIVITY 1.4

Make a list of anything you think might be instinctive human behaviour (such as eating, sleeping, crime, childcare and so on). Remove an item from the list if people have a choice about whether or not to do it (such as crime) or how and when we do it (such as eating). What do the remaining items on your list tell you about the influence of instincts and culture on human behaviour?

Reflection: Compare your list with a partner's to see whether you have the same remaining items. Looking at your list, do you think your own personal experience or unconscious bias has affected your judgement?

Agencies of socialisation and social control, including family, education, peer-group, media and religionThe socialisation process takes two main forms:

1 Primary socialisation occurs mainly within the family and is the first stage of socialisation. This type of socialisation is essential to the development of behaviours we recognise as fundamentally human, such as learning language. The first primary relationship we form is usually with our parents. This is followed by primary attachments to other family members, people of our own age (friends) and, subsequently, to other adults such as work colleagues. Primary socialisation is necessary because human infants need other people in order to develop both as human beings and as members of a particular

culture. We do not just need to learn general human behaviours, we must also learn about social relationships, how to play roles and so on.

2 Secondary socialisation involves secondary groups and is characterised, according to Berger and Luckmann (1967), by ‘a sense of detachment from the ones teaching socialisation’. Secondary socialisations are situations in which we do not necessarily have close, personal contacts with those doing the socialising. Parsons (1959a) argued that one of the main purposes of secondary socialisation is to ‘liberate the individual from a dependence on the primary attachments and relationships formed within the family group’. In contemporary societies, where the majority of people we meet are strangers, it would be impossible and undesirable to treat them in the same way that we treat people we love or know well. This is why we develop instrumental relationships – those based on what people can do for us, or what we can do for them, in particular situations. Berger and Luckmann suggest that while primary socialisation involves ‘emotionally charged identification’ with people such as our parents, secondary socialisation is characterised by ‘formality and anonymity’. You do not, for example, treat a stranger who asks you for directions as your closest friend.

ACTIVITY 1.5

Identify differences between primary and secondary socialisation. Why does primary socialisation have to take place before secondary socialisation?

Figure 1.5: How does requiring people to dress identically contribute to their socialisation?



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Social controlThe process of socialisation brings order, stability and predictability to people’s behaviour. If a child is socialised into a perceived ‘right’ way of doing something, such as eating with a knife and fork, there must also be a perceived ‘wrong’ or deviant way (in this example perhaps eating with their fingers), which should be discouraged. Socialisation, therefore, is also a form of social control – it involves limiting the range of behaviours open to individuals. Social control is linked to the idea that human behaviour involves a life-long process of rule-learning, built on sanctions – the things we do to make people conform. The agencies of socialisation described below are also agencies of social control.

Agencies of socialisationWe can look at selected agencies of socialisation in terms of the roles, values and norms they try to teach and the sanctions they set/impose.

Primary socialisationFamily: Although there are only a small number of family roles, these tend to be played out over long periods and involve complex forms of role development, especially in societies that allow divorce and remarriage. Adults may have to learn roles ranging from husband/wife to parent/step-parent. Child development also involves a range of roles: baby, infant, child, teenager and, eventually perhaps, an adult with children of their own.

The ability to develop roles within the context of a group mainly governed by relationships based on love, responsibility and duty, means that we can make mistakes and learn lessons as we go without causing too much harm. Mead refers to parents as significant others. They shape both our basic values, such as how to address adults, and our moral values, for example our understanding of the difference between right and wrong. Basic norms, such as how to address family members (for example, ‘Mum’, ‘Dad’), when, where and how to eat

and sleep, and definitions of acceptable behaviour are normally taught within the family. Sanctions are mainly informal, with positive sanctions involving things such as:

• facial expressions (for example, smiling)

• verbal approval/reinforcement (‘good boy/girl’)

• physical rewards (such as gifts).

Negative sanctions are similarly wide-ranging – from showing disapproval through language (such as shouting) to physical punishment.

Social control: ways in which members of society are made to conform to norms and values.

Sanctions: ways of rewarding or punishing acceptable or unacceptable behaviour; usually used in the sense of punishments (negative sanctions).

Agencies of socialisation/social control: The social institutions and groups, such as family and the media, which influence behaviour by providing guidance, examples and sanctions.

Family: a social institution comprising a group of people linked by kinship ties.

KEY TERMS

KEY SOCIOLOGISTS

George Herbert Mead (1863–1931)Mead can be seen as the ‘forgotten’ father of sociology; he developed the symbolic interactionist approach which became the alternative tradition within sociology to the structural approaches of functionalism and Marxism. He did not publish any books. His ideas were spread after his death when some of his students at the University of Chicago in the USA put together several volumes made up

of notes from his lectures, records of courses he taught and unpublished papers. He was interested in social action and the micro scale, with his work often was seen as social psychology rather than sociology. He developed the idea of the self as made up of the ‘me’, based on how the individual understands they are seen by the ‘generalised other’ and the ‘I’, based on the individual’s impulses.

Figure 1.6: Within a family, how do children play their roles differently from adults?



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Functionalists often see primary socialisation as a one-way process that passes from adults to children. However, socialisation involves more than an unquestioning acceptance of the behaviours we learn within the family group. Although children are socialised by being encouraged to copy behaviour, they are also actively involved in negotiating their socialisation. For example, children do not always obey their parents; they may even choose not to obey as part of a test of the limits of social control. Children may also receive different socialisation messages: a relative may reward behaviour that a parent would punish. Children have to learn that the same behaviour may receive different reactions from different people in different situations. Faced with a new situation, they need to be able to judge what the reactions are likely to be.

Peers: Peer-groups are made up of people of a similar age, for example, teenagers. They can be considered primary agencies of socialisation because we usually choose friends of a similar age, and personal interaction with them influences our behaviour – from how we dress and talk to the things we love or hate. Peer-groups can also be secondary agencies because they may be used as a reference group – what Hughes et al. (2002) call ‘the models we use for appraising and shaping our attitudes, feelings and actions’. In the recent past, this has included youth sub-cultures such as hippies and punks. Although most people do not interact with groups as specific as this, we all have reference groups of people we identify with and whose appearance and behaviour we model our own on. Our behaviour may be influenced by things such as the fashions and the general behaviour of people our own age or status. This is an example of peer pressure as a form of social control.

Marxism: political, sociological and economic school of thought based on the work of Karl Marx.

Peers: People of similar status, and usually age, with whom a person has frequent contact.

Sub-cultures: a culture within a larger culture. Sub-cultures take many forms, such as religious groups, fans of a particular singer or actor, school gangs and so on. Sub-cultures usually develop their own norms and values, although these do not necessarily conflict with those of the wider culture within which they exist.

KEY TERM

Figure 1.7: How do your friends influence your behaviour?

We play a range of peer-related roles, depending on our age group and situation. ‘Friend’, for example, expresses very personal role play, whereas at school or work we may have a variety of people we don’t know very well (acquaintances). In the workplace, too, we are likely to play the role of colleague to at least some of our peers. Similarly, the values we are taught within a friendship or peer-group vary with age and circumstances. However, we will probably carry the value of friendship with us throughout our lives.

Peer-group norms often relate to ideas about age-appropriate behaviour. Young children, for example, are usually not permitted by law to smoke cigarettes or to buy alcohol. Also, it is generally not considered age-appropriate for the elderly to take part in extreme sports or wear clothes designed for younger people. Peer-group sanctions, or social sanctions, are generally informal and include things such as disapproving looks and negative comments. This is mainly because peer-group norms vary considerably, and the same behaviour may result in different responses depending on the situation. Swearing at a grandparent will probably be met with disapproval; swearing among friends may be perfectly acceptable. Approving gestures and language, laughing at your jokes and seeking out your company may represent positive sanctions. Refusing to speak to someone, rejecting friendship or engaging in physical violence are negative sanctions associated with peer-group.

Secondary socialisationAgencies of secondary socialisation include schools, religious organisations and the media. In some cases, such as education, we are in daily contact with other



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members of the group without ever developing a primary attachment to them. In other examples, such as admiring a particular actor or musician, we may never meet the rest of the group, yet we might be influenced by their behaviour in several ways.

Education: Education involves two kinds of curriculum:

• the formal curriculum that specifies the subjects, knowledge and skills that children are explicitly taught in school

• a hidden curriculum: the things we learn from the experience of attending school, such as how to deal with strangers, listen to adult authority and have respect for the system.

School is also a place where we ‘learn to limit our individual desires’ – to think about the needs of others rather than our own. School may be one of the first times that children are separated from their parent(s) for any length of time. It provides both opportunities (to demonstrate talents to a wider, non-family, audience) and challenges – the need to learn, for example, how to deal with people who are not family and with authority figures such as teachers.

Parsons (1959a) argued that school plays a particularly significant role in secondary socialisation for two reasons:

1 It ‘emancipates the child from primary attachment’ to their family. It moves children away from the affective relationships found in the family and introduces them to the instrumental relationships they will meet in adult life. It is in effect a bridge between the family home and the wider social world.

2 It allows children to ‘internalise a level of society’s values and norms that is a step higher than those learnt within families’. Through interaction with ‘strangers’ in the educational system, a child begins to adopt wider social values into their personal value system. This process loosens the hold of primary groups and allows children to gradually mix into adult society, something that also promotes social solidarity and value consensus.

Consensus: general agreement across a society on a set of values; seen by functionalists as essential for society to be stable.

KEY TERM

Like any institution, schools involve a range of roles, such as teacher and student, which are themselves linked to a range of related roles called a role-set. This further extends the idea of cultural relationships because we become fixed into a range of expected behaviours. A student, for example, plays this role in relation to the roles that others are playing in the school environment:

• other students in their class

• students of different ages

• their subject teachers

• teachers of other subjects

• school buildings’ staff such as caretakers

• administration staff

• parent(s)/guardian(s).

Schools teach a range of values. These range from the idea that students should work hard to achieve qualifications, to ideas about individual competition for academic rewards, teamwork, conformity to authority (not questioning what is being learnt and why it is necessary to learn it) and achievement on the basis of merit. Sometimes values are openly taught (for example, an assembly may be all about the importance of helping others, or why bullying is wrong), but more often they are present in the way that schools and education are organised.

In many education systems, for example, one hidden value is that academic ability, such as a talent for writing essays, is more highly valued than work-related ability, such as bricklaying. Another value is individual achievement; working with others may be valued in the workplace but in school may be seen as ‘copying’ and wrong. Many of these values relate not just to education but also to the wider social world.

From a Marxist perspective, Bowles and Gintis (2002) argue that there is a correspondence between school norms and workplace norms: Schools prepare students for adult work by socialising them into values and norms that will make them uncomplaining workers. This correspondence theory is shown through school norms such as:

• the daily need for attendance

• always being in the place you are supposed to be at certain times

• the right of those in authority to give orders that must be obeyed.



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These ideas are backed up by positive sanctions that include the gaining of grades, qualifications and prizes, as well as more personal things such as praise and encouragement. On the negative side, schools use punishments: detentions, suspensions and exclusions. Failure to achieve qualifications or gaining a reputation for being unintelligent also function as negative sanctions. These sanctions prepare children for sanctions at work – from bonuses for good work to the threat of being sacked.

ACTIVITY 1.6

Suggest two further examples of the connection between school and work.Are there any ways in which school may not help prepare people for the world of work?

Mass media: The media are slightly unusual secondary agencies because our relationship with it is impersonal; we are unlikely to meet those doing the socialising. While there is little evidence that the media have a direct, long-term effect on behaviour, there is stronger evidence of short-term effects. Advertising, for example, aims to make short-term changes in behaviour by encouraging people to try different consumer products. Potter (2003) suggests that short-term effects include:

• imitation, such as copying behaviour seen on television

• desensitisation – the idea that constant and repeated experience of something, such as violence or poverty, gradually lowers our emotional reaction

• learning, in which we are introduced to new ideas and places.

Figure 1.8: Does repeated experience of images of violence, poverty or racism reduce our reaction to such issues?

There is also some evidence for indirect long-term effects, in that people come to accept as ‘natural’ values or other aspects of social life that are socially constructed:

• consumerism – advertising, and much other media content, takes as natural the active and ever-increasing pursuit of goods and services that define lifestyles and identities in contemporary capitalist societies

• fear – experience of negative and violent media leads some people to overestimate things such as the extent of crime or their chances of being a victim of terrorism or of a disaster

• agenda setting – Philo et al. (1982) argue that the media determine how something will be debated; in the UK, for example, immigration is discussed in the media mainly in terms of numbers of immigrants, with an assumption that high numbers are bad. This gets in the way of consideration of the qualitative effects of immigration on British society.

Consumerism: repeated experience of wealthy lifestyles and desirable consumer goods that suggests that ‘happiness’ is something that can bought.

KEY TERM

The extent to which the media can enforce values is uncertain. However, the media are undoubtedly influential in supporting or weakening certain values. It has a loud voice in debates over nationality (for example, what it means to be ‘Peruvian’ or ‘Chinese’). It also promotes certain values over others – for example, many English newspapers take an ‘anti-European Union’ stance. Potter suggests that media influence comes about through a process of habituation: the more people experience certain images and ideas, the more likely it is that they will add them to their personal value systems. In relation to norms, the media have what Durkheim (1912) called a ‘boundary-marking function’. It promotes acceptable and unacceptable forms of behaviour to strengthen perceptions of expected behaviours. The media may try to preserve particular ways of behaving, through campaigns to ‘save the family’, for example, but they may also promote changes in behaviour, such as campaigns against racism. To strengthen (reinforce) their message, the media use a range of sanctions. Positive sanctions involve the use of praise, positive pictures and uncritical features. Negative sanctions might include being pictured in a negative pose, critical articles or behaviour being publicly criticised.



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Young people increasingly use social media apps. In what ways can social media be an agency of socialisation, or of social control?

Religion: Whether or not we see ourselves as ‘religious’, religion plays a significant role in the general socialisation process in many societies, particularly in relation to ceremonial functions, such as marriages and funerals. It can also be argued that important moral values – very strong beliefs about how people should behave – are influenced by religious values. For example, several of the Ten Commandments in the Christian religion are reflected in legal systems around the world. The unacceptability of some crimes, such as theft and murder, is emphasised in world religions.

Religious values are powerful forces for those who believe. Religion can be regarded as a ‘design for living’ – a force that provides help and guidance to live a life as God wishes, but religious beliefs and values can also be a source of conflict:

• between religions, such as the history of conflict between Christians and Muslims dating back to the 11th century

• within the same religion: Northern Ireland, for example, has experienced major conflicts between Protestant and Catholic Christians over the past 50 years.

Religious values are frequently displayed through styles of dress, such as the Muslim hijab or Sikh turban, something that indicates both religiosity (a measure of people’s commitment to religion) and ethnic identity.

Many of the world’s major religions, from Christianity to Islam, have been said to promote patriarchy through both their general organisation (many religions have an entirely male leadership) and the gender roles and values they encourage. However, they also promote concepts of love and care that are attractive to some women, and can be seen as providing women with a sense of shelter and safety in a threatening world and belonging. Swatos (1998) argues that religions are going through important changes that are making them more ‘female friendly’. For example, God is increasingly shown as loving and consoling rather than as authoritarian and judgemental, and clergy are seen as ‘helping professionals’ rather than as ‘representatives of God’s justice’.

Patriarchy: male-dominated unit or society.

KEY TERM

Religions apply positive sanctions on their followers in different ways:

• Hinduism involves a belief in reincarnation (when you die you are reborn into a new life) based on how well you observed religious laws in your previous life; the reward for good behaviour in one lifetime is rebirth into a higher social position.

• Ideas of sin in Christian religions can also be significant features of religious control, because the believer is encouraged to live a life free of sin in the hope of rewards in heaven.

Negative sanctions are also many and varied. Catholicism, for example, has the sanction of excommunication (exclusion from the church), whereas some forms of Islam specify a range of punishments for those who break Shari’ah law. Such punishments may also be applied to ‘non-believers’ in theocratic societies, such as Iran, where government is dominated by religious authorities.

ACTIVITY 1.7

Draw a spider diagram that describes any role you play. Try to illustrate its role-set.What does this diagram tell you about how you present yourself to society or a particular social group? What types of influence are making you take on the role, and why? See an example below.

Parent(s)/guardian(s)

Administrativestaff

Caretakingstaff

Otherteachers

Subjectteachers

Pupils ofdifferent ages

Other pupilsin class

A pupil playstheir role inrelation to:

Figure 1.9

E



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Pages 15‐38 omitted in sample only.

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SummaryYou should know:

The process of learning and socialisation■ Culture, roles, norms, values, beliefs, customs,

ideology, power and status are elements in the social construction of reality.

■ Socialisation is important in influencing human behaviour.

■ There is a debate about the roles of nature and nurture in influencing human behaviour.

■ Agencies of socialisation and social control include family, education, peer-group, media and religion.

Social control, conformity and resistance■ Structure and agency shape the relationship between

the individual and society.■ There are differences between structuralist and

interactionist views.

■ Factors explaining why individuals conform to social expectations include sanctions, social pressure, self-interest and social exchange.

■ The mechanisms through which order is maintained include power, ideology, force and consensus.

■ Sociologists explain deviance and non-conformity by reference to subcultures, under-socialisation, marginalisation, cultural deprivation and social resistance.

Social identity and change■ Social class, gender, ethnicity and age are elements in

the construction of social identity.■ Social class, gender, ethnicity and age identities may

be changing due to globalisation, increased choice and the creation of new/hybrid identities.



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Exam-style questionsChoose one set of questions to answer in the time available.

Set 11 ‘Fixed gender roles are important for making societies stable’.

a Explain this view. [10]b Using sociological material, give one argument against this view. [6]

2 Evaluate the view that class identities are no longer as important as they used to be. [26]

Set 21 ‘Globalisation is changing gendered identities’.


2 Evaluate the view that nature is more important than nurture in shaping human behaviour. [26]

Set 31 ‘Globalisation is giving people greater choice over their identities’.


2 Evaluate the view that families are the most important influence on an individual’s identity. [26]

Set 41 ‘Nature is more important than nurture in explaining human behaviour’.


2 Evaluate the view that age identities are changing. [26]



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Set 11 Fixed gender roles are important for making societies stable.

a Explain this view. [10]You should make at least two clear and developed points in your answer. Here is an example of a developed point:

The view that the family is the most important agency of social control is based on the fact that socialisation within the family when a child is very young is the most important stage of socialisation, referred to as primary socialisation. This is when the child, at an impressionable age, learns and internalises the main norms and values of their society from their parents and others in their immediate family. Parents are important in this because of the strong bond with their children. This includes learning the limits of acceptable behaviour, and so socialisation also is bound to involve social control. This learning is done in a variety of informal ways, including imitation (when the child copies the behaviour of a parent, who is acting as a role model), comments and smiles by parents that reinforce approved behaviour.

Point 1: Notice that this answer has already included a number of key sociological terms, such as primary socialisation, internalises, social control and imitation. It is important to demonstrate your sociological knowledge and understanding by using key terms whenever possible.

Point 2: This point could be improved by including some sociological theory. In this case, functionalism is the obvious choice, but both Marxists and feminists would have different views on the norms and values transmitted during primary socialisation. This opens up possibilities analysis and evaluation.

ACTIVITY 1.17

Now continue this answer by writing about the sanctions that can be used within families. Be sure to include a range of sanctions, and to explain why these may be successful in ensuring children conform to the norms and values of their family and of wider society.



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Cambridge International AS & A Level DRAFT

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