Chapter 4 Summary

Chapter four introduces socialization, which is the process by which people learn the norms of their society and institutions within it. This process happens throughout the life course, and operates on both a macro- and micro- level, with people’s identities and senses of self being cultivated in tandem with the reproduction of social institutions. Socialization has both primary and secondary forms, regarding influences early in the life course about general fundamental social rules, and institution-specific norms, respectively.

There are a number of major agents of socialization, which are the home and family; education: both primary, secondary, and post-secondary; the workplace; and mass media, which has come to include social media. Social media in particular are emerging phenomena for social research, as they introduce novel challenges to the presentation of self and the cultivation of identity.

To account for socialization, we can look at the major sociological viewpoints. Functionalism explains how socialization into specific roles produces stability and consistency within institutions. Conflict theory explains how socialization is not neutral, but socializes people into positions stratified according to class and other social traits. Feminist theorizing demonstrates how gender socialization is a deeply-entrenched social process which produces a sense of self and also has consequence for the life course. Symbolic interactionism alerts us to the active role people play in socialization, reflectively changing socialization rather than having it imposed from above.

All of these viewpoints point out how the self we have is produced through social influence, and because we live in multiple social contexts, we have multiple social selves, which we present or conceal depending on context. When the boundaries between these roles are crossed, role strain can result, and the fluidity of social media poses new challenges to the regulation of the presentation of self.

Socialization can take dramatic form in cases of resocialization, particularly in what Goffman called ‘total institutions’, locations where a new identity is produced in individuals at the expense of their pre-existing selves. While Goffman focused on sites such as the asylums and prisons, Canada’s residential schools were particularly harmful examples of total institutions. The resocialization process of the residential schools aimed at eradicating Indigenous identities, contributing to ills such as intergenerational trauma. However, such institutions were not in fact total, as Indigenous residents of these schools and Indigenous communities resisted and opposed these institutions in multiple ways, in defense of their selves and their identities.