Understanding Culture: Becoming a Member of Society

• The presentation is for the Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics class.

Lesson 4 : Becoming a Member of Society

• The lesson objectives are to :
  • Explain the context, content, processes, and consequences of enculturation and socialization, as well as the social goals and the socially acceptable means of achieving these goals.
  • Appreciate the importance of socialization and enculturation to the identity formation and development.
  • Perform a group skit/roleplay showing how agents of socialization and enculturation affect an individual's identity and holistic development as a member of society.

Activity: Two Truths and A Lie

• Each student provides two true and one false statement in the chat.
• Teacher picks some and class decides which statement is false.

Guide Questions

• What classmates' true statements were observed?
• What reasons are behind the truths in classmates' lives?

John Locke

• Tabula Rasa is the idea that the human mind is a blank slate at birth, with no innate ideas.
• Locke believed that people learn life through sensory experiences and perceptions.

Socialization

• It is a lifelong process of social interaction through which people acquire their identities and survival skills in society.
• Socialization prepares new members of society.
• It trains them to think, feel, and act in appropriate ways.
• Socialization is greatly influenced by the context of the society and the social groups.

Political Socialization

• Political socialization develops citizens to function effectively within a particular political system.

Internalization

• It is the process of accepting social norms, attitudes, roles, and values transmitted by people and social groups within society as one's own.

Functionalist vs Interpretivist Sociologist

Functionalist

• Society is primarily responsible for how individuals learn to think and behave.
• This disregards that socialization might vary from person to person.

Interpretivist

• Importance is given to the independence of individuals and their capacity to define their own personal views and ideas.
• Members of the society engage to integrate their own views, beliefs, ways into society.

Three Significant Aspects of Socialization

Social Context

• It is particular circumstances of a society.
• Social context consists of its culture, language, and the social structures, such social and historical events, mechanisms of power and control, institutions, and individuals.

Content and Process

• This refers to how socializing activities are structured.
• Content: ideas or information passed on by members of society.
• Process: Methods of interaction.

Results

• Outcomes of socialization.

Enculturation and Acculturation

Enculturation

• Individuals learn/acquire their native culture through continuous exposure or socialization within the society.

Acculturation

• Process of cultural, psychological, and social change.
• This occurs when people come into contact with a different culture.

Agents of Socialization and Enculturation

Family

• Family is the primary agent of socialization for an individual upon birth, throughout infancy, and up to childhood.
• A family's social and cultural backgrounds are significant factors that define a child's social opportunities and experience.

School

• Academic and social activities mold students' beliefs, values, and attitudes.
• Schools provide students with increased political and social participation.

Peer Groups

• This refers to people who share the same interests or characteristics such as age, cultural, and social background.
• Peer groups serve as means for socialization and involvement in social and political issues.

Mass Media

• Mass media is widely used by many institutions and organizations.
• It is involved in print and electronic communication.

Three Models of Mass Media and Politics

Pluralist Model

• Portrays media as an ideological marketplace that enhances debate and electoral choice.

Market Model

• Suggests that media reflects the views of the general public.
• They present what they think people want.

Dominant-ideology Model

• Traces biases to links between media and the political and social elite.

Elite-value Model

• It recognizes media biases as a product of the personal views of media professionals.

Religion and State

• The church and the government are considered the ultimate sources of authority.
• Religion exerts a great influence on the views of a person.
• Religion legitimizes accepted social practices.
• Religion provides stability to society and can even be sources of social change.
• The State participates in socialization through laws and other regulations.
• Laws reinforce appropriate behavior and contribute to values and attitudes of the citizens.

Major Social and Historical Events

• Changes and developments caused by historical events often cause transformations in the values, attitudes, and views.
• These changes define societies.

Social Dynamics

Conformity

• It is the process of altering one's thoughts to adapt to the accepted behavior within their group or society.
• Conformity is a product of pressure exerted by the group on the individual.

Three Types of Conformity

Compliance

• Outward conformity to social pressure but privately disagreeing with it.
• It is often motivated by the desire to gain awards or avoid punishment.

Indentification

• Individuals adopt certain behavior for the purpose of having relation with their groups.

Internalization/acceptance

• Motivated by the desire to be right with an authoritative figure or person of influence.

Deviance

• A behavior that elicits a strong negative reaction from societal members.
• Deviance involves actions that violate commonly held social norms.

Views About The Causes and Influences in Social Deviance

Biological and Psychological Theories

• Deviance is influenced by biological factors such as genetics.

Structural-functionalist Framework

• Crime and deviance result from structural tensions and the lack of moral regulation within the society.

Structural Strain Theory

• Tensions and strains between socially approved goals and an individual's ability to meet them will lead to deviance (Robert Merton)

Subcultural View

• Emergence of deviant behavior within certain groups or subcultures.

Symbolic Interactionist View

• Considers deviance as a socially constructed phenomenon influenced largely by interpersonal relationships between members of society.

Labeling Theory

• Deviance only emerges when society begins labeling certain actions as "deviant" or "undesirable."

Conflict Perspective

• Analyzes deviance in the framework of competing interests found between social groups and the maintenance of power among the elites.

Control Theories

• Deviance emerges due to inadequate social controls.

Broken Windows Theory

• Visible signs of disorder can trigger further chaos, and maintaining order can discourage deviance.

Social Controls

• Any systematic means and practices used to maintain norms, rules, and laws, regulate conflict, and discourage deviant behavior.

Sanctions

• Sanctions are the most common means of social control.

Formal Sanctions

• Consequences or punishment provided by the laws and other regulations in society.

Informal Sanctions

• Consequences or punishment most commonly imposed by smaller societies, communities, or groups.
• No set of laws or regulations define the nature of these sanctions.

Human Dignity and Human Rights

• Human dignity is being valued, respected, and treated well.
• Human rights are the legal, social, and ethical principles that consider the human person deserving of liberties and protections because of dignity.

Characteristics of Human Rights

• Human rights are universal and exist worldwide.
• They are inalienable, and cannot be taken away without due process.
• Human rights are indivisible and interdependent.
• They are are equally important cannot exist without each other.
• They are inherent and fundamental, and considered to be basic necessities.

According to the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, you have the right :

• To be free and equal in dignity and in rights.
• To be free from all forms of discrimination.
• To live freely and safely
• To seek legal help if one's rights are not respected.
• To be treated fairly under the law.
• To a fair and public trial if accused of a crime.
• To be presumed innocent until guilty if charged with a crime.
• To privacy.
• To be free from arbitrary arrest, detention, and exile.
• To choose where to live and return to one's country
• To seek asylum in another country if one feels persecuted.
• To be a citizen of your country (to have a nationality).
• To get married and start a family (as a consenting adult).
• To own property alone or with other people.
• To practice one's religion freely or to change it.
• To think and say what one likes and to share information with other people.
• To participate in and organize peaceful protests and meetings.
• To participate in your country's government by voting or by being elected to office.
• To have basic needs met.
• To work, to receive a fair wage, and to join a union.
• To rest and relaxation.
• To an adequate standard of living, including food, housing, and medical care.
• To education.
• To culture and to benefit from scientific advancements.
• To live in a world where one's rights are respected.
• To community support and a duty to do the same for others.
• No person/group/state can take away human rights.

Activity

• Perform a four to six minute group skit/role play showing how agents of socialization and enculturation affect an individual's identity and holistic development as of society.
• Each group is assigned a specific socialization and enculturation agent.
• The teacher will give a template of the Human Bingo card.
• Each student prints and pastes on something hard for support.
• Find someone who fits each description; have them put their names and signature.
• Get a perfect score of fifty points: Fill every space.