- Define and explain Socialisation for Life in your own words
- Use key terms such as Primary socialisation accurately
- Apply what you have learned to new examples and questions
- Avoid the common mistakes learners make with this topic
This lesson focuses on Socialisation for Life: see how learning society's ways continues from cradle to old age.
See how learning society's ways continues from cradle to old age.
Key ideas
Secondary socialisation never stops
From the first day of school, new agents take over part of the teaching: teachers and the hidden curriculum of rules and routines, peer groups with their fierce codes of cool, and the media with its flood of images and stories. Peer groups become especially powerful in the teenage years, sometimes pulling young people away from family values. Workplaces, partners and religions continue the process deep into adult life.
Primary socialisation starts at home
In the early years the family teaches the essentials: language, table manners, right from wrong, and what it means to be a boy or a girl in that culture. Because these lessons come first and carry powerful emotions, they sink deepest and are hardest to undo. Sociologists regard the family as the most important agent of socialisation, though families differ greatly in what they teach.
Key term — Primary socialisation: The first and most intense stage of socialisation, usually in the family, where a child learns language, basic norms and fundamental values.
An adult moves abroad for work and must learn new greetings, food customs and workplace norms. What does this show about socialisation?
It shows socialisation continues throughout life: adults learn new roles and norms whenever they enter new cultures or situations.
Answer: It shows socialisation continues throughout life: adults learn new roles and norms whenever they enter new cultures or situations.
- Thinking socialisation finishes at eighteen Socialisation is lifelong: new jobs, partnerships, parenthood and retirement all require learning new roles.
- Assuming the media has no real effect The media is a major secondary agent, shaping ideas about beauty, success and normality, especially for young people.
Practice
Any four of: family, school, peer group, media, religion, workplace.
Primary socialisation is the first, intense learning of basic norms and values in the family; secondary socialisation is later learning from school, peers, media and others.
The peer group, and this is secondary socialisation, which can challenge primary lessons from the family.
The me is the self as an object, how we think others see us, built from the generalised other; the I is the spontaneous acting self that responds to the me.
Quick check
Which of these best defines "Primary socialisation"?
Give one example of the hidden curriculum at school.
- Socialisation for Life: see how learning society's ways continues from cradle to old age.
- Secondary socialisation never stops: From the first day of school, new agents take over part of the teaching: teachers and the hidden curriculum of rules and routines, peer groups with their fierce codes of cool, and the media with its flood of images and stories.
- Secondary socialisation: Later socialisation by agencies such as school, peer groups, the media and the workplace, which build on and sometimes challenge primary lessons.
- Watch out for: thinking socialisation finishes at eighteen