48-110 (Foundations of Social Life) - Lesson Objectives: 1. Define the processes of socialization and resocialization; 2. Describe how we come to develop a social self; 3. Explain Goffman's theory of dramaturgy; 4. Identify the primary agents of socialization; 5. Relate examples of re/socialization that fall within the disciplinary field of criminology

1. SOCIALIZATION

2. SOCIALIZATION
 Process of interaction and experience
 People learn the cultural ways of the society and
their position in it
 Process of learning how to act in society

3. SOCIALIZATION
 Development of a social identity
 Cases of children raised without social
interaction or experience (feral children) provide
dramatic examples of what happens in the
absence of socialization
[clip]

4. SOCIALIZATION
 Fictional feral children are often depicted as
growing up with relatively normal human
intelligence and skills and an innate sense of
culture or civilization
Mowgli
Tarzan
Malia

5. SOCIALIZATION
 In reality feral children lack the basic social skills
that are normally learned in the process of
socialization
 They almost always have impaired language
ability and mental function
 Role of socialization in human development

6. DEVELOPMENT OF SELF
The X-Files: 4x20
“Small Potatoes”
This is classic Cooley.

7. The Looking Glass Self
 Charles Horton Cooley
 When we interact with others, they gesture and
react to us; this allows us to imagine how we
appear to them
 We then judge how others evaluate us
 From these judgments we develop a self-concept

8. The Looking Glass Self
Just as we see our
physical bodies reflected
in a mirror, so we see our
social selves reflected in
people’s gestures and
reactions to us.
[clip]

9. Development of Self
 George Herbert Mead
 Self is comprised of: I and Me
 I = subjective, impulsive component
 Me = objective, social component

10. Development of Self
 Unique human capacity to ‘take the role of the
other’ as the source of the Me
 Through social interaction, we develop a sense of
how we might be seen through the eyes of any
person (Generalized Other)
 GO espouses the prevailing norms and values of
the society in which we live

11. Dramaturgy and the
Presentation of Self
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

12. Dramaturgy and the
Presentation of Self
 Erving Goffman
 Dramaturgy suggests that life is like acting
 When we are born, we are thrust onto a stage
called everyday life, and our socialization
consists of learning how to play our parts
[clip]

13. Dramaturgy and the
Presentation of Self
Two socially defined regions
in which we present our self:
 Front Stage
 Back Stage

14. LARP as Dramaturgy
 Live Action Role Playing (LARP)
 LARPers take on the identity of a character and
perform that character on the front stage while
their real self is tucked away in the back stage
 Think of our lives as a LARP performance

15. Dramaturgy and the
Presentation of Self

16. Impression Management
 Craft a presentation of our selves that will
lead those around us to see us in a
certain (usually favourable) light

17. Impression Management
Calvin is reluctant to go to his
high school reunion because
he feels his performance (now
a happily married accountant)
does not match the character
and role he expected to play
(‘Most Likely to Succeed’)

18. Impression Management
 When we are unable to manage our
impressions successfully, we typically
engage in face-saving work
 Humour, anger, retreat

19. Socialization and Generations
 Major social and historical events can be a
force in socializing an entire generation
 Great Depression in 1930s
 Holocaust during WWII
 Civil Rights Movement in 1960s

20. Socialization and Generations
 A generation consists of people who are
born within a particular time period and have
shared lived experiences
 Example: Baby Boom Generation

21. The Millennial Generation
 Born between 1981 and 2000
 Millennials are an ethnically diverse,
environmentally conscious, and
technologically savvy group of young people

22. The Millennial Generation: Girls

23. The Millennial Generation
[clip]

24. Generation Z

25. Agents of Socialization
 Family
 Peers
 Schools
 Media

26. Agents of Socialization:
Family
 Primary socialization
 Values, beliefs and behavioural norms
 Socio-economic status, race and ethnic identity,
and religious and moral beliefs

27. Agents of Socialization:
Peers
 Peers are those similar in age and who share
common interests
 Help you separate from family
 During adolescence, the peer group is the most
powerful agent of socialization

28. Agents of Socialization:
Schools
 Pass on the dominant culture’s knowledge,
values and beliefs
 Prepare people for the job market
 Teach about competition, materialism, and
obedience to authority

29. Agents of Socialization:
Media
 Mass media are forms of communication
that are designed to reach a large audience
 Powerful socializing effects
 Reflects, shapes, perpetuates, and changes
societal values

30. Agents of Socialization at work in
High School Musical

31. Socialization in Criminology
 Socialization of prisoners
 Occupational socialization of police

32. Socialization in Criminology
Prison Socialization
 Prisoners undergo a socialization process into
the prison culture
 Prisoners learn the slang, code, and roles of
prison culture
 When the process is complete, new prisoners
become ‘cons’

33. Socialization in Criminology
Police Socialization
 Occupational socialization is the process
through which a novice learns the skills,
knowledge and values necessary to become a
competent member of an organization or
occupation
 Rookie police officers go through a process of
socialization that may counter expectations

34. Resocialization
 Resocialization is the process of learning new
norms, values, attitudes, and behaviours and
abandoning old ones
 Often takes place in total institutions that isolate
people from outside influences so they can be
reformed and controlled

35. Resocialization:
Harold Garfinkel
 Similarities in the ways prison inmates and
military enlistees are resocialized upon entering
those total institutions
 New members are ‘welcomed’ through some
form of degrading ceremony designed to
humiliate and ‘break down’ the person so that
resocialization is possible

36. Resocialization:
The 5th Wave
 Character Ben Parish goes
through a process of
resocialization when he is
taken to Camp Haven and
becomes Private ‘Zombie’
[clip]

37. Resocialization:
The 5th Wave
“BEN PARISH IS DEAD. I don’t miss him. Ben
was a wuss, a crybaby, a thumb sucker. Not
Zombie. Zombie is everything Ben wasn’t.
Zombie is hardcore. Zombie is badass. Zombie
is stone-cold.

38. Resocialization:
The 5th Wave
“Zombie was born on the morning I left the
convalescent ward. Traded in my flimsy gown for a
blue jumpsuit. Assigned a bunk in Barracks 10.
Whipped back into shape by three squares a day and
brutal physical training, but most of all by Reznick, the
regiment’s senior drill instructor, the man who
smashed Ben Parish into a million pieces, then
reconstructed him into the merciless zombie killing
machine that he is today.”

39. Resocialization:
Divergent
 Teens that choose factions other
than their birth factions must go
through a period of resocialization
 Beatrice was born into Abnegation
(selflessness) and chose Dauntless
(bravery)
 Resocialized and becomes ‘Tris’

40. Resocialization:
Prisoner Reintegration
 Prisoners go through a process of resocialization
when they are conditionally released
 Some prisoners have become so prisonized that
they have difficulty integrating back into normal
society
 Consequences for recidivism and successful
release

41. Resocialization:
Prisoner Reintegration
Mass Incarceration and Resocialization