Please review the three goals of socialization from this week’s readings: Chapter 3 CHLDV 142-1.pdf

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Think about your own socialization process.

• How you were socialized?
• What were the goals of socializing you? (meaning, what knowledge and skills do you think those around you wanted to make sure you acquired?)
• How were the goals of socializing you influenced by your culture?
• How were the goals of socializing you influenced by the country you grew up in?
• How were the goals of socializing you influenced by how your own parents were socialized?
• Please use specific examples from the readings to connect with your ideas here.

A brief example:

The people around me, for the most part, were of the same socioeconomic status that my family was. However, I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools, but I grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, so I was socialized around the values of both Catholicism and Judaism. The majority of the women in my neighborhood did not work outside the home, but I did have mostly female teachers so I could see women in working roles. However, because of the time period and country I grew up in (the eighties in the United States), I was seeing women in more and more diverse roles and was being told that women were equal to men. I saw this on TV, in the movies, and in the teen magazines that I read. I think the goals of those around me for my socialization were mostly the importance of education and thinking about college – this was based mostly on my microsystem – my family, my teachers, my neighbors, and family friends, they all expressed an interest in my education, my plans for college and my future career. In addition, the goals I think for my socialization, whether intentional or not (we will get more into intentional and unintentional socialization in our Zoom check-in this week), were that I should have the skills and knowledge to remain or exceed past the socioeconomic status of my family. This was done explicitly by telling me as much as well as by providing me with extracurricular activities, and by vocalizing the expectation that I would attend college and the assumption that I would marry someone who had as well. However, through the media I was acquiring, I was being taught that it was okay to look for someone who didn’t fit perfectly into the world where you were being raised. The books that I read in childhood and adolescence, like The Color Purple, Little Women, The Outsiders were all encouraging me to push past how I was being told to act and question how things had always been. 

Please also respond to the posts of your classmates.

• Can you connect to how their culture and the country they grew up in influenced how they were socialized?