Culture and Socialisation

• Status can either be:

  • Ascribed - Status which you are born into
  • Achieved - Status which you can work for by climbing up the social ladder
• In Traditional Societies, most statuses were ascribed, decided from birth

  In Modern Industrial Societies, most statuses are now achieved, now that it is easier to climb up the social ladder
• Society is made up of Social Institutions, Formal ones like the Education System and Informal ones like the Family

  -

  Culture determines how these Social Institutions work, setting norms and expectations about roles people should play
• Informal Social Control is ways of controlling behaviour imposed by people without a formal role to do so (like police)

  -

  It can often be expressed in glares and comments like, "that was rude", OR through expressions of anger and disgust
• The main Agencies of SOCIAL CONTROL:

  • FAMILIES - Parents tell their kids off if they were to misbehave, some use physical punishment
  • EDUCATION - Schools have sanctions like detention put in place and rewards like house points and nice phone calls to parents
  • RELIGION - Religions offer guidelines and laws on how to behave, along with rewards and sanctions like heaven and hell
  • MEDIA - The Media offers role models that advise people on how to behave
  • WORKPLACE - Rules and regulations at work ensure that everyone stay in their places
  • PEER GROUPS - Behaving the way that our peers want us to
• Peer Groups are the most POWERFUL agency of Social Control because people feel the need to belong to groups, so the threat of being rejected is often a powerful one.

  -

  When we feel we have been pushed into behaving in ways that our peers want us to, this is called peer pressure
• Functionalists see Social Control as positive and essential to the continued stability of the society.

  This prevents ANOMIE (when individuals lack the guidance of norms to regulate their behaviour), so society doesn't break down
• FUNCTIONALISTS on SOCIAL CONTROL:

  • Emile Durkheim argued that societies needed a collective conscience shared by ALL members
  • Durkheim found that in traditional societies in Australia, tribes that joined together in worshipping a totem gave them a sense of shared identity
• Marxists see Social Control as negative as it is used to maintain the status quo and control the working class
• MARXISTS on Social Control:

  • Louis Althusser said Schools, Media and Religion are the Ideological State Apparatus. Institutions make people BELIEVE that it is right to conform to [unfair] rules
  • However, rules that the working class conform to are often suited for the Upper - Class, and help them keep power

  -

  Lower classes may be brainwashed into thinking that Upper - Classes deserve to be respected, accepting beliefs against their own interests (false class consciousness)