AC2.1

• Social control

  Involves persuading or compelling people to conform to society's norms, law, and expectations
• Forms of social control

  • Internal
  • External
• Internal social control

  Controls behaviour that comes from within ourselves from our personalities or values - this is known as self-control - involves conforming to rules because we feel inwardly that it's the right thing to do
• Internal forms of social control

  • Religion
  • Traditional morals
  • Superego
• External social control

  Society has external forms of social control that aim to ensure we conforms to its expectations and keep to its rules which is done through agencies
• External forms of social control

  • Criminal justice system
  • Coercion
  • Fear of punishment
  • Agencies
• Superego

  According to Freud's theory, it tells us what's right and wrong and inflicts guilt. It develops through early socialisation within the family as an internalised 'nagging parent'. Its function is to restrain selfish urges of the ID. It allows us to exercise self-control and behave in a socially acceptable way.
• Tradition and culture

  The culture to which we belong becomes part of us through socialisation. We come to accept its norms, values, and traditions as part of our identity. Conforming to such traditions is an important way of affirming to one's identity and being accepted as a member of a particular community.
• Socialisation

  The process through which people learn social norms, values, and behaviours through interactions such as school
• Rational ideology

  Used to describe the fact that we internalise social rules and use them to tell us what's right and wrong - enables us to keep within the law
• Agents of socialisation

  People, organisations and institutions that help us learn about our social world
• Family as an agent of socialisation

  • Teaches us beliefs and norms and how social relationships work from an early age
  • Wealthy parents encourage kids to ask questions and challenge authority, while less fortunate kids are less likely to criticise or question authority
• Agencies

  Organisations or institutions that impose rules on us and make us behave in a certain way - includes family, peer groups and education system
• Sanctions

  Positive or negative, used by agencies to impose social control
• Operant learning theory

  Establishes a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behaviour
• Criminal justice system

  Has several agencies of social control each with the power to use formal legal sanctions against individuals, including police, CPS, judges, magistrates and prisons service
• Coercion

  Involves the use of threat or force to make someone do something, such as sending someone to prison
• Fear of punishment

  A way to achieve social control and make people conform to the laws, acts as a deterrence
• Control theory

  Asks why people obey the law, arguing that people conform because they are controlled by their bonds to society
• Elements of bonds to society

  • Attachment
  • Commitment
  • Involvement
  • Beliefs
• Parenting

  Many control theorists emphasize the role of parenting in creating bonds that prevent people from offending, as poor socialization or inconsistent/absent parenting can lead to low self-control and delinquency
• Walter Reckless

  • Points to the importance of parenting and socialisation in providing 'internal containment' through building self-control, and 'external containment' through parental discipline