The idea of human beings born with certain characteristics that are either superior on inferior has been the motivation for eugenic movements. Eugenics is derived from the Greek word “eu” meaning good or well. Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911) defined it as 'the study of all agencies under human control that may improve or impair...future generations either physically or mentally (Coltrane 328, 2001).' The goal of eugenics was to improve the human race by studying genetic traits and to eliminate the undesirable traits.

In the 20th century, the most brutal result of eugenics was Adolf Hitler and his goal to breed a Master Race through sterilization, breeding, and extermination of people who were not considered a part of the Aryan race. In the US, forced sterilization of the developmentally disabled were mostly “foreign-born” and unskilled laborers (Ibid.,328). After World War II, Hitler's policies turned the Western world away from the concept of a superior human nature, and during the next two decades after the war, the nurture argument gained popularity (Newman 134, 2006). This trend, however, is changing. Currently, the Human Genome Projects and the increasing ability to determine a person's traits have renewed our interest in genetics; some fear that this may lead to a new form of eugenics. Expectant parents can choose to see if their unborn child has any “anomalies” and manipulate their genes.

Most sociologists would not reject the role of nature in the process of socialization and in acquiring “our self”. The discipline acknowledges the interaction between genetics and environment. Most sociologists recognize this interaction and the falsity in claiming that only nurture or only nature shapes our being. They support their claim with the study of twins. Launched in 1979, psychologist Thomas Bouchard of the University of Minnesota and his colleagues conducted a study of 60 pairs of identical twins raised separately. Their findings and other studies conducted on twins shows the role of nature and nurture in developing our personalities.

Sociologists also point to feral children in highlighting the importance of socialization in learning culture. Feral children are children who were deprived of human interaction from a very young age. Without parents or family to teach them social behavior or provide emotional security, these children suffer from underdeveloped language acquisition, social, and mental skills. Unfortunately, there are far too many stories of feral children. In the US, the most infamous and heartbreaking story of a feral child is Genie, who is now an adult from California. When Genie was twenty months old, her father, thinking that she had developmental problems locked her in a room without light and with the door shut. The only human interaction she had was with her brother and mother when they fed her. Day and night, Genie was either tied to her potty chair or wither her arms immobile in a sleeping bag. She never developed language or social skills expected even after rehabilitation. Genie frequently masturbated in public. Although Genie's story and behavior is not completely representative of feral children, her case is an example of what happens when humans are not “taught” culture.

Another feral child, Oxana Malaya of Ukraine, provides another case where a child is isolated from human interaction, but found company with dogs. Unlike Genie, Oxana's socialization is with animals, and she adapted behavioral habits similar to dogs. As of 2008, Oxana is 25 and can speak, but lives in an institution for the mentally disabled. Children have a window of acquiring language and other human skills required to live in current society. These feral children are a testament to the importance of interaction, and to those who are reading this book, the role families play in the initial stage of the socialization process. Without the attention given to us by our families from birth, we probably would not acquire the skills to read!

For sociology, our idea of who we are is tied with the the process of socialization. Who we are is defined by what surrounds us and our interaction with society. The three theoretical perspectives have distinct ways of analyzing how the concept of self develops. George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) takes on the symbolic interactionist perspective. For Mead our sense of self develops based on communication, through language, play, and game. It is through our interactions that we realize who we are. Our selves are reflective in the sense that our reactions and experiences with others are part of what makes us who we are. In language, play, and game, the key to being aware of who we are is the concept of role-playing. Observing how young children play, they take on different roles (mother, father, cook, nurse) and learn how to be the “other” person. In the play stage, by taking on various roles, children develop a self-awareness.

In developing their sense of self, a child also learns to distinguish others. The communication skill they use in the play stage is reflected in their everyday interactions: children become aware when they are dealing with friends, if they are dealing with mom, or dad. The child learns how to present a self depending on who they are communicating with. They know not to ask for milk from their playmate, that is either mom or dad's role. For Mead, the way children play provide social and psychological insights into how they their perception of self is developing.

After the play stage, children develop a more social self in the game stage. Unlike the play stage, the game stage is where children have a more complex form of role-playing. At this stage, children are not just aware of who they are in a given situation and the one person they are communicating with, but they understand the roles of ALL other players in a game. This is where children start playing more organized sports (soccer, basketball). In soccer for example, they distinguish between the goal keeper, the forward, their teammates etc. Aware of the rules of the game, the child acts and reacts accordingly. Applying the game stage to everyday life, the child learns to act not just in front of friends or mom and dad, but the child realizes that there are certain behaviors that are not just unacceptable for mom or dad, but they are not acceptable period.

The same is true for behaviors that are rewarded and acceptable. For example, a child learns that when mother tells him/her to wipe the mouth when there is food is not just mom's point of view, but is a general point of view. Mead calls this the development of the generalized other. The child is now aware of how various social settings and society as large expect people to behave, not just mom.

While Mead focuses on how the self develops, it is important to highlight that how the self relates to society varies across cultures and groups. In individualistic societies such as the US, who we are is related to what we have achieved as individuals. We introduce ourselves by our first names (not our last names), and our professions.

In contrast, subcultures such as gangs have a collectivist culture. A gang acts as a unified unit. If you are a member of a gang, the gang's rivalries are your enemies whether or not they offended your directly or personally. Your identity is tied with the gang. In Pakistan where individuals are tied to family, the case of Mukhtar Mai shows how a woman paid for her brother's actions. Mai is from a remote village in Pakistan. Her brother allegedly had a affair with a girl from another more influential tribe. The girl's action caused the family their honor, and to avenge the family name, the village court or jirga, ruled that Mai would be gang raped. Traditionally, women raped in Pakistan were expected to commit suicide because of shame, but Mai defied tradition and instead took the men to court. Mai is now a social activist and is the voice for equal rights for women in Pakistan. Even though uneducated herself, she built her own school with the money she has received from the lawsuit and with the help of international donors. Honor rapes, and in some cases honor killings, are examples of how a family member's crime or shame, becomes a familial affair. In collectivists societies, our self-identities are tied to our larger social networks.

For the functionalist perspective, socialization is an important aspect of stabilization. Through socialization we learn our place in society. Different social categories, whether it is social class, race, ethnicity, or religion, are socialized distinctively. Social institutions are the purveyors of social norms and it is in these setting where people learn their place in society. On the other hand, for the conflict perspective, social institutions only help foster the existing inequality present in society. Institutions exists to preserve the status quo.

The family is considered to be the main agent of socialization. Families are not homogeneous and different families offer different types of socialization. For example, a child growing up in a single-parent home will have a different socialization experience if living in family with both parents. Lower, middle, and upper class families also have competing beliefs when it comes to family values, which affects socialization. For the functionalist perspective, families are influential in shaping our career and future decisions. Imagine, if your mother was an astronomer, you would probably get an elaborate and scientific answer if you asked her about the stars. This in turn would pique your curiosity and will most likely lead you to a career in a similar field. The principle holds for kids whose fathers are musicians, athletes, and other professions. Parents who have college degrees or professional degrees are also more likely to encourage their kids to attend college. Some children are afraid to “end up like their parents”, but the socialization process makes this a legitimate fear.

Unlike families, rules and guidelines in schools are codified and children are socialized introduced to formal disciplining. Children learn to ask permission to talk and go to the bathroom. Children learn the concept of time and obedience. For the functionalist perspective, not only does school teach us our subjects (math, science, reading, writing), but in school we learn to become passive and well-behaved employees. This is the latent function of schools.

With working parents and busy schedules, the TV and the internet have become an important source of information and values in building our self-identity. In Born to Buy (2004), Juliet B. Schor discusses the “commercialization of childhood” and the influence of advertisements in our kids lives. From commercials that encourage kids to pester moms for unhealthy food to the aggressive advertising campaigns that glorify money (87), kids are overstimulated and alarmingly more depressed that ever. Our identities are tied with commercialization and the need to buy. If you want to be a rebel, you buy a Che Guevarra T-shirt. If you want to be Goth, you buy black clothes. What the media tells us is that clothes make up our self-identity. Stuff seems to speak louder than actions.

Unlike family, most people get to choose their own friends. However, if the central tenets of socialization are applied, we may think we choose our friends, but our statuses (ascribed and achieved) have already, at some level, predetermined the people we are going to interact with. For example, it is highly unlikely that a lower class person will ever be friends with someone of Bill Gates stature. A five-year old will most likely be friends with people of the same age range than a teenager. It is not impossible, but highly unlikely. Unlike family, our friends and their make-up may also change depending on our self-identity. Keep in mind that self-identity is not static and change through time. It is possible that only after our self-identities are formed do we look for friends whom we are compatible with. If we decide to have a change of self-identity, we may also decide to start hanging out with different groups of people.

One aspect of our identity that requires socialization is gender. For sociologists, what we associate with being a female (pink, dolls, skirts) and male (blue, trucks, neckties) have to be learned as part of culture. The sociological conception of gender has been researched by neurological, psychological, and biological researchers alike. An example is the study conducted by neuroscientists Anya Hulber and Yazhu Ling of Newcastle University in Great Britain. Published in 2007, “Biological Components of Sex Differences in Color Preference” is a study conducted to test whether there are certain colors preferred by females and males. Researchers had 203 subjects ages 20 to 26. While most were British, 37 of the subjects were of Chinese origin and raised in China. They included these in their sample in order to do a cross cultural comparison and see whether it was being female or culture that cause color preferences.

In the study, subjects were given a variety of mixed colors to choose from, and their results showed that women tended to prefer colors that moved away from the blue and more towards the red. This was true for both the British and Chinese females, so researchers claimed that it was femaleness and not culture that dictated the preference.

In their conclusion, however the neuroscientists still relied on evolutionary theory to explain the differences. They speculated that the sex difference may have been a result of “evolutionary division of labour”--thus, the difference we see is still a product of the environment. Hulber and Ling reported that “the hunter-gatherer theory proposes that female brains should be specialized for gathering-related tasks and is supported by studies of visual spatial abilities...adaption in primate evolution thought to have evolved to facilitate the identification of ripe, yellow fruit or edible red leaves embedded in green foliage.” In general, however, both males and females seem to prefer blue in general, and the researchers believe that “girls' preference for pink may have evolved on top of a natural, universal preference for blue (R624-R625).”

The universal preference for blue may evolve from the preference for blue skies, which is a sing of good weather or good water source. The pink phenomenon has been a puzzle for social scientists. Historically, it was only in the 1920s when started dressing their children in colors. In an ironic twist, the colors were reversed: pink was for boys and blue for girls. Blue was associated with “delicate and dainty” and pink “a stronger color (Guardian 8/25/07).” Prior to the 20s, children wore white and both girls and boys wore what we would now consider as dresses.

Socialization is a dynamic process and members of societies are continuously socialized into different groups. For example, a man who goes to prison needs to “learn” how to live in prison. Similarly, an inmate released from prison has to “relearn” the implicit social rules in society. Even changing jobs or acquiring a new career requires some level of socialization. For example, doctors have to be socialize to deal with death and sickness in a different way compared to the rest of society.

• Eugenics
• Feral Children
• Resocialization
• Role Playing
• Play Stage
• Game Stage
• Individualistic Societies
• Collectivist Culture
• Agents of Socialization
• Gender Socialization
• Resocialization