4.4 Socialization

LO 4.4: Examine how socialization occurs. 

People learn, create, and keep culture in interaction with one another throughout their lives. Sociologists use the term social reproduction to refer to how culture reproduces itself. One of the primary ways social reproduction occurs is through socialization. Socialization is the lifelong process of learning, embodying, and negotiating our culture.

Socialization can sometimes be forceful by implementing sanctions for violating norms. A teacher may punish a child for talking out of turn so that the child learns to wait for their turn to speak. People, however, are not passive vessels in which others socialize into conformity. They have the power—sometimes more, sometimes less—to exercise agency during socialization. Teenagers, for instance, develop slang that they understand and teach to other teenagers, but not to their parents or teachers.

Moreover, the norms of socialization can and do change over time. For instance, the recognition of neurodiversity, the reality that different minds think differently, has led to changes in the socialization of neurodivergent people, including people with autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and so on. Throughout the 1960s, autistic children and adults were often institutionalized or forced into conformity. Autistic rights advocates contend that some therapies still in use today are physically harmful (Silberman, 2016). Today, there is a broader acceptance of neurodiversity. This acceptance has led to more freedom for autistic and other neurodivergent people to be themselves.