Class and Agents of socialisation

Class and agents of socialisation. Includes family, education, peers, workplace and mass media, and also criticisms. Enjoy :) 

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  • Created by: Jessica
  • Created on: 15-05-13 10:53
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  • Class and Agents of Socialisation
    • Family
      • Socialisation of norms and values that are class based
        • Meal times-M.C thought to have dinner every evening, sitting down together sharing a meal. Whereas W.C mealtimes are often portrayed as being earlier to coincide with the end of the working day, and are often eaten sat in front of the TV
        • Primary agent of socialisation-gives us primary norms and values.
      • Primary agent of socialisation-gives us primary norms and values.
      • Economic and  cutural capital passed down to children.
        • Reay (1998) M.C are able to influence their children's primary schooling morer than W.C mothers because they have more cultural and social capital.
      • U.C-encourage children to choose partners from other U.C families
        • Old boy network
        • Scott: Class and Social Closure- attempts by member of the U.C to mary off their children to those who are socially, economilcally and politically eligble guarntees the perpetuation of an intensive old boy network and helps promote social closure
      • Carter and Coleman (2006): Planned teenage pregnancies- risk of becoming a teenage mother was almost 10 times more likely for a girl if they come from an unskilled family background than a professional one.
        • Interviews with 41 teenage mums, they found that many spoke of the norm of settling down early; most of their mothers were teenage mums.
        • For girls in the study, family backgraound, and in paticular poverty and disadvantage in childhood, played a major part in their decision to have a baby, they believed it would give them purpose and a new identity.
    • Education
      • Reinforces the culture and values of different social classes
        • Top public schools promote values of conservatism, nationalism, and acceptance of authority and heirarchy that is seen to be the natural outcome of suoperior breeding
          • Roker-studied public schools and suggests that students view themselves as superior to the producte of state schools. She also found that they believed the poor was responsible for its own poverty
      • Curriculum
        • Students who recieve weekly latin lessons, a subject high in cultural capital, is going to have a diffent understanding of the world than those who study vocational courses.
      • Power et al. (2003)- close relationship between children from M.C backgrounds, achievement at top public schools and gaining places at elite universities
        • Suggests that this is not just the result of high achievment, but that these schools actively encourage applications to these universities.
      • Bordieu (1990)- M.C students going to uni. is like being a fish in water compared with the W.C experince of uni. that can be isolating and daunting.
      • Student sub-cultures
        • Paul Willis: Anti school lads and W.C identity-W.C 'lads' Willis studied were not interested in eductaion or qualifications, because they had their minds set on factory jobs.
          • Didn't mean they truanted. the lads actually enjoyed going to school because they could laugh at the expense of teachers and conformist students.
            • Did this by exagerrating W.C values such as toughness, masculinity and sexism.
          • School experience reinforced their W.C identities and acted as a rehersal for the sorts of values and norms they expected to express at work in the factory.
    • Mass Media
      • How class is portrayed on T.V news
        • Glasgow Uni. Media Group found that W.C associated with words like 'trouble' and seen on strike or fighting with police.
          • Neo Marxists- media is acting against anit-captilist groups in order to maintain bourgeoisie ideological control
      • T.V programmes that focus in class
        • 'Shameless'- W.C- aggressive, assertive and good at playing the social security system
        • Medhurst (1999)- group of M.C students watching 'The Royle Family' believed that it was an accurate portrayal of W.C life in modern UK
      • Newspapers take political positions and target paticular S.E.S
        • Daily Mirror 1970s- successfully targeted its paper towards the W.C with ideas and stories linked with the W.C
    • Peers
      • U.C peers central, with the old boy network fuctioning outside schools to confer economic and cultural advantages on its members.
        • Public school and Oxbridge experience is geared to life-long friendship and networking beyond school days.
          • Contibutes to idea of an intergrated elite bound together by common cultural assets
      • School based peer groups that develop along class lines
        • Mac an Ghaill-describes different types of masculinities in a school and locates some of these clearly within different class positions
    • Workplace
      • Collective nature of some occupations
        • Traditionally factories were made up of thousnads of workers who identified strongly with eaxh other and were controlled by minority of supervisors
          • This led to a strong sense that the world was divided into 'them' (bosses), who were only interested in exploitng workers and making a profit, and 'us'.
      • Workers and trade unions
        • Represents  interests and engages in industrial action such as strikes when they feel that these interests were being threatned by managment or government
          • 1984 miners strike- vast majority of miners went on strike over pit closures that threatned their jobs and also the W.C communities
    • Critcisms
      • Concept of class-iddentity socialisation is over-deterministic and paits a over-socialised picture of children
        • Some children actively resist the class identity imposed on them
      • Huge range of variations within each social class that is difficulty to agree on any common characteristics
        • For example M.C includes high earning, high status professionals such as doctors and lawyers, but it also includes owners of small businesses and, according to some sociologists, routine white collar or clerical workers.
      • Postmordernist sociologists such as Pakulski and Walters argue that class is no longer an important source of identity.
        • Instead consumption and leisure are more influential in forming our identities and these cut across class lines.
  • Meal times-M.C thought to have dinner every evening, sitting down together sharing a meal. Whereas W.C mealtimes are often portrayed as being earlier to coincide with the end of the working day, and are often eaten sat in front of the TV
  • School based peer groups that develop along class lines
    • Mac an Ghaill-describes different types of masculinities in a school and locates some of these clearly within different class positions

Comments

Khadija

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amazing!

wngono

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This is a clear and detailed resources which provides students no only with the key agents of socialisation but makes a clear link with the topic of class. This also encompasses the stregths and weaknesses under each aspects and clearly identifies key theorist. An excellent and very useful tool. Great job.

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