Secondary Socialisaton

Is when children begin to become more independent, usually at the point of beginning full-time education. Secondary socialisation reinforces age identity through the peer group. The peer group are a group of people of a similar age who a most likely to be friends. A way in which the peer group may reinforce age identity is when they are more influential, mainly during formative years as a lot of time is spent with the peers during school. Sue Heath (2004) discovered that friendship networks are becoming increasingly important.

However, the peers are not so influential during old age as most social connections take place in the workplace, and old age is ***ociated with retirment therefore the majority of old people are retired. Because they are retired they will have no way of connecting peers as Victor (2005) described old age as a time of lonliness.

Another way in which secondary socialisation reinforces age identity is through the media. The m*** media refers to those media that are designed to be consumed by large audiences through the agencies of technology. Within the media the youth are demonized. Cohen (1980) discovered the behaviour of youth is exaggerated in order to create newsworthiness. As well as demonization, we also see ageism within the media. Ageism is the idea of discrimination and prejudice on the basis of age. Sontag (1978) discovered ageism is reflected through the underepresentation of middle-aged women. Sontg suggests that there is double standard of ageing within the media, especially in television, weherby women are required to be youthful throughout their career but men are not.