In this essay I will be discussing some of the sociological concepts which are used to explain the impact of the social world on our identity. It seems that our primary Socialisation- from our parents and close family plays an important role in our identity. Right from the start parents are conditioning their children to behave in a certain way depending on their gender, using phrases such as 'pretty girl' and 'big strong boy' children form ideas in their heads that this is what they should be.
Painting a baby's room pink or blue depending on their gender and the clothes they wear, also add to the gender stereotype, if people see a baby in a blue baby-grow they will assume it's a boy. Children are also given toys depending on their gender, dolls for girls and cars for boys. Our parents are our first contact with how adults behave, children learn by copying their parents, girls may have a baby doll to look after like mum and boys may have a toy tool kit to fix things like dad, this is children working out their role in society.
Children may look up to an older brother or sister and may strive to be like them especially if they see the older sibling being praised by the parents for say an academic or sporting achievement. Children feel a need to please their parents they like to be praised, given smiles and cuddles so, they behave in a way they know their parents will approve of such as using their knife and folk properly, saying please and thank you etc, this is a form of social conditioning from a very early age children learn what behaviour is socially acceptable.
Schooling plays an important role in our identity too. At school children are expected to adhere to certain rules such as wearing the correct school uniform, being on time for lessons, putting hands up when answering a question, when children do wrong they get punished, detentions and line writing. Again this is conditioning the child to behave in a socially acceptable way. At school boys play rugby and football in P. E whereas girls do netball and hockey for example this is more gender stereotyping, boys are expected to choose to do woodwork or metalwork and girls sewing.
I think children who choose to do a subject which wouldn't normally be for their gender may be ridiculed by their classmates, I think the same can be said for further education in college. Courses such as mechanics is a typically male subject with few girls on the course and subjects such as health care or social work are typically female subjects and have few males on the course. The media has strong messages of expectation of our appearance, popular woman's magazines have skinny, beautiful women on the cover, and celebrities are becoming skinnier and skinnier with much talk recently of some female celebrities being a size 0!
This is a hard image for young girls to live up to these day, we are constantly being given the message that in order to be what society views as beautiful we should wear fashionable clothes, have perfect hair and make up and be unhealthily slim. The increasing number of people who are now having cosmetic surgery surely proves this point women want to be perfect, like a 'Barbie doll' with more and more women having breast implants and liposuction to create this image. The media portray men to be very masculine, strong handsome with tattoos.
I'm sure all these things produce much insecurity in teenagers of both sexes leading to things such as eating disorders and suicide. Again in the workplace there are gender stereotyped jobs. Nursing is a job which I think for men has a stigma attached, it is thought to be a female profession just as doctors or surgeons are stereotyped as male professions. I know from working in a care home that being a care is thought to be a female profession and males who take up this employment are sometimes frowned upon and even thought there could be sinister motives on the reason for taking such employment.
The same I think is considered with the teaching profession, especially for primary school teaching. The teachers are usually female where as the headmaster is usually male. I think this come from the thought that males are stronger in personality and characteristic so more able to manage the stress and demands of higher jobs. This stereotyping can be seen in child's play, when children pretend to play doctors and nurses, a female child would be the nurse and a male would be the doctor, even at a young age the society we live in has pushed its views upon children making them conform to society's norms.
It is so important for children to have strong role models who can provide positive primary socialisation as I think this is one of the first views children have of the adult word and were most of their learning comes from. Children will strive to be like their parents and even older siblings, this is how they know what the world is going to expect from them. Even schooling is important as this may be a first contact with their peer group and children start to learn social skill and how society expects us to behave in certain situations.
The media I think is a negative influence portraying an image of beauty and perfection which can lead to some terrible consequences. From a young age children are bombarded with images of what we should be like and how it is socially acceptable for us to live our lives. But the importance of having all these influences' around us good or bad can be seen by looking at cases of Feral children or children who have been isolated from other human contacts. These children have been denied any socialisation and so do not know how a human should behave.
Children who have been raised by animals often take on the characteristics of the animal such as walking on all fours, barking etc. Children in confinement often can't stand or walk because they have never used the muscles to perform such actions for a long period of time. With nearly all feral child case there has been no communication skills or social skills. This is because they have not been taught or observed such skills. In conclusion I think it is very important for a child to go through the various stages of socialisation because this will help them understand and make sense of the world around them.
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