Secondary socialisation comes after primary socialisation and builds on it. It’s carried out by various institutions. The most important are education, peer groups, religion, mass media and workplace.
The education system aims to pass on knowledge and skills such as reading and numeracy. Learning these skills is a part of socialisation, but sociologists suggest that education socialises individuals in other ways as well. Functionalists, like Durkheim, believe that school promotes consensus by teaching norms and values. They also say children learn to value belonging to a larger group through things like school uniform and assembly. All this is important for fitting into society. In contrast, Marxists, such as Bowles and Gintis (1976) believe education operates a hidden curriculum that socialises pupils into ruling class cultures and encourages them to accept exploitation. The curriculum is the content of education. Marxists reckon there are two sorts – the acknowledged curriculum (maths, English, geography etc.) and the hidden curriculum (doing as your told and not questioning authority).
The peer group is another agent of secondary socialisation. Peer groups are made up of people of similar social status. The peer group can influence norms and values. This can be towards conformity (doing what society likes) or deviance (doing what society doesn’t like). Youth subcultures sometimes encourage deviant behaviour, like joyriding.
Another agent of secondary socialisation is religion. Religion often provides social norms and values. Most religions oppose theft and murder, and teach respect for elders. However, the mass media is also an agent and are powerful in shaping norms and values in the audience. Some sociologists (e.g. Althusser) argue that the media have now replaced religion in secondary socialisation.
As a further agent, the workplace socialisation involves learning the norms and values that enable people to join the world of work, such as being on time and obeying the boss.
Socialisation is the process that turns individuals into members of a social culture. According to some sociological perspectives, an important result of socialisation is that each individual ends up with a number of roles. These are associated with different sorts of status. Your status is your position in a hierarchy. You can have low status or high status. It’s the respect and recognition others give to your position. The Queen is a person, but being Queen is a status. Your roles are the behaviours and actions you take on because of your status. In sociological terms, a role is a set of norms that go with status. The Queen has to meet the public and show and interest, she has to speak to the nation on TV on Christmas Day and she has to travel abroad and meet leaders of other countries. These are all roles. However, this status can be ascribed or achieved. Ascribed status is fixed at birth. For example the Queen inherited her status from her father who was king when he died.
Head teachers, on the other hand, have achieved status. This means they’ve earned it through education and work. This is a very important difference for sociological arguments about gender, class and ethnic identities.
Socialisation puts limits on people’s behaviour (which is regulated by social control). The functionalist Durkheim calls this constraint. If it weren’t for internalised norms and values, people would do what they liked. Internalised norms and values are like having a little police officer inside your head, stopping you from doing wrong and crazy things. Functionalists say that socialisation creates a consensus, where everyone has the same values and norms. It’s important for people to conform to the norms and values of society. When people conform to the expectations, they’re rewarded. When people don’t conform to social expectations, they’re punished. Sociologists call these punishments sanctions. Sociologists call behaviour which doesn’t conform to society’s expectations deviant. There are two types of social control.
Formal social control is where rules imposed by agents of social control such as the police, the courts and the army. E.g. if you stole some money, you could be punished with a prison sentence. Informal social control is where norms and values reinforced by the family, education, media, workplace and peers. E.g. if you refused to contribute to a friend’s leaving present, you might get disapproving looks and comments from other people.
As we can see, there are many views about socialisation.
