Assess the extent to which socialization produces conformity in Society

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Sociology assignment

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Assess the extent to which socialization produces conformity in Society

  (25 Marks)

Sociologists regard the process of socialization is very important. They used the concepts of order, social control, conformity and deviance to examine the social life.  Humans learn culture through the process of socialization whereby human will learn the norms and values of society. Different sociological perspectives have different views on socialization. Functionalists, Feminist and Marxist perspectives agreed that socialization produces conformity in society.

Functionalist like Kingsley Davis stated that agencies of socialization are needed to learn the norms and values of society. This statement was supported by an American social psychologist, G.H. Mead who acknowledged that the child learns his social identity through interacting with people, especially his family.  For Mead, the self is divided into the ‘I’ and ‘Me’. The ‘Me’ was the socialized self, but the is the ‘I’ was the unsocialised part which meant that humans has capacity for originality

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The self develops after the child goes through 3 stages of development. Firstly, the preparatory stage . It is when the child imitates and observes the behavior of others. Secondly, the play stage. It is when children no longer simply learn by imitation, they begin to act out the roles.  At the play stage, the child begins to play the role. For example, a 5 year old child playing a game in which he was a doctor. During the play stage , the ‘Me’ begins to develop, as children learn to evaluate themselves from the point of view of ...

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