Secondary Socialisation occurs from late childhood and continues as we mature into adults. It teaches us how to behave as human beings by helping us to learn the values, norms, statuses and roles of our culture. According to Talcott Parsons, the main purpose of Secondary Socialisation is to free us from the attachments we have with our primary agents. In other words it makes us the individuals that we become in adulthood. Like primary socialisation it still consists of Agents and Agencies but unlike primary socialisation it is learnt from people who are not emotionally close to us. In fact, we don’t even need to meet secondary agents. For example, an admired celebrity endorsing a particular product through advertising can influence an admirer to imitate them and purchase that product.
One of the main differences between primary and secondary socialisation is the stage at which they take part in an individual’s lifetime. Primary socialisation is responsible for teaching us mechanical skills such as walking and talking as well as shaping our psychological behaviour by teaching us the difference between right and wrong whilst secondary socialisation teaches us the nature of our society and how to behave within our culture and is normally associated with teens and adults.
The relationships an individual has between agents of primary and secondary socialisation is also very different. We can communicate openly and intimately with our most important primary agency – our family. However, we have to learn how to deal with others outside of primary agencies. This is because the vast majority of people we will come into contact with during adulthood will be dealt with unemotionally. Secondary socialisation is important because it teaches how to cope with this interaction.
A key responsibility of primary socialisation is how children learn gender roles. It is almost certainly unconsciously that children learn their gender as a child does not completely understand gender until they are five or six years old. From when they are born, infants are given clues as to their gender. For example, in an experiment five mothers were observes interacting with a 6 month old child called Beth. They would smile at the baby, offer her doll’s and though she was “sweet” and that she had a “soft cry”. Another group of young mother’s were introduced to a baby of the same age called Adam. The reaction of this group was noticeably different to the first and Adam was offered “male” toys to play with such as Trains. In fact, Adam and Beth were the same child dressed differently (Will et al. 1976). This points to the fact that as primary agents, parents have an ideology of how children should be raised within their society and culture. In turn, the child will grow up with the same ideal view of how children should be raised dependant on their gender. By the time we reach an age where secondary socialisation can influence us we already know what gender we are and how we should behave. However, agencies of secondary socialisation such as peer groups are still responsible for reinforcing gender roles.
In summary, we have looked at certain key points about primary and secondary socialisation such as when they occur and what they teach us and it is reasonable to conclude that there are some vast differences between the two. Although they follow the same structure in that they both have socialising agents and agencies, there is a vast difference between what these agents and agencies teach us and what their purpose is. However, they are both vitally important when it comes to making an individual who they become in later life.
Bibliography
Giddens, A. 2006. Sociology 5th Edition, Polity Press, Cambridge
20th Nov 2007
