Culture, Socialisation and Social Structure
Culture, socialisation and social structure
Culture is the learned, shared way of life of a group; society is the organized set of relationships. Material culture includes tools and technology; non-material culture includes norms, values, beliefs, symbols and language. Ethnocentrism judges others by one’s own standards; cultural relativism tries to understand a culture in its own terms. Socialisation is lifelong: primary socialisation occurs in childhood through family; secondary socialisation occurs through school, peers, media and workplace. Mead’s role-taking and Cooley’s looking-glass self explain how the self develops through interaction. Freud’s id, ego and superego describe internal controls, while Parsons stressed socialization into shared values.
Structure and institutions
Social structure is the patterned arrangement of statuses, roles and institutions. Status may be ascribed or achieved; roles carry expectations. Institutions such as family, education, religion and polity meet basic needs. A role set is the cluster of roles attached to one status; role strain is difficulty within one role, role conflict between roles.
Worked example
Question: How does school socialize a child? A scoring answer names the hidden curriculum, peer norms, rules, punctuality and achievement values, and links these to secondary socialisation and role learning. It notes that family remains influential, so socialisation is interactive rather than one-way.
Traps
Do not treat culture and society as synonyms. Do not say socialisation ends in childhood. Do not confuse ethnocentrism with cultural relativism.