Back to Figure
In the graph, bars represent the region of birth for U.S. immigrants across the period 1960 to 2016. The sum of the different percentages of birth regions totals 100 percent.
The X axis denotes the years namely; 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2016.
The Y axis represents the share of total immigrant population and ranges from 0 to 100 percent.
The legend mentions six regions of birth which are; Asia, Africa, Americas, Europe and Oceania as well as an option of Not reported.
Details of the graph are mentioned below;
1960Asia: 5 percentEurope: 75 percentAmericas: 20 percent
1970Europe: 60 percentAsia: 9 percentAmericas: 25 percentAfrica: 1 percentNot reported: 5 percent
1980Europe: 38 percentAsia: 20 percentAmericas: 35 percentAfrica:2 percentNot reported: 5 percent
1990Europe: 22 percentAsia: 25 percentAmericas: 45 percentAfrica: 2 percentNot reported: 6 percent
2000Europe: 17 percentAsia: 25 percentAmericas: 54 percentAfrica: 4 percent
2010Europe: 12 percentAsia: 28 percentAmericas: 55 percentAfrica: 5 percent
2016Europe: 11 percentAsia: 30 percentAmericas: 54 percentAfrica: 5 percent
Back to Figure
The image is a map of the United States that displays the percentage of U.S. population speaking a language other than English at home in 2016.
The legend beside the map shows the percent by Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Area. There are 4 categories; 47.5 percent or more, 23.6 percent to 47.4 percent, 9.7 percent to 23.5 percent and Less than 9.7 percent.
A few states on the west show a large segment of population that speaks a different language. States on the east have very small segments of population that speak a different language. The details are below:
47.5 percent or more: Counties in California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and Florida
23.6 percent to 47.4 percent: Counties in California, Arizona, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Indiana, Florida, Georgia, D.C, New Mexico, Hawaii and Washington
9.7 percent to 23.5 percent: Counties in California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Oregon, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Washington
Less than 9.7 percent: Counties in Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansas, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, and Mississippi.
4 Socialization and Interaction
LEE SNIDER/Alamy Stock Photo
Learning Objectives
4.1 Describe the development of the self.
4.2 Discuss the concept of the individual as performer.
4.3 Explain the significance of socialization in childhood and adulthood.
4.4 Describe the key aspects of interaction with others.
4.5 Identify micro-level social structures.
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Socialization and Variance
Mack Beggs won his weight class in the Texas state wrestling championships in February 2017—in the girls’ league . . . and he won it again the following year. Mack is an 18-year-old transgender boy, but state rules bar him from competing in the boys’ league. The rules say that boys cannot compete against girls and that students are required to compete as the gender noted on their birth certificate. After Beggs’s final competition in an undefeated season, the crowd erupted in both cheers and boos.
Beggs, who began transitioning a year and a half prior to the 2017 championship, has been taking testosterone as part of that process. Some felt that he shouldn’t have been competing against girls because the added testosterone gave him an unfair advantage. A few parents even attempted legal injunctions to prevent Beggs from competing. Ignoring the controversy, Beggs credited his success to his teammates, noting that they all worked hard together. While the public, schools, and politicians debate the fluidity of gender, transgender students like Beggs face pressure to fit in with the social expectations of their peers, their families, and the wider world—and the repercussions when they don’t.
The majority of transgender students from kindergarten through twelfth grade who are out or perceived as transgender while in school experience some form of mistreatment. In 2015, 54 percent acknowledged being verbally harassed, 24 percent said they had been physically attacked, and 13 percent were sexually assaulted because they were transgender. Some (17 percent) experienced such severe treatment that they left school. Such mistreatment due to gender identity or expression is not restricted to peers and schools but may also pervade family and work life. Transgender people have an attempted suicide rate nine times that of the general U.S. population.
Yet despite sometimes violent disapproval from the dominant society, many transgender people continue to express their gender identity (see Trending box, Chapter 9). Research suggests a biological basis for transgender identity. At the same time, behavior and experiences are as influential as biology. You are who you are because of the people, institutions, and social structures that have surrounded you since birth (and that have been in play even before then). You have been socialized to look, think, act, and interact in ways that allow you to live harmoniously, at least most of the time, with those around you. However, at times you may come into contact with those who socialize you into ways at variance with the dominant culture. In extreme cases, such socialization can lead to actions such as those taken by abusers of transgender people. Discovering how socialization and social interaction shape who we are and how we act, as we do in this chapter, is the most basic level of sociological analysis. But, in fact, sociologists are concerned with everything along the micro–macro continuum, which was introduced in Chapter 1. That includes the individual’s mind and self; interactions among individuals; and interactions within and between groups, formally structured organizations, entire societies, and the world as a whole, as well as all the new global relationships of the “global age.”
Sociology’s micro–macro continuum means that rather than being clearly distinct, social phenomena tend to blend into one another, often without our noticing. For example, the interaction that takes place in a group is difficult to distinguish from the group itself. The relationships between countries are difficult to distinguish from their regional and even global connections. Everything in the social world, and on the micro–macro continuum, interpenetrates.
This chapter and the next introduce