Ask Yourself
Have you experienced any instances of reverse socialization? For instance, have you taught your parents how to use their smartphones or set up Facebook pages, or has a younger relative or friend introduced you to a new smartphone app? What was this experience like?
Peers
A good deal of socialization in school takes place informally, through children’s interaction with fellow students (see Chapter 11 for a discussion of the role of schools and teachers in the process of socialization). Here primary agents of socialization (peers) compete with secondary agents of socialization (teachers and other employees of the school system; Bukowski et al. 2015). Such informal socialization grows increasingly important as students progress through the school years, especially high school. Peers are also important sources of socialization in contexts outside of school, such as scouting groups and athletic teams (Bennett and Fraser 2000; Corsaro 2018; Fine 1987). For example, researchers have found that children involved in contact sports, such as football and wrestling, are socialized to be more physically aggressive in everyday life (Kreager 2007). Male students (and their friends) who participate in contact sports such as football are more likely to get into serious fights than are nonathletic males or males involved in noncontact sports such as baseball, basketball, and tennis.
As the child matures and spends an increasing amount of time in the company of friends, peer socialization is increasingly likely to conflict with what is being taught at home and in school. Peer involvement in risky and delinquent behavior exerts an influence that is often at odds with the goals set forth by parents and educators (Gardner and Steinberg 2005; Haynie 2001). In Peer Pressure, Peer Prevention, Barbara Costello and Trina Hope (2016) examine the role of friends in both encouraging and preventing deviant or criminal behavior. Based on qualitative data that included analyzing 81 student papers on peer influence and 831 responses to two open-ended questions about peer pressure, they investigated a variety of peer influence mechanisms that had either negative or positive effects. For example, the emulation of an admired role model could have a positive peer influence if he or she set a good example or a negative one if he or she encouraged deviant behavior. Coercive tactics such as appeals to peer loyalty operated in a similar manner—if their peers were all drinking (or abstaining from drinking), study participants stated that they were likely to conform to demonstrate the strength of their friendships. Interestingly, several peer influence mechanisms were more prevalent in affecting deviant behaviors, such as the fear of the loss of status and the presence of onlookers. Costello and Hope emphasize that whether it was negative or positive, the informal social control exerted by peer groups is important when examining childhood socialization.
Peer socialization continues to be important throughout the life course. For example, peers help us learn what we are expected to do at college (Brimeyer, Miller, and Perrucci 2006), at work (Montoya 2005), in social settings (Friedkin 2001), and in civic arenas (Dey 1997), as well as how to be sports fans (Melnick and Wann 2011).
Peers are highly influential in the socialization process, especially during adolescence and early adulthood. What role do you think fellow students play in your socialization? Which ones will most influence you?
Armin Weigel/dpa/Corbis
Gender
Sociologists devote a great deal of attention to gender socialization, or the transmission of norms and values about what boys and girls can and should do (Leaper and Farkas 2015; McHale, Crouter, and Whiteman 2003).
Even before babies are born, their parents (and many others) start to “gender” them (Kane 2018). In the United States they do so by frequently buying blue clothing for boys and pink for girls. Parents often dress baby girls in frilly dresses and affix bows to their bald heads to signal to others that the babies are girls. These gender differences are reinforced by the toys children are often given by parents—trucks and soldiers for boys, dolls and dollhouses for girls. Boys may get toys and games organized around action, activity, and role-playing thought to be appropriate for boys. Girls may get toys and games focused on interactions, relationships, and less active play. Sociologist Emily Kane (2012) found that while parents often want to challenge gender assumptions about what constitute appropriate toys and clothing for children, they are constrained by traditionally gendered structures and social institutions.
As children grow up, they learn from their parents and other significant others (as well as from the generalized other) what behaviors are considered appropriate and inappropriate for their gender. They also learn the consequences, or sanctions, for deviating from these expectations. For example, parents may give a girl a great deal of sympathy when she cries, whereas they may tell a boy to “be a man” and not cry after an injury. Boys may be expected to have an interest in sports, to play roughly with each other, and to be unable to sit still. Girls, in contrast, are expected to display more “ladylike” behaviors, such as sitting quietly and sharing. Many children come to see these traditional gender expectations as “natural” expressions of being male or female. Parents trying to raise boys are more likely to socialize them into narrow gender roles. They cite biology, or “nature,” as the reason for doing so. Parents also do so because they fear social sanctions if they socialize the boys differently.
Beginning in the 1970s the feminist movement challenged traditional notions about the socialization of boys and girls (Lorber 2000). Today, some parents pride themselves on their “gender-neutral” child-rearing (Auster 2016). They socialize their children without rigid adherence to traditional binary gender roles, rejecting the ideas that boys and girls are completely different (Martin 2005). Yet many parents continue to strongly discourage boys from expressing an interest in activities stereotyped as “for girls” (Kane 2006). Illustrating this difference, tomboy can be a positive term applied to a girl who likes physical activity and plays with boys. Sissy, in contrast, is a derogatory term for boys who express an interest in quieter types of play or playing with girls (Thorne 1993). Advice about the differential socialization of boys and girls continues to dominate child-rearing and parenting books, as well as other media (Martin 2005). One recent study found that by the time infants reach the age of 12½ months, they already display preferences for stereotypically gendered toys (Boe and Woods 2017).
Historically, traditional socialization for gender roles has been reinforced in schools, sports, and the mass media. In schools, teachers and curricula once tended to support traditional gender norms, and peer groups were likely to be segregated by gender (Thorne 1993). In sports, girls and boys were channeled into different sports; for example, girls tended to play softball, while boys played baseball (Coakley 2007). When girls did play “male” sports, their efforts were often labeled differently; for instance, girls’ football competitions might be called “powderpuff” football. The passage in 1972 of Title IX of the U.S. Education Amendments, which bars discrimination on the basis of gender in educationally based sporting activities receiving federal funding, has changed such views dramatically. Since the passage of Title IX, women’s athletic activities in college and even in high school have become increasingly visible and, in some cases, more highly regarded as “real” sports. One of the best examples is women’s basketball at the collegiate level. More generally, both men and women are now more likely to seek to build muscular and athletic bodies.
Ask Yourself
Why do you think traditional ideas about gender role socialization in childhood remain strong in U.S. culture today? Do you foresee that they will ever give way entirely to more egalitarian norms? Why or why not?
The media, especially movies, TV, and video games, have also tended to reinforce children’s traditional gender role socialization. However, that, too, is changing. Television programs are increasingly featuring strong female characters (Game of Thrones, Big Little Lies, Veep), and numerous shows have featured female cops and police chiefs (CSI,