Institution Of Learning: Culture & Socialization, Life Course (Book Review Sample)

Assignment
Student’s Name
Institution of Learning

Q1.
One of the most interesting theories for me is Goffman’s theory of presentation of the self. The author of the theory considers people’s behavior as the act of performance. People behave in a way in order to appeal to a certain audience. In other words, people are actors and they play their social role. It is interesting, as people behave differently at home, at work, with relatives, or with friends (Shaefermods, chapter 04).
Another interesting theory for me is the looking glass theory. The theory considers learning and improving personality and identifying oneself with the help of social interactions and viewing one from their own perspective. In other words, a person has to understand how other people see him through interactions and his actions. With this theory the person could actually see himself from the side and see how other people react to him, which is a very useful feature. Indeed, some people might not understand the reasons behind people’s opinion or their attitude towards an individual; thus, the looking glass could actually provide tools to see the person through the eyes of people he interacts with constantly (Rousseau, 2012). It is obvious that the person behaves differently with parents, partner, colleagues, and strangers.
(205 words)
Q2.
I agree with this definition to a certain extent since it is not a full description of the sociological theories. The sociological theories analyze and focus on the human interactions, human behavior, and the sociological factors that influence this behavior. As a matter of fact, the definition provided includes only these fields of sociology; however, the study does not only examine humans. It also examines society and individuals of this society as well. The correlation between the individual in society and their mutual influence on each other. In addition, sociology also analyzes the past and the potential future trends or projections, according to which the society would change. Therefore, sociology focuses on lots of elements that are part of society or might be an influential factor on this aspect of life. The definition does not provide the understand of the sociology and the major element of the science – society at all. It only concentrates on individual members – humans and their own identification or behavior. For sure, it is a part of the science; however, it focuses on society more than on a single individual. However, a small part of society is a single individual. Usually, the study also tries to find some rules, ideas, and concepts that are the same within different societies. Therefore, it has much bigger scale than the original definition of the study and its main area of activity.
(232 words)
Q3.
Before I did not realize how the socialization was important. I knew it was an essential step in life of people in order to be able to communicate and coexist in society, be able to behave approrpitely, to differentiate normal and abnormal types of behavior and communication. However, I did not know that socialization takes place not only in the early childhood. As a matter of fact, I thought that the socialization only occurs during the first 5-6 years. However, the study reveals that the sociology actually has several stages, such as preparatory stage, play stage, game stage (Shaefermods, chapter 03). There is even socialization of the adult individuals, for example, in university/college or even at work. Indeed, the socialization does not only occur in the early childhood and it was a big revelation for me. As a social creature individuals usually have to learn something in the new society, community or environment in order to be able to act within it organically. In order to be a part of the team of workers at work, people have to agree to preserve certain attitude and approach to the different issues. At the same time, it is also necessary to consider an idea that the socialization of adults usually is almost similar to the child ones. For instance, for the first time at work among other employees a person would try to learn how typically people behave there, what is appropriate interaction and what is considered irrelevant or even intimidating. In addition, it is also necessary for the adults to correlate with the rules and the norms that exist within the particular group of people and this ability to learn how to behave in the environment comes from the socialization.
Apart from that, I also found out about cultural relativism and universals. These aspects are different, as the cultural relativism states that the specific society creates its own values and norms. These norms are usually developed under the influence of lots of factors, involving, culture, history, religion, geographical location, language, politics, economy and many other factors. Therefore, each society is different, even though a lot of western societies seem almost the same, they have different values. For example, to compare the Swedish society with the American one. The major values regarding the human life would be the same; however, other principles would be different, as the countries and the societies within these countries have different ways of development. The universals on the contrary suggest that there are certain principles i...