Multimedia and Discussion Questions

Chapter 5: Building Identity: Socialization

- Video Links
  - ‘Tiger Cub’ Discusses Book Uproar with ‘Tiger Mom’
    JuJu Chang and Amy Chua discuss Chua’s book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Response to Chua’s book has been divided with many praising her “Chinese” parenting and others charging that this form of mothering is actually abusive. Chua says that both her book and her approach to childrearing have been misunderstood.

Discussion Questions:
1. Chua says that there are critical differences between Chinese and Western parenting styles. What are these? How do these differences affect children?

2. What reason does Chua give for “pushing” her children to excel?

3. What roles do culture and ethnicity play in the controversy surrounding Chua’s book?

4. Do we tend to think that there is a single “right” way of parenting children?

5. Near the end of the clip, Chang mentions an op-ed piece written by David Brooks of the New York Times. What criticism did Brooks level at Chua? How does this criticism reflect a difference in belief about the relative influences of family and peer groups as agents of socialization?

- Training With Special Forces
  Nightline follows Green Berets on a training mission.

Discussion Questions:
1. The men are all dressed alike. From the back, it is difficult to tell one man from another—they are virtually indistinguishable as individuals. What is the purpose of this?

2. Early in the segment Koppel notes that the men are trained to be “self-sufficient.” But, following an incident, one trainee remarks that he was “surprised” that one man’s injury could take “one quarter of the team out of action.” Discuss how looking after oneself—including avoiding injury—is something one does not only for oneself, but for “the group.”

3. What is the point of having the trainees enact potential scenarios and interactions? What terms would a sociologist use to describe these activities?

4. What is the difference between training a “warrior” and training a soldier?

5. Captain Chang made a bad decision and this cost him not only a mission, but a promotion. How did gender factor into the bad decision?

6. The master sergeant says he is looking for men who are “independent” and have the ability to “think outside of the box.” How might the training the men receive conflict with these ideals?

- The Soldier’s Heart
  How are the men and women who serve in the armed forces during wartime changed by their experiences? What is being done to address the social and psychological problems faced by soldiers? This program examines the costs incurred by veterans and considers what is being done (and what should be done) to support them.

Discussion Questions:
1. In this program, the soldier’s problems are explained psychologically. Can you explain them sociologically?

2. How has the experience of war affected their selves and identities? Do the soldiers give you any insights into the construction of a looking glass self? If so what are they?

3. How do you think their military socialization plays into the situation? What are the consequences of being in, and out of, a total institution (i.e., boot camp and the military in general) for the soldiers?

- Inside the Teenage Brain
  Neuroscientists are learning more about the ways in which our brains work and finding provocative explanations for why adolescents think and act in the ways they do. Many of their findings draw attention to the importance of strong family bonds and social relationships for adolescents’ individual development.

Discussion Questions:
1. In this program, children’s behavior is primarily explained from a neuroscience perspective. How might it be explained from a sociological perspective?

2. How does social class or race and ethnicity play a role in the socialization process of an adolescent?

3. Provide one example of gender socialization as seen in the program.

- Things I Don’t Understand About Girls by Jenna Marbles
  Jenna Marbles has developed a large online following, largely as result of her frank discussions about gender and sex. In this video Jenna discusses the seemingly peculiar things that women do, such as “goo hoarding”—acquiring a keeping numerous beauty products, like shampoo and lip gloss. Warning: contains language that some may find offensive.

Discussion Questions:
1. Were any of the habits described by Jenna familiar?

2. Why do you think that she has developed such a following?

3. How did you react to her rant? Did you find it funny? Offensive? Baffling? Explain your reaction.

- Audio Links
  - Biracial Children Learn to Self-identify
    Authors Orenstein, Fulbeck, and Durrow talk with Michel Martin of Tell Me More about what it means to be biracial.

Discussion Questions:
1. Fulbeck observes—and the other panelists agree—that people are always trying to “box us in” by assigning us to particular racial and ethnic categories. But, they say that we are free to decide and no one gets to tell us who we are. Is this true? Are we free to decide for ourselves?

2. Orenstein says she once thought that it was her responsibility to teach her daughter about gender and it was her husband’s responsibility to teach their child about race and ethnicity. What was her reason for this? Why did she change her mind?

3. Orenstein says that people often asked about her daughters racial heritage and origins. When asked “Where did she come from?” Orenstein would reply “She came from my uterus.” Does this response address the question being asked? Why or why not? Why do you think people were curious?

- Saving Our Daughters from an Army of Princesses
  Author Peggy Orenstein discusses her book Cinderella Ate My Daughter, a book about raising her daughter, Daisy. Orenstein has written a number of books and articles about how our gendered socialization practices shortchange girls and women.

Discussion Questions:
1. Orenstein refers to fears about not being able to raise the ideal daughter. What does she mean by this?

2. What did Orenstein learn about the emergence of the “princess” culture?

- This American Life 109: Notes on Camp
  This program presents stories of summer camp. Camp kids explain how their non-camp friends and their non-camp loved ones have no idea why camp is the most important thing in their lives.

Discussion Questions:
1. Does summer camp seem like an important moment in the socialization of the kids who attend? Why or why not? If so, how?

2. How does camp affect the selves and identities of the young people in the stories?

3. What is the role of gender in the socialization experiences at camp?

- This American Life 137: The Book that Changed Your Life
  Socialization is defined as the process through which one learns how to act according to the rules and expectations of a particular culture. Various people, social institutions, and material culture, such as books, influence the socialization process for each individual. This program is based on the stories of people who believe a book changed their life. It's a romantic notion, and one reason we believe it is because we want to believe our lives can be changed by something so simple as an idea — or a set of ideas contained in a book.

Discussion Questions:
1. How are the people presented in this episode changed by what they read?

2. How can illiteracy stifle the socialization process for those that live in developing countries?

3. How does social class play a part, if any, in the socialization process in each story?

- Web Resources
  Professional Resources
  - Social Psychology
    The study of socialization is often engaged in by social psychologists, such as those belonging to the American Sociological Association (ASA) Section on Social Psychology.
  - Sociology of Children and Youth
    Although they are interested in the health and well-being of children generally, some member of the ASA Section on the Sociology of Children and Youth also study the process of socialization.
  - The Society for Personality
    The Society for Personality and Social Psychology, with over 3,000 members, is the largest organization of social and personality psychologists in the world [self-description].
  - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
    These scholars often publish their research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

> Data Resources

- NORC
- The General Social Survey (GSS): The GSS is a regular, ongoing omnibus personal interview survey of U.S. households conducted by the National Opinion Research Center. The first survey took place in 1972, and since then more than 40,000 respondents have answered more than 3,500 different questions. From Americans’ racial attitudes to the number of guns owned by women to musical preferences over a lifetime, the General Social Survey measures the trends in American attitudes, experiences, practices, and concerns [self-characterization].

> Other Resources

- The Social Psychology Network
  The Social Psychology Network is the largest social psychology database on the Internet [self-description].
- Sociological Tour Through Cyberspace
  Michael Kearl’s Sociological Tour Through Cyberspace: Social Psychology
- Human Genome Project
  The question of the relative importance of “nature” and “nurture” in individual development is an enduring one. The effort sponsored by the United States government to map the entire human genome sequence in the Human Genome Project raises both scientific and ethical issues about human personhood.
- The Child Development Institute
  The Child Development Institute was founded by Robert Myers, Ph.D. Dr. Myers is a Clinical Child Psychologist with 25 years of experience working with children, adolescents, families and parents.
- Intersex Society of North America
  How many sexes are there and why? The reality of anatomical hermaphrodites or “intersex” persons force us to confront this question.
- Much stereotypical gender role socialization takes place through the medium of popular culture. Consider how boys and girls are differentially socialized at the following Web sites:
  The toymaker Mattel
  The clothing company Baby Gap
  Walt Disney movies and videos
- Implicit Association Test
  “It is well known that people don't always 'speak their minds', and it is suspected that people don't always 'know their minds'. Understanding such divergences is important to scientific psychology. This web site presents a method that demonstrates the conscious-unconscious divergences much more convincingly than has been possible with previous methods. This new method is called the Implicit Association Test, or IAT for short.”