Socialization has been defined as “a process in which an individual’s standards, skills, motives attitudes, and behaviors change to conform to those regarded as desirable and appropriate for his or her present and future role in society” (Parke and Buriel, 2008, p. 95). Because of a child’s reliance on their parents from their earliest age for support and sustenance and the central role of parents in the family social system, families play a very important and persuasive part in the socialization process. It is within this system of interacting individuals that children learn the earliest rules about what is expected of them to be part of the society in which they were born. Despite the great changes in families and their composition in industrialized countries like the United States and Western Europe in the past sixty years, the family continues to play this important role during development.
Some secular shifts in the society mores and views have been identified as causes of many of these changes in the family institution (Parke and Buriel, 2008, p. 97). One central change is the decline in fertility and therefore in family size. Certainly the socialization experience is different in a smaller family, where there are just a few children, as compared to a larger family, where each child is just one of many. Smaller families are much more common today than sixty years ago. A further change has been the push back of the age of adulthood, thus prolonging the time spent living dependent on parents and increasing the socialization influence of the family, as compared to earlier times. Increased participation of women in the workforce, thus changing how childcare is handled, is an additional change that has enormous impact on current families and their structure. Finally, the rise in the divorce rate and reduced stigma with out of wedlock births have greatly increased the number of single-parent families and stepfamilies formed through remarriage, all of which have significant impact on what individuals make up families, both present and past for any one individual (Parke and Buriel, 2008, p. 97).
There is no doubt that class, race, gender, and personal choice all play into the ultimate form that marriage and family life takes within a person’s life. Dr. Annette Lareau of the University of Maryland Department of Sociology conducted a very intensive qualitative study of looking at the inter-relationships between social class and race in the family environment and came up with some very interesting conclusions (2007). In particular, she found that although all parents wanted their children to be happy, there were remarkable differences in how this goal was met. For middle-class parents, Lareau called the approach “concerted cultivation” (2007, p. F1). This meant that there were lots of organized activities for the children, close monitoring of school and activities, and a focus on individual development. The result of this was stated to be an “emerging sense of entitlement” (Lareau, 2007).
In contrast, within families of working-class and poor families, the parenting approach was termed “accomplishment of natural growth” (Lareau, 2007, p. F2). There were many less organized activities and the child was left to navigate day-to-day experiences such as school on their own. Because of the general attitude of distrust exhibited for professionals such as school officials and healthcare professionals, Lareau felt the children developed an “emerging sense of constraint” (2007, p. F2). Comparing these two approaches, children of the middle class gained an expectation of institutions to accommodate them and their requests and to feel they had a right to challenge people of authority. They also expect to have the benefits from the world of work. Working class and poor children were not taught these skills and therefore lost potential future benefits.
Lareau went on to interpret her observations from the point of view of varying races – specifically in this study, Caucasian and African-American (2007). She found that African-American parents regardless of class had concerns about the effect of race on their perception in the workplace, as well as the possibility of racial insensitivity toward their children in school. However, in regard to the parenting approaches, the activities of the children, and the rhythms of the family daily life, there were many more parallels between class than there were between race. In other words, middle-class African-American families were much more alike to middle-class Caucasian families than to working or poor African-American families (Lareau, 2007). These insights may prove to be true in other marriage and family life characteristics other than the parenting styles studied by Lareau.
Marriage and family life differences have also been heavily linked to gender. In particular, the rise of single-parent families is highly weighted toward families headed by women rather than men. This increase in single-mother families has played a significant role in the persistence of poverty (Ellwood and Jencks, 2002), and has also played a significant role in the increased spread of inequities between the wealthy and the poorer classes (Deparle, 2012). Because women who become pregnant without partner support are often left to deal with the economic and social consequences of the resulting children, this has resulted in an uneven gender impact of the secular changes with lessening social stigma of out of wedlock birth. As Deparle and Ellwood and Jencks summarize in their articles, there are very real and measurable economic results of this, particularly on women, and they are decidedly negative (2012, 2002).
That is not to say that all changes in the family structure, resulting in more diverse families, have resulted in negative changes. Certainly the societal increase in tolerance of individual differences can be interpreted to be reflective of the broader diversity of families encountered in neighborhoods many more individual’s day-to-day life. It would be expected that persons who grow up with multiple iterations of families and stepfamilies learn to be more flexible and less judgmental. Additionally, people who do not identify with common societal conventions, such as heterosexual orientation or committed marital relationships, are also more likely to find a family structure that fits how they believe they should life their life. Furthermore, although women may be facing significant economic challenges, the expanded role in the workplace has also provided pathways for greater personal satisfaction than what was available when the choices were much more confined to the home or a very few select professions, such as teaching. If a trend did develop toward a more traditional (pre-World War II) family structure, it would be expected that some of the gains in the women’s rights movement would be in danger of regression, because of the less powerful role women play in families of that structure.
With all the changes in the family social structure in the last sixty years, it has become harder and harder to find families that fit a “typical” mold. However, it remains that it is within the family that children receive the greater portion of their socialization, and thus acquire the attitudes and behaviors that will carry them through the rest of their lives. Recent work has indicated that while class, race, gender, and personal choice all play into marriage and family life, it appears that class has a significant impact, particularly in the parenting style adopted during childhood. Although gender has less impact on what roles are considered appropriate than in the past, there are still significant economic hurtles that need to be addressed before gender equality can be claimed. Finally, possibly the greatest beneficiary of the changes in family structure have been those driven by unique personal choices, as today’s world does appear to be ready to accept a much greater variety of social organizations as family than ever before.
References
Deparle, J. (2012 July 14). Economic inequality and the changing family. Economix. The New York Times. Retrieved from
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/economic-inequality-and-the-changing-family/
Ellwood, D. T. and Jencks, C. (2002). The spread of single-parent families in the United States since 1960. Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. Retrieved from
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/inequality/Seminar/Papers/ElwdJnck.pdf
Lareau, A. (2007). Unequal Childhoods: Inequalities in the rhythms of daily life. National Counsel on Family Relations. Family Focus. Retrieved from
https://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/sites/sociology.sas.upenn.edu/files/National_Council_of_Family_Relations.pdf
Parke, R. D. and Buriel, R. (2008). Socialization in the family: An ethic and ecological perspective. In W. Damon and R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Child and Adolescent Development. (95-128). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
