Socialization isn’t a one-time or even a short-term event. We aren’t “stamped” by some socialization machine as we move along a conveyor belt and thereby socialized once and for all. Instead, socialization is a lifelong process.

In the United States, socialization throughout the life course is determined greatly by age norms and “time-related rules and regulations” (Setterson, 2002). As we grow older, we encounter age-related transition points that require socialization into a new role, such as becoming school age, entering the workforce, or retiring. For example, the United States government mandates that all children attend school. Child labor laws, enacted in the early twentieth century, nationally established that childhood be a time of learning, not of labor. In countries such as Niger and Sierra Leone, however, child labor remains common and socially acceptable, with little legislation to regulate such practices (UNICEF, 2012).

Gap Year: How Different Societies Socialize Young Adults

Figure 4. Age transition points require socialization into new roles that can vary widely between societies. Young adults in America may enter college or the workforce right away, students in England and India can take a year off like British Princes William and Harry did, while young men in Singapore and Switzerland must serve time in the military, and men and women in Israel serve in the military. (Photo courtesy of Charles McCain/flickr)

Have you ever heard of gap year? It’s a common custom in British society among the upper class. When teens finish their secondary schooling (aka high school in the United States), they often take a year “off” before entering college. Frequently, they might take a job, travel, or find other ways to experience another culture. Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, spent his gap year practicing survival skills in Belize, teaching English in Chile, and working on a dairy farm in the United Kingdom (Prince of Wales, 2012a). His brother, Prince Harry, advocated for AIDS orphans in Africa and worked as a jackeroo (a novice ranch hand) in Australia (Prince of Wales, 2012b).

In the United States, this life transition point is socialized quite differently, and taking a year off is generally frowned upon. Instead, U.S. youth are encouraged to pick career paths by their mid-teens, to select a college and a major by their late teens, and to have completed all collegiate schooling or technical training for their career by their early twenties. In 2017, Malia Obama chose to take a gap year rather and was criticized. Chelsea Clinton and Barbara and Jenna Bush went straight to college when their fathers were President of the United States, which resulted in a full secret service detail at their respective universities. Malia Obama represents a shift in American norms; many elite universities are recommending that students take a year “off” to avoid burnout.

In yet other nations, this phase of the life course often entails conscription, a term for compulsory military service. Egypt, Switzerland, Turkey, Israel, and Singapore all have this system in place. Youth in these nations (often only the males) are expected to undergo a number of months or years of military training and service.

How might your life be different if you lived in one of these other countries? Can you think of similar social norms—related to life age-transition points—that vary from country to country?

Many of life’s social expectations are made clear and enforced on a cultural level. Through interacting with others and watching others interact, the expectation to fulfill roles becomes clear. While in elementary or middle school, the prospect of having a boyfriend or girlfriend may have been considered undesirable. The socialization that takes place in high school, however, often changes our views regarding this expectation. By observing the excitement and importance attached to dating and relationships within the high school social scene, it quickly becomes apparent that one is now expected not only to be a child and a student, but also a significant other. Graduation from formal education—high school, vocational school, or college—involves socialization into a new set of expectations.

Educational expectations vary not only from culture to culture, but also from class to class. While middle- or upper-class families may expect their daughter or son to attend a four-year university after graduating from high school, other families may expect their child to immediately begin working full-time, as many within their family have done before.

The Long Road to Adulthood for Millennials

2008 was a year of financial upheaval in the United States. Rampant property foreclosures and bank failures set off a chain of events leading to government distrust, loan defaults, and large-scale unemployment. How has this affected the United States’ young adults?

Millennials, sometimes also called Gen Y, is a term that describes the generation born from approximately 1982 to 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. While the recession was in full swing, many were in the process of entering, attending, or graduating from high school or college. With unemployment at its second-highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s, large numbers of graduates were unable to find work, sometimes moving back in with their parents and struggling to pay back student loans.

According to the New York Times, this economic malaise is causing Millennials to postpone what most Americans consider to be adulthood: “The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain untethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life” (Henig, 2010). The term “Boomerang Generation” has been used to describe recent college graduates for whom lack of adequate employment upon leaving school often leads to a return to the parental home (Davidson, 2014).

The five milestones that define adulthood, Henig writes, are “completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying, and having a child” (Henig, 2010). These social milestones are taking longer for Millennials to attain, if they’re attained at all. Sociologists wonder what long-term impact this generation’s situation may have on society as a whole.

In the process of socialization, adulthood brings a new set of challenges and expectations, as well as new roles to fill. As the aging process moves forward, social roles continue to evolve. Pleasures of youth, such as wild nights out and serial dating, become less acceptable in the eyes of society. Responsibility and commitment are emphasized as pillars of adulthood, and men and women are expected to “settle down.” During this period, many people enter into marriage or a civil union, bring children into their families, and focus on a career path. They become partners or parents instead of students or significant others.

Just as young children pretend to be doctors or lawyers, play house, and dress up, adults also engage in anticipatory socialization, the preparation for future life roles. Examples would include a couple who cohabitate before marriage, or soon-to-be parents who read infant care books and prepare their home for the new arrival. As part of anticipatory socialization, adults who are financially able begin planning for their retirement, saving money, and looking into future healthcare options. The transition into any new life role, despite the social structure that supports it, can be difficult.

Think It Over

Consider a person who is joining a sorority or fraternity, attending college or boarding school, or even a child beginning kindergarten. How is the process the student goes through a form of socialization? What new cultural behaviors must the student adapt to?

Re-socialization

If socialization is the lifelong process of learning the values and norms of a given society, then re-socialization refers to undergoing this process again by drastically changing one’s values and beliefs. Typically, this occurs in a new environment where the old rules no longer apply. According to Erving Goffman (1961) total institutions such as private boarding schools, the military, jails or prisons, and mental institutions provide such environments because they are effectively cut off from the larger society and are highly regulated. This regulation includes strict norms (i.e., uniform, hairstyle, daily schedule, communication, etc.) and comprehensive rules. Typically, a single authority figure such as a prison warden, drill sergeant, high ranking military officer, or headmaster is in charge and oversees staff to enforce the regulations.

Figure 5. In basic training, members of the Air Force are taught to walk, move, and look like each other. (Photo courtesy of Staff Sergeant Desiree N. Palacios, U.S. Air Force/Wikimedia Commons

Sociologist Harold Garfinkel (1956) coined the term degradation ceremony (also known as “status degradation ceremony”) and described a process through which people who have usually wronged society in some way are marked and punished to reaffirm the existing norms. They are often stripped of their former identity and given a new, lower-status identity. 

Initiation Rituals

On some occasions, degradation ceremonies are used to initiate people into total institutions like schools, mental hospitals, prisons, or military units. The purpose of a ceremony in this context is to deprive people of their former identities and dignity in order make them more accepting of external control. The “perp walk,” wherein a person suspected of committing criminal acts is publicly arrested and led into a police car or station, is a common example of this kind of degradation ceremony. Invasive searches in jails and prisons, being assigned a number, having one’s hair cut and jewelry taken, and being issued a prison uniform are all examples of initiation rituals. Through a variety of such processional steps, one’s identity is diminished and replaced with that of a jail or prison inmate, for example. With the exception of tattoos, any representations of material culture such as piercings or jewelry, is removed. The re-socialization process continues as one learns the systems of value and social norms necessary for survival in this type of total institution. A norm that would have been previously unacceptable, such as using an open toilet in a shared room, is now a daily occurrence. Here the common value of personal privacy has to be discarded to some extent as a result of external constraints. 

When entering the army, soldiers have their hair cut short, their old clothes are removed, and they are issued matching uniforms. These individuals must give up any markers of their former identity as a “civilian” in order to be re-socialized into a new identity as a “soldier.” In the military, soldiers go through basic training together, where they learn new rules and bond with one another. They follow structured schedules set by their leaders. Soldiers must keep their areas clean for inspection, learn to march in correct formations, and salute when in the presence of superiors. Values that might have been part of civilian life such as individuality and privacy are typically discarded in boot camp, an intensive period of time in which soldiers are trained physically and mentally. Marine Corps Boot Camp is intended to “break” incoming civilians and rebuild them as Marines. 

These examples of re-socialization are within total institutions, but the process is sometimes more gentle outside of these extreme environments. To enter a senior care home, an elderly person often must leave a family home and give up many belongings which were part of his or her long-standing identity. Though caretakers guide the elderly compassionately, the process can still produce feelings of loss and disorientation. 

Returning to a more normal life after having lived in a total institution requires yet another process of re-socialization. In the United States military, soldiers learn discipline and a capacity for hard work. They set aside personal goals to achieve a mission, and they take pride in the accomplishments of their units. Many soldiers who leave the military transition these skills into excellent careers. Others find themselves lost upon leaving, uncertain about the outside world and what to do next. The process of re-socialization to civilian life is not a simple one.

Similarly, for people who have spent time in jail or prison, re-socialization to the outside world is extremely difficult. One classic example from The Shawshank Redemption (1994) occurs when “Red” (Morgan Freeman), is released as an elderly black man who had spent his life in prison. He obtains a job working as a bagger at the grocery store and asks the white manager, “Restroom break, Boss?” to which his manager waves him over and says, “You don’t need to ask me every time you need to take a piss.”^[1] This quick exchange signals Red’s difficulty in acclimating to the freedom to use the restroom as needed, and also demonstrates the sweeping societal changes in racial dynamics he missed while in prison. The scene also displays his manager’s discomfort with the racial and age-based dynamics in play. 

Further Research

Homelessness is an endemic problem among veterans. Many soldiers leave the military, perhaps after one or several combat deployments, and experience difficulty re-socializing into civilian life. Learn more about the issues surrounding resocializing veterans.

Think It Over

• Goffman included schools in his list of total institutions. In what ways do schools strip students of their identities and reshape values and norms?
• Do you think re-socialization requires a total institution? Why, or why not? Can you think of any other ways someone could be resocialized?
• What other groups utilize degradation ceremonies to initiate members? What ethical questions do such ceremonies raise?

GLOSSARY

anticipatory socialization:

the way we prepare for future life roles

degradation ceremony:

the process by which new members of a total institution lose aspects of their old identities and are given new ones

hidden curriculum:

the informal teaching done in schools that socializes children to societal norms

peer group:

a group made up of people who are similar in age and social status and who share interests

re-socialization:

the process by which old behaviors are removed and new behaviors are learned in their place

total institutions:

a closed social system that is highly regulated with strict norms, rules and schedules and generally a single authority figure who oversees staff to carry out rule enforcement