Socialization is a lifelong process of inheriting and disseminating norms, ideologies, and customs that equip an individual with skills that will allow him or her to participate within the society (Grusec 617). It is a continual process throughout an individual’s life and guarantees that social order will be replicated from generation to generation. The major forms of socialization are broad and narrow which can be compared by a consideration of various sources including family, community, school, peers, media, the workplace, the legal system and the cultural beliefs of a system (Arnett 620). Another important aspect to consider in broad and narrow socialization is the goal with the former purposing to promote independence, self-expression, and individualism. On the contrary, the latter requires that people are obedient, live up to their cultural expectations, and conform to rules (Grusec 244). The same sociocultural factors have indoctrinated divisions between male and female in terms of their roles, behavior and what is expected of them right from infancy to adulthood. At each stage, a child internalizes a system of roles. This work, therefore, looks at the broad versus narrow socialization aspects of the four stages of the lifespan.
Infancy
This is an early stage that begins with the birth of a child, either boy or girl. It is basically the first year of life, but a very important stage of human development. The stage is also called oral (Kumar para.2). Under broad socialization, at birth, an infant is expected to breathe himself. At that point, the caregivers must protect them from cold, wetness and other discomforts. Infants rely on people in their lives to meet their needs and for everything, they cry. By crying, the infant establishes its oral dependency (Kumar para. 4).
Under narrow socialization, infants develop expectations about feeding times. They also learn to give signals to their feelings. Here, the baby is involved with himself and the mother. If another person or the father provides proper care for him, the person performs the mother’s role. As these people meet their needs, the infants learn to trust them. Importantly, a child merges his or her identity with that of the mother. The only thing the infant does is to establish control over the hunger drive (Hacker, Hüttl and Stock 13). The infant's ability to socialize is limited to the mother as her efforts are geared towards discovering what s/he can do on their own like grabbing and picking objects among other skills. Moreover, baby names are given depending on the sex.
Childhood
At this stage, children start to explore and start becoming independent. The earliest socialization for impulse control, learning of first roles, and playing with other children takes place at this stage. Social skills require fine-tuning through trials and errors. In societies practicing narrow socialization, especially in developing nations, children acquire knowledge and use it in their childhood years. In the course of their lives, they use the knowledge they accumulated in childhood. They grow up working under the supervision of adult members of the society. Resultantly, in their youth, they do not exhibit variability in moral outlook and grow up with a continuous sense of independence.
Children who live in societies practicing broad socialization most socialization takes place in schools, where it is influenced by factors such as values of families children belong to, the community and the belief system of the culture (Hacker, Hüttl and Stock 14). In countries like Japan, students and pupils are mandated to obey their teachers and conform to a high academic performance standard. The classroom environment, in this case, reflects the narrow socialization of the whole culture. Likewise, in families, children are socialized in obedience, self-denial, good values and responsibility (Arnett 619). To that culture, it is shameful to do the opposite. Such values are socialized in a subtle way without harsh reprimands or punishment. In Japan, the community has a strong sense of neighborhood identity which is maintained in all parts of the country; one of the reasons crime rates are low in Japan (Arnett 620).
On the contrary, the cultural belief system of the US emphasizes narrow socialization values, for example, humility, self-denial, and responsibility to a group. In the country, the values are promoted than individual rights. In addition, socialization is geared towards broad socialization as reflected in classrooms. The emphasis in American schools is on self-esteem and self-expression (Arnett 621). Parents and teachers suspect the demands for conformity but do not emphasize obedience. Similarly, with the current measure in American education of making the classroom learning largely individualistic with the teacher majorly attempting to tailor the curriculum to every child is an example of broad socialization practice that enhances individualism.
Under narrow socialization, boys are expected to wear blue, have short hair and play with cars. The girls, on the other hand, need to wear pink, have long hair and play with dolls. For example in Amish cultures, parents teach children gender-specific roles and focus on religious education rather than secular education (Wang 3).
Adolescence
Under broad socialization, in a family set up, adolescents are expected to respect their elders. They follow a general cultural pattern that has been modified by their parents depending on their personalities and preferences. Extended family plays an important role in the socialization of adolescents in the family especially in non-Western societies, where children are raised in an extended family setting. They have their grandparents, uncles, aunties cousins, and older siblings as part of their daily socialization environment. However, in American and most western cultures, the extended family does not play a huge role in socialization. As such, children are less embraced in the family environment and are more exposed to socialization influences outside the family such as school, peers, television, and caregivers (Kumar para.9). This promotes broad socialization as children are exposed to a greater range of possible influences. On the other hand, in narrow socialization, adolescents are restricted by both their parents and culture. There are activities that children at this stage should not do until they are adults. Therefore, their freedom is limited. In contrast, in broad socialization, adolescents have the freedom, for instance, to choose friends and what to wear.
Adolescents practice narrow socialization by choosing to spend time with their peers and participating in a given activity in disregard of the consequences. For example, adolescents can decide to take alcohol and use other drugs. On the same note, parents and concerned friends practice broader socialization by condemning the actions. It is important to note that as much as adults have the freedom to take alcohol, they disapprove its use among the youth as they are aware of the harm it can cause on the young ones’ cognitive development.
In terms of gender, girls and boys are subjected to different socialization requirements. Where there is an existence of gender differences, the socialization of girls is narrower than that of boys (Arnett 624). It is evident that the impulse control requirements for girls are greater than for boys. As a matter of fact, girls in adolescence are expected to work more and to be more responsible. The duties come with an obligation for the girls to obey and conform to the duties’ requirements. Additionally, in cultures where sexual behavior is strictly regulated, the regulations majorly apply to girls than they do to boys.
Adulthood
This is where gender roles strongly come into play. Adults have defined roles. For instance, both men and women are expected to work. The workplace replaces schools as places where they spend a substantial part of their waking hours on a daily basis. In most work settings, socialization is narrow. This is in lieu of the fact that work roles consist of performance expectations; accompanied by rewards and punishments. In industrialized cultures, work settings are hierarchical. Each person in a firm is under the authority of another person. That authority enforces conformity to the occupation role expectations (Kachel, Steffens, and Niedlich 956).
Under broad socialization, there is variance in terms of when individuals make transitions of completing education, taking on full-time employment, marrying and becoming a parent due to the fact that they have rights to make the transitions based on their developmental readiness and preferences (Kachel, Steffens, and Niedlich 956). In narrow socialization, on the other hand, regardless of an individual’s preferences, role transitions take place at a culturally specified time. In non-western cultures, there is little variance in terms of role transitions. For instance, the marriages are arranged for young people according to the time considered culturally appropriate (and not according to the readiness of an individual).
Under narrow socialization, men must be protectors and providers of the family whereas women must be responsible for nurturing, cleaning, cooking and childbearing. In Islamic states, it is the parent’s responsibility to prepare children for future mentally; by educating secularly and religiously, morally by teaching them ethics by displaying good values and physically by keeping the children clean and well fed. Parents who stick to the rules of their culture in parenting practice narrow socialization. Those who go beyond the parenting set requirements in their cultures, employ broad socialization.
Conclusion
Narrow socialization revolves around divisions of gender roles, strict historical expectations of each gender in terms of actions and the place they hold in society. The expected behavior eventually formalizes into roles. Broad socialization, on the other hand, encourages independence not just in family but through other sources of socialization.
Works Cited
Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen. "Broad and Narrow Socialization: The family in the context of a cultural theory." Journal of Marriage and the Family 57.3 (1995): 617-628.
Grusec, J. E. "Socialization processes in the family: Social and Emotional Development." Annual Review of Psychology 62 (2011): 243-269.
Hacker, Jörg, Reinhard Hüttl and Günter Stock. Socialisation in early childhood: Biological, psychologyical, linguistic, sociological and economic perspectives. Berlin: NationalAcademy of Sciences Leopoldina, 2014.
Kachel, S., M. C. Steffens and C. Niedlich. "Traditional Masculinity and Femininity: Validation of a New Scale Assessing Gender Roles." Frontiers in Psychology
7 (2016): 956.
Kumar, Bharat. What are the important stages of socialization? 2018. 30 Nov 2018 .
