Identity formation in understanding culture

ucsp

1. IDENTITY FORMATION Social Identity is a person’s notion of who he or she is in society.This includes the roles and statutes that he or she performs in accord to what the society expects of him or her.

2. Primary Identity –consists of the roles and statutes that an individual learns as a child. This includes the core social identities that are often ascribed to an individual such as sex, age and ethnicity. As a child gets enculturated and socialized with his or her society’s norm, he or she participates in the construction of his or her secondary identity.

3. Theories on Identity The role learning theory promotes the argument that individuals learn a repertoire of social roles from their society.They then reproduce ,repertoire in their behavior .Roles constitute the social facts ( e.g .,gender role,occupational role, family role)that inhibit,empower ,and influence an individual’s actions.

4. Conformity to these social facts is rewarded by acceptance from members of the society,whereas nonconformity results in ostracism.The primary argument against this theory is that it is too socialization- deterministic,as it side steps the potential of humans to recreate roles and not just accept them.

5. STATUS AND ROLE Status- is an individual’s position in his or her society,which carries with it a set of defined rights and obligations. Your status as a student comes with obligations and rights, which are defined as your roles. Roles- are the sets of expectation from people who occupy a particular status.

6. Conformity is the act of following roles and goals of one’s society. Deviance- is the act of violating the prescribed social norms.Acts of deviance are often associated with a stigma.A stigma is a strong sense of of disapproval on nonconforming behavior from members of the society.When deviance is within the context of legal structures,it may even be considered a crime or a violation of alaw .

7. Theories that explain the existence of deviants(human/groups) and deviance (acts). Social control theory- Deviance is primarily caused by a lack in stronger social bonds within society.As an individual feels less attached to his or her society,there is a higher chance for him or her to deviate from social norms.

8. Rational choice theory-The individual’s decision to follow or to go against social norms is dependent on their perceived cost and benefit of such action. This implies that humans weigh the impact of following the norm.It following a norm would cost them more than what they could spare,such a norm is a set aside and they would choose to perform a deviant act.

9. Differential association theory- Conformity or deviance is learned by an individual from those he or she associates with. Hence ,if an individual has stronger associations with a group of deviants,then it is most likely that he or she would conform to deviant behavior than that of what the general public considers as a norm . Interestingly,what is deviant for the general public may be considered as a norm among a group deviants.

10. Labeling theory-Actions are initially not considered deviant untilthey are labeled s such by members of the community.Based on this theory,there are two stages of deviance:primary and secondary.Primary deviance is the type of act that does not end with the individual being labeled a such. Secondary deviance is the type of act that results from being labeled by society as deviant.

11. Conflict Theory- Society consists of opposing groups of people whose access to power is unequal .The group that has access to power determines which actions are deviant based on their perceived advantage. Usually, the set of behaviours of the elite is created and reproduced as the norm, and those of the powerless are considered deviant.