Explain socialization over the life course. In your answer, ...

[Mollykgkg]

Explain socialization over the life course. In your answer, explain how the life stages are determined and in what way they differ. Identify the three stages covered in your text, and discuss the socialization in those stages. Give some examples of how li
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

For which sex, girls and women or boys and men, is it more acceptable to cross gender boundaries, that is, to do things associated with the opposite sex? Why is this the case? Illustrate your essay with examples.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 3

Is maternal instinct, that is, the special bond and devotion to caring for the newborn child, instinctive (i.e. something women are born with) and universal? Support your answer with evidence from the text.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[Ksh22]

Answer to Question 1

An excellent answer will include: Life stages are determined by society (socially constructed) and differ by culture, race, class, gender, and nationality. For example 15 year olds may be considered adults in some cultures and children in others; 40 year olds may be considered elderly or in the prime of life. In Childhood, the primary socialization agents are family, school, and religion, as well as peers and mass media. Children are socialized to prepare them for adult life, learning cooperation, waiting their turn, organization, and discipline, as well as learning gender roles. In some countries and earlier times children were considered miniature adults and were expected to work alongside adults. Adolescence was defined more recently, in the twentieth century, as a stage between childhood and adulthood, to allow time for children to receive specialized job training. Adolescents can have a great deal of freedom to make choices and explore their identities, however still live under supervision of adults. Adolescents and children both receive a great deal of socialization from peers and the mass media, including gender socialization. The transition to adulthood is typically determined by completion of education, getting a job, getting married, moving out of the parents' home and into one's own, and having a baby, although these milestones are now met later than in earlier times. In adulthood, the primary socialization agents are family and the workplace.

Answer to Question 2

It is more acceptable for girls and women to cross gender boundaries and do things associated with goys and men. The difference is because of gender privilege; masculine things are more powerful, so girls and women who do masculine things are praised for increasing their prestige, while boys and men who do feminine things are lowering their prestige. Examples include calling loud or athletic girls tomboys and sensitive or non-athletic boys sissies, and commercials advertising manwiches rather than salads. (Other examples, not in this chapter, could include comments like you look like a bunch of girls vs take it like a man; women aspiring to men's jobs considered ambitious, while men aspiring to women's jobs considered gay; it's acceptable for girls to play with cars and legos, but not acceptable for boys to play with dolls or other girls' toys.)

Answer to Question 3

It does not appear to be instinctive because it is not universal. Rhesus monkeys raised in isolation without seeing monkeys mothering their offspring do not know how to raise their own. Women raised in abuse or indifferent families tend to be abusive or indifferent to their own children. In some cultures mothers are cool or unfriendly to their children or to act as though they do not know them. These examples show that the way mothers interact with their children is learned, not instinctive