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Social Transitions

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Social Transitions Social Transitions Historically Common Practices in Social Redefinition Process Separation Transition Re-incorporation Rites of Passage – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Social Transitions


1
Social Transitions
  • Social Transitions Historically
  • Common Practices in Social Redefinition
  • Process
  • Separation
  • Transition
  • Re-incorporation
  • Rites of Passage
  • Changes in Clarity Continuity
  • Contemporary Adolescence

2
Socialization is
  • The process by which people acquire the
    behaviors and beliefs of their culture

Socialization Outcomes
  1. Self-regulation ability to comply with social
    norms
  2. Role preparation for roles in work, gender,
    institutions such as marriage, parenthood
  3. Cultivation of sources of meaning whats
    important? Whats to be lived for?

3
Adolescence as a Social Invention
  • Adolescence defined primarily by being distinct
    from childhood or adulthood, not by cognitive and
    biological changes
  • Inventionists stress that because we perceive
    adolescence as distinct, it exists as a distinct
    period of the lifespan
  • Relative to other cultures and historical periods
  • Problems experienced during adolescence may be
    due to societys definition of adolescence, not
    cognitive or biological changes

4
Adolescence as a Social Invention
  • Roots in the Industrial Revolution
  • Young people excluded from labor force
  • Economic dependence on elders
  • Formal schooling is lengthened
  • New Terminology
  • Teenager
  • Youth
  • Emerging adulthood

5
Emerging Adulthood
  • Arnetts (1998) term for ages 18-25 caught
    between adolescence and adulthood, characterized
    by
  • Exploring possible identities before making
    enduring choices
  • Unstable work, romantic relationships, and living
    situations
  • Focus on oneself and independent functioning
  • Subjective feeling of being caught between
    adolescence and adulthood
  • Subjective feeling that life holds many
    possibilities

6
Social Redefinition
  • A time of change in social roles and status
  • How society defines adolescence
  • Contemporary society vs. traditional cultures
  • Implications for development
  • Identity, autonomy, responsibility, intimacy,
    sexuality, achievement

7
Social Redefinition and Psychosocial Development
  • Identity
  • Attainment of adult status causes adolescent to
    feel more adult-like
  • Autonomy
  • Adult status leads to shifts in responsibility,
    independence, and freedom
  • Intimacy, dating and marriage
  • Need for new decisions about sexual activity
  • Achievement
  • Becoming a full-time employee leave school of
    their own volition

8
The Process of Social Redefinition
  • Contemporary America Movement through a series
    of status transitions with a cohort over a period
    of years
  • Driving, purchasing alcohol, etc.
  • Generally begins at age 15 or 16
  • Permission to drive, work, leave school
  • Voting, age 18
  • Purchasing alcoholic beverages, age 21
  • Timetable is affected by economics, politics, and
    culture

9
The Process
  • Three themes
  • Separation
  • Transition
  • Reincorporation

10
The Process
  • Separation
  • Extrusion Real or symbolic separation from
    parents

11
Social Redefinition Three Major Components
  • Transition
  • Separation of males and females
  • Brother-sister avoidance
  • Passing on of cultural, historical, and practical
    information
  • from the adult generation to the newly inducted
    cohort of young people

12
The Process of Social Redefinition
  • Some societies mark social redefinition of the
    young person with a dramatic and elaborate
    initiation ceremony called a rite of passage
  • This often marks the beginning of a long period
    of training

13
Social Redefinition Rites of Passage
  • Cushion emotional disruption
  • Anchoring
  • Provides a sense of belonging to both individual
    and society
  • Inform
  • Individual and society
  • Attempt to provide clarity

14
Social Redefinition
  • Reciprocity
  • Privileges and rights in exchange for good
    conduct
  • Change in status
  • Interpersonal
  • Political
  • Economic
  • Legal

15
Changes in Status
  • Two-sided alteration in status
  • Given privileges/rights reserved for societys
    adults
  • Increased expectations for
  • self-management
  • personal responsibility
  • social participation

16
Four Major Changes in Status
  • Interpersonal
  • Political
  • Economic
  • Legal

17
Changes in Interpersonal Status
  • Addressed with adult titles
  • Maintain new types of social relationships with
  • Parents and elders
  • Younger individuals whose status has not yet
    changed
  • New interpersonal obligations
  • Taking care of and setting example for younger
    members of family

18
Changes in Political Status
  • More extensive participation in the communitys
    decision making
  • Voting (U.S. citizens)
  • Ceremonial life (Navajo people - formal
    initiation ceremony)
  • Expected to serve their communities in emergency
    and train for warfare

19
Changes in Economic Status
  • May own property and maintain control over their
    income
  • Until age 16, belongs to parents
  • Until 18, cannot enter into legal contract like a
    car lease
  • Age is a prerequisite for employment in certain
    occupations
  • Child labor laws in the United States
  • Expected to pay taxes

20
Changes in Legal Status
  • Ability to participate in activities typically
    reserved for adults
  • Gambling
  • Purchasing alcohol, smoking
  • Driving, voting
  • Expected to take increased responsibility for
    self-management and social participation

21
Types of transitions I
  • Clarity explicit markers of beginning and end
    of adolescence
  • Traditional cultures ceremonies, initiations
  • Contemporary culture
  • Less of an emphasis on attainment of roles
  • Arnett (1998) what defines adulthood?
  • Accept responsibility for consequences of actions
  • Financially independent

22
Social Transitions The Importance of Clarity
  • Lewins Marginal man
  • caught between two cultural systems and feel
    alienated by one or both .
  • threats to identity may lead to higher levels of
    deviance, excessive anxiety and psychiatric
    instability
  • Contemporary trends in status according to
    Arnett
  • Less emphasis on attaining a specific role and
    more emphasis on self-reliance
  • Decline in importance of family roles
  • Similar criteria for males and females, fewer
    gender-typed role expectations

23
Social Transitions Clarity in Industrialized
Societies
  • Given the absence of clarity
  • People of the same chronological age may feel
    more mature or less mature than age-mates
  • No clear indication of when adult
    responsibilities and privileges begin
  • How adolescents view themselves today
  • Less emphasis on attainment of specific roles
  • Less emphasis on importance of family roles
  • Fewer gender role differences

24
Social Transitions Clarity in Traditional
Cultures
  • Social redefinition is clearly recognized
  • Formal initiation ceremony
  • Boys timing of ceremony varies
  • Girls timing usually linked to menarche
  • Physical appearance is often changed (clothing,
    circumcision)
  • Adults clearly differentiated from children

25
Social Transitions Clarity in Previous Eras
  • Baby boom generation (1950s-1960s)
  • Finishing school, moving out, getting married all
    occurred early and within narrow timeframe
  • Transition in the early 19th century was more
    disorderly and prolonged (like today)
  • School viewed as children
  • Work viewed as adults
  • Timetable depended on household/family needs

26
Types of transitions II
  • Continuity smoothness of passage into adulthood
  • Continuous
  • Gradual transitions, in which the adolescent
    assumes the roles and status of adulthood bit by
    bit
  • Assume new roles a bit at a time with lots of
    preparation and training
  • Discontinuous
  • Sudden transitions, in which the adolescents
    entrance into adulthood is more abrupt, with
    little or no training
  • Thrust into new roles with little preparation

27
Continuity and Discontinuity
  • Modern society is very discontinuous
  • Little preparation for roles of worker, parent,
    citizen
  • Call to improve school-to-work transition
  • Youth apprenticeship model
  • Options for non-college-bound high school
    students
  • Make transition more like traditional cultures
    previous eras

28
Discontinuity
  • Socializing of adolescents for adult roles
    (worker, parent) adequate?
  • Contributes to psychological and behavioral
    problems
  • Benedict creates stress
  • Abrupt transitions
  • Teenage parents
  • School drop-outs
  • Moving out of family home

29
The Transition into Adulthood in Contemporary
Society
  • Two trends are reshaping the transition
  • The transition period is getting longerPuberty
    occurs earlier and schooling lasts longer.
  • Success in the labor force is more dependent on
    formal schooling

30
Contemporary Transitions
  • In all societies
  • Adolescence is a period of social transition
  • The individual comes to be recognized as an adult
  • The social transition is less explicit in
    contemporary U.S. society than in traditional
    cultures

Osgood, Ruth, Eccles, Jacobs, Barber (2005)
31
(No Transcript)
32
The Transition into Adulthood in Contemporary
Society
  • Adolescents are living at home longer than ever
    before
  • 55 U.S. 20- to 22-year-olds
  • May be a result of increased costs of housing and
    transportation
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