role of family in socialization essay

The Role of Family in the Process of Socialization Essay

Socialization is a fundamental process through which a family acquires cultural and personal identity. Each person undergoes natural, planned, negative, or positive socialization in his or her life, regardless of gender or age. A family is one of the agencies that introduce a child to aspects like culture, physical, and psychological identities or behaviours and environment, which are some of the major elements of socialization.

Commonly, there are three types of families, single parent, nuclear, and extended; each of the family may differently expose a child to the aspects of socialization. The main role of a family is to nurture, mould, and guide children in the society; therefore, a child who does not belong to any family may undergo a negative socialization process.

Since the adoption of the word society, different sociologists like Max Weber have come up with a number of social theories namely feminist theory, conflict theory, consensus theory, theory of ‘self’, concept of the human mind, looking glass-self theory, and symbolic theory among others. Therefore, according to sociologists, the dynamic environment and familial identity in correlation with the elements of socialization determine the social behaviour of an individual in both childhood and adulthood.

A family is a fundamental institution that assists an individual or child to develop into an acceptable member of the society. Although each parent in a family has a role in the upbringing of a child, in many cases, the mother initiates the socialization process in a child.

Besides giving the sense of belonging or identity, a family imparts culture, traditions, norms, social roles, and values into the child (Merton, 1957, p.10). The processes of listening, language learning, and respect to authority start at the family level. Furthermore, it is the role of the family to provide a decent living environment for the children.

All children are a product of their environment; thus, to impart positive social values in a child, parents should choose an environment free from any negative influence. Drug abuse, criminal activities, and immoral behaviours are some of the negative aspects an environment might impart in a growing child. Most children learn from their friends, peers, parents, neighbours, and schoolmates.

Therefore, parents should familiarize with the friends of their children to ensure that the children do not deviate from the conventional social behaviours through external forces. In the light of this revelation, it suffices to conclude that, a family is a social institution that ensures that a child conforms to the acceptable standards of the society. The societal attributes that a family instils in a child include personality, skills/knowledge, social stability/order, cultural transmission, life aspirations, and social discipline among others.

The elements of socialization that a family imparts into a child are three. The first aspect is the inheritance of physical features and the psychological well being of a child. Parents pass their physical features to their children while psychological satisfaction of a child occurs when he or she grows up (Herman & Reynolds, 1994, p.17).

If a child experiences traumatic events like violence, or rape, he or she undergoes psychological instability even in adulthood. Secondly, environment is a crucial element of socialization especially to young stars.

The home, school, or institution in which a child lives in, determine the moral conducts of the child. A child who undergoes physically torture at home may become a drug addict, abuse alcohol, and/or venture into criminal activities like robbery or even commit suicide (Homans, 1962, p.34). The final concept is the element of culture whereby, a family initiates a child into specific cultural attributes. Depending on the sexual identity, parents bestow different gender roles to their children.

Mothers guide girls/daughters on their roles as wives and future mothers while fathers teach boys/sons on their roles as future fathers. In addition, each family or community has different cultural practices like initiation, dress code, and other formalities, which a family passes to its children to ensure they fit in the immediate society. Thus, physical and psychological inheritance, environment, and culture are the key elements a family fosters into a child.

Although most families have similar ways of socialization, some aspects instilled in a child differ from one family to another. A child from a nuclear or single parent family may have limited interaction with other relatives or members of the society.

Each family ensures that its children learn and practice the prevalent culture; however, a child from a single parent family may only learn culture from one parent. Moreover, each parent/family has diverse ways of imparting social skills to children. While some parents are harsh and strict, others rely on dialogue to instil moral values in their children.

Some parents enrol their children into boarding schools, others restrict their children from interacting with relatives or other members of the extended families, others employee house helps to monitor their children, and others quit their jobs to raise their children. Therefore, the methodology adapted by families may differ, but eventually the norms, values, and morals instilled have a similar relationship in one way or another.

The different theories of sociology attempt to correlate social science with other disciplines. For instance, the functionalism theory relates sociology to other scientific phenomena like research and biological organisms among others to explore the society/sociology as a subject.

Fundamentally, each of the adapted sociological theories exclusively focuses on one subject or phenomenon. Therefore, if an individual reads the social theories concurrently, he or she will understand the concept of sociology. Thus, the socialization theory plays a role in effecting the adaptation of exemplary personality or social attributes like obedience and compelling individuals to conform to their societal practices.

Sociologists have adapted different sociological theories to try to explain the subject of sociology. Also referred to as the consensus theory, functionalist theory describes the integration of human beings in the society through the sharing of the common cultural practices (Layton, 1997, P.20). The functionalist theory defines socialization as a functional requisite that leads to a stable society through the establishment of permanent social norms.

According to Durkheim, many systems, both physical and scientific, interact to determine the social behaviour of an individual (Michener, 1999, p.50). The systems are usually independent of the social laws surrounding the individual. The balance or equilibrium between humans and the society maintains a stable society. Religion, culture, and tradition are some of the elements, which shape up the society.

The society establishes specific social control tactics, which conform to the desired values and practices. For instance, if an individual adapts unbecoming behaviour like sneering through condemnation from the people around him or her, s/he will learn to discard the behaviour. Therefore, in relation to family as a channel of socialization, the functionalist theory describes a family as a societal institution established to ensure that there is continuity of a stable society.

Adopted from the ideologies of Karl Max, conflict theory describes socialization as competition, in which human beings not only interact, but also disagree and fight to maintain power (Clause, 1968, p.5). Therefore, the tenacity to compete for wealth and power defines the society as an unequal environment where a person or group decides to dominate over the others. Hence, capitalism, oppression, class systems, and materialism are some of the permanent characteristics of the society.

According to Max, the political, social, and economic stability of the society is in line with the conflict theory (Westen, 2002, p.40). Through family as a socializing institution, an individual must fall in some of the aforementioned groups. A child from a ruling class family will fight to maintain the status quo in the society. The conflict theory gives a sense of belonging to the society especially during socialization.

The family, as a social environment, may change due to external and internal forces like conflicts, divorce, emigration, death, and other natural calamities like floods. Due to the above issues, a child may abruptly change his or her living environment, which may also change the course of his/her socialization process. Similarly, a child may lose a parent in early age leaving him or her in the care of stepparents, foster parents, and grandparents.

The unfortunate ones end up as street children. The new environment may neglect or expose the child to new social practices or impart negative social practices in them. Political instability is among the elements that may scatter a family, and consequently affect the transmission of social norms in children. Furthermore, some of the traumatic events may also divert or impart negative social values like hatred in children.

Gardener Murphy has developed the theory of ‘self’ as a fundamental aspect in socialization. According to Murphy, an individual or self is a reflection of the environment especially the people one interacts with in life (Mead, 1967, p.80). The theory of ‘looking-glass self’ describes an individual’s characters as the mirror of the society. Appearance, judgment, and self-feeling of an individual develop through social interaction with the society (Mead, 1967, p.75).

Similarly, George Herbert Meads’ theory of ‘self’ describes the relationship of parentage or family to social development of the child (Mead, 1967, p.60). Before a child adapts to the external environment, he or she will initially practice the behaviour of the parents (Westen, 2002, p.50). Through the family, a child learns that to develop her awareness he or she will have to interact with others in the society, thus, socialization. In connection with the family, the theory of self describes a family as a fundamental unit in socialization.

Although the family is the commonly known social environment, other social institutions like the state, school, and church play a vital role in building an individual’s personality. The diversity of a social environment determines the conduct of an individual in adulthood. A child who visits religious gatherings like churches, temples, and mosques will attentively listen and shape his or her moral conduct according to the sermons.

On the other hand, a parent who does not worship in any church will pass the similar attributes to their children or generations. Secondly, the state drafts and enacts laws that each citizen has to uphold. Different states/countries or societies have different laws, which the members have to live by, and a breach in any of the laws leads to a punishment.

Apart from family/home, the school imparts social attributes in children. Knowledge, skills, and aspirations are some of the virtues a child/individual picks from school. Sometimes, children may adapt the behavioural conducts of their teachers or instructors. Finally, while at school or home, children acquire playmates who sometimes determine their behaviour. A child or an individual will adapt the behavioural conduct of his/her peers; therefore, negative or positives social values may originate from playmates.

Depending on the surrounding environment, a child conforms to its social norms; similarly, a child will pick up a new behaviour if he or she changes the environment. Thus, it is the role of the society to ensure the social conduct of its environment is not only acceptable, but also safe for the future of an individual. A dynamic environment may confuse a child, which leads to psychological trauma. Therefore, parents should ensure their children stay in a stable environment.

In the contemporary world, the social norms or values are not only dynamic, but also acquired through other channels other than the family, school, or church. Globally, the technological development of computers and the Internet services has led to the adaptation of diverse ways of socialization.

Globalization promotes multiculturalism, interracial marriages, and other diverse social interactions (Goffman, 1961, p.10). Contemporarily, children learn both negative and positive social aspects through social sites like facebook, tweeter, and LinkedIn among others. Sadly, the current upward trend in globalization rarely instils positive values in the young stars.

Besides practicing unacceptable social behaviours like pornography, young people also disregard physical social interactions. Whether at school, home or in the public, children concentrate on their mobile phones, surfing the Internet or interacting with friends or strangers through the social sites. In addition, the young stars have the unfortunate chance to choose what is right or awry without the seasoned guidance of the adults.

In the same light, entertainment channels like television, cinemas, and music playing systems promote different social values into teenagers or individuals. The aforementioned systems are among the common environments that a child in the current society faces as he or she grows into adulthood. Unfortunately, with the fast changes in globalization, there is poor assimilation of children into the society.

Modern parents concentrate on careers and, as a result, they neglect their roles in parentage; therefore, they leave their children to learn vital social values from peers or immediate environment. Consequently, children end up adopting criminal behaviours while some may not even fit into the society. Therefore, the family, as the primary social institution, should integrate into the dynamic environment in the present worldwide; otherwise, the next generations may lack vital social norms.

In conclusion, a family is the principal unit in socialization. The family imparts cultural practices, determines the living environment, and the physical and psychological identity of the children. Socialization, as a subject, has led to the adoption of different sociological theories that have enabled the effective study of the subject.

Marxist, conflict, and consensus theories are among the common theories studied in sociology. Social institutions like family, schools, churches, and mosques also instil positive social practices in individuals. Finally, the dynamic environment and globalization have led to the adaptation of new social practices; unfortunately, some of these new socialization trends promote antisocial behaviours among the youths.

Clausen, J. A. (1968). Socialization and Society . Boston: Little Brown and Company.

Goffman, E. (1961). Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction . London: Macmillan Publishing Co.

Herman, N. J., & Reynolds, L.T. (1994). Symbolic Interaction: An Introduction to Social Psychology . New York: Altamira Press.

Homans, G. C. (1962). Sentiments and Activities . New York: The Free Press Of Glencoe.

Layton, R. (1997). An Introduction to Theory in Anthropology . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mead, G. H. (1967 ). Mind, Self, & Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviourist . Chicago: University of Chicago press.

Merton, R. (1957). Social Theory and Social Structure revised and enlarged . London: The Free Press of Glencoe.

Michener, H. A., & John D. (1999). Social Psychology . Harcourt: Brace College Publishers.

Westen, D. (2002) Psychology: Brain, Behaviour & Culture . New York: Wiley & Sons.

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Family, culture, and communication.

V. Santiago Arias V. Santiago Arias College of Media and Communication, Texas Tech University
and Narissra Maria Punyanunt-Carter Narissra Maria Punyanunt-Carter College of Media and Communication, Texas Tech University
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.504
Published online: 22 August 2017

Through the years, the concept of family has been studied by family therapists, psychology scholars, and sociologists with a diverse theoretical framework, such as family communication patterns (FCP) theory, dyadic power theory, conflict, and family systems theory. Among these theories, there are two main commonalities throughout its findings: the interparental relationship is the core interaction in the familial system because the quality of their communication or coparenting significantly affects the enactment of the caregiver role while managing conflicts, which are not the exception in the familial setting. Coparenting is understood in its broader sense to avoid an extensive discussion of all type of families in our society. Second, while including the main goal of parenting, which is the socialization of values, this process intrinsically suggests cultural assimilation as the main cultural approach rather than intergroup theory, because intercultural marriages need to decide which values are considered the best to be socialized. In order to do so, examples from the Thai culture and Hispanic and Latino cultures served to show cultural assimilation as an important mediator of coparenting communication patterns, which subsequently affect other subsystems that influence individuals’ identity and self-esteem development in the long run. Finally, future directions suggest that the need for incorporating a nonhegemonic one-way definition of cultural assimilation allows immigration status to be brought into the discussion of family communication issues in the context of one of the most diverse countries in the world.

parental communication
dyadic power
family communication systems
cultural assimilation

Introduction

Family is the fundamental structure of every society because, among other functions, this social institution provides individuals, from birth until adulthood, membership and sense of belonging, economic support, nurturance, education, and socialization (Canary & Canary, 2013 ). As a consequence, the strut of its social role consists of operating as a system in a manner that would benefit all members of a family while achieving what is considered best, where decisions tend to be coherent, at least according to the norms and roles assumed by family members within the system (Galvin, Bylund, & Brommel, 2004 ). Notwithstanding, the concept of family can be interpreted differently by individual perceptions to an array of cultural backgrounds, and cultures vary in their values, behaviors, and ideas.

The difficulty of conceptualizing this social institution suggests that family is a culture-bound phenomenon (Bales & Parsons, 2014 ). In essence, culture represents how people view themselves as part of a unique social collective and the ensuing communication interactions (Olaniran & Roach, 1994 ); subsequently, culture provides norms for behavior having a tremendous impact on those family members’ roles and power dynamics mirrored in its communication interactions (Johnson, Radesky, & Zuckerman, 2013 ). Thus, culture serves as one of the main macroframeworks for individuals to interpret and enact those prescriptions, such as inheritance; descent rules (e.g., bilateral, as in the United States, or patrilineal); marriage customs, such as ideal monogamy and divorce; and beliefs about sexuality, gender, and patterns of household formation, such as structure of authority and power (Weisner, 2014 ). For these reasons, “every family is both a unique microcosm and a product of a larger cultural context” (Johnson et al., 2013 , p. 632), and the analysis of family communication must include culture in order to elucidate effective communication strategies to solve familial conflicts.

In addition, to analyze familial communication patterns, it is important to address the most influential interaction with regard to power dynamics that determine the overall quality of family functioning. In this sense, within the range of family theories, parenting function is the core relationship in terms of power dynamics. Parenting refers to all efforts and decisions made by parents individually to guide their children’s behavior. This is a pivotal function, but the quality of communication among people who perform parenting is fundamental because their internal communication patterns will either support or undermine each caregiver’s parenting attempts, individually having a substantial influence on all members’ psychological and physical well-being (Schrodt & Shimkowski, 2013 ). Subsequently, parenting goes along with communication because to execute all parenting efforts, there must be a mutual agreement among at least two individuals to conjointly take care of the child’s fostering (Van Egeren & Hawkins, 2004 ). Consequently, coparenting serves as a crucial predictor of the overall family atmosphere and interactions, and it deserves special attention while analyzing family communication issues.

Through the years, family has been studied by family therapists, psychology scholars, and sociologists, but interaction behaviors define the interpersonal relationship, roles, and power within the family as a system (Rogers, 2006 ). Consequently, family scholarship relies on a wide range of theories developed within the communication field and in areas of the social sciences (Galvin, Braithwaite, & Bylund, 2015 ) because analysis of communication patterns in the familial context offers more ecological validity that individuals’ self-report measures. As many types of interactions may happen within a family, there are many relevant venues (i.e., theories) for scholarly analysis on this subject, which will be discussed later in this article in the “ Family: Theoretical Perspectives ” section. To avoid the risk of cultural relativeness while defining family, this article characterizes family as “a long-term group of two or more people related through biological, legal, or equivalent ties and who enact those ties through ongoing interactions providing instrumental and/or emotional support” (Canary & Canary, 2013 , p. 5).

Therefore, the purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the most relevant theories in family communication to identify frustrations and limitations with internal communication. Second, as a case in point, the United States welcomes more than 50 million noncitizens as temporary visitors and admits approximately 1 million immigrants to live as lawful residents yearly (Fullerton, 2014 ), this demographic pattern means that nearly one-third of the population (102 million) comes from different cultural backgrounds, and therefore, the present review will incorporate culture as an important mediator for coparenting, so that future research can be performed to find specific techniques and training practices that are more suitable for cross-cultural contexts.

Family: Theoretical Perspectives

Even though the concept of family can be interpreted individually and differently in different cultures, there are also some commonalities, along with communication processes, specific roles within families, and acceptable habits of interactions with specific family members disregarding cultural differences. This section will provide a brief overview of the conceptualization of family through the family communication patterns (FCP) theory, dyadic power theory, conflict, and family systems theory, with a special focus on the interparental relationship.

Family Communication Patterns Theory

One of the most relevant approaches to address the myriad of communication issues within families is the family communication patterns (FCP) theory. Originally developed by McLeod and Chaffee ( 1973 ), this theory aims to understand families’ tendencies to create stable and predictable communication patterns in terms of both relational cognition and interpersonal behavior (Braithwaite & Baxter, 2005 ). Specifically, this theory focuses on the unique and amalgamated associations derived from interparental communication and its impact on parenting quality to determine FCPs and the remaining interactions (Young & Schrodt, 2016 ).

To illustrate FCP’s focus on parental communication, Schrodt, Witt, and Shimkowski ( 2014 ) conducted a meta-analysis of 74 studies (N = 14,255) to examine the associations between the demand/withdraw family communication patterns of interaction, and the subsequent individual, relational, and communicative outcomes. The cumulative evidence suggests that wife demand/husband withdraw and husband demand/wife withdraw show similar moderate correlations with communicative and psychological well-being outcomes, and even higher when both patterns are taken together (at the relational level). This is important because one of the main tenets of FCP is that familial relationships are drawn on the pursuit of coorientation among members. Coorientation refers to the cognitive process of two or more individuals focusing on and assessing the same object in the same material and social context, which leads to a number of cognitions as the number of people involved, which results in different levels of agreement, accuracy, and congruence (for a review, see Fitzpatrick & Koerner, 2005 ); for example, in dyads that are aware of their shared focus, two different cognitions of the same issue will result.

Hereafter, the way in which these cognitions are socialized through power dynamics determined socially and culturally by roles constitutes specific interdependent communication patterns among family members. For example, Koerner and Fitzpatrick ( 2006 ) provide a taxonomy of family types on the basis of coorientation and its impact on communication pattern in terms of the degree of conformity in those conversational tendencies. To wit, consensual families mostly agree for the sake of the hierarchy within a given family and to explore new points of view; pluralistic families allow members to participate equally in conversations and there is no pressure to control or make children’s decisions; protective families maintain the hierarchy by making decisions for the sake of achieving common family goals; and laissez-faire families, which are low in conversation and conformity orientation, allow family members to not get deeply involved in the family.

The analysis of family communication patterns is quintessential for family communication scholarly work because it influences forming an individual’s self concept in the long run. As a case in point, Young and Schrodt ( 2016 ) surveyed 181 young adults from intact families, where conditional and interaction effects between communication patterns and conformity orientation were observed as the main predictors of future romantic partners. Moreover, this study concluded that FCPs and interparental confirmation are substantial indicators of self-to-partner confirmation, after controlling for reciprocity of confirmation within the romantic relationship. As a consequence, FCP influences children’s and young adults’ perceptions of romantic behavior (e.g., Fowler, Pearson, & Beck, 2010 ); the quality of communication behavior, such as the degree of acceptation of verbal aggression in romantic dyads (e.g., Aloia & Solomon, 2013 ); gender roles; and conflict styles (e.g., Taylor & Segrin, 2010 ), and parental modeling (e.g., Young & Schrodt, 2016 ).

This suggests three important observations. First, family is a very complex interpersonal context, in which communication processes, specific roles within families, and acceptable habits of interactions with specific family members interact as subsystems (see Galvin et al., 2004 ; Schrodt & Shimkowski, 2013 ). Second, among those subsystems, the core interaction is the individuals who hold parenting roles (i.e., intact and post divorced families); the couple (disregarding particular sexual orientations), and, parenting roles have a reciprocal relationship over time (Le, McDaniel, Leavitt, & Feinberg, 2016 ). Communication between parenting partners is crucial for the development of their entire family; for example, Schrodt and Shimkowski ( 2013 ) conducted a survey with 493 young adult children from intact (N = 364) and divorced families (N = 129) about perceptions of interparental conflict that involves triangulation (the impression of being in the “middle” and feeling forced to display loyalty to one of the parents). Results suggest that supportive coparental communication positively predicts relational satisfaction with mothers and fathers, as well as mental health; on the other hand, antagonist and hostile coparental communication predicted negative marital satisfaction.

Consequently, “partners’ communication with one another will have a positive effect on their overall view of their marriage, . . . and directly result[ing in] their views of marital satisfaction” (Knapp & Daly, 2002 , p. 643). Le et al. ( 2016 ) conducted a longitudinal study to evaluate the reciprocal relationship between marital interaction and coparenting from the perspective of both parents in terms of support or undermining across the transition to parenthood from a dyadic perspective; 164 cohabiting heterosexual couples expecting their first child were analyzed from pregnancy until 36 months after birth. Both parents’ interdependence was examined in terms of three variables: gender difference analysis, stability over time in marriage and coparenting, and reciprocal associations between relationship quality and coparenting support or undermining. The findings suggest a long-term reciprocal association between relationship quality and coparenting support or undermining in heterosexual families; the quality of marriage relationship during prenatal stage is highly influential in coparenting after birth for both men and women; but, coparenting is connected to romantic relationship quality only for women.

Moreover, the positive association between coparenting and the parents’ relationship relates to the spillover hypothesis, which posits that the positive or negative factors in the parental subsystem are significantly associated with higher or lower marital satisfaction in the spousal subsystem, respectively. Ergo, overall parenting performance is substantially affected by the quality of marital communication patterns.

Dyadic Power

In addition, after analyzing the impact of marital interaction quality in families on marital satisfaction and future parental modeling, it is worth noting that marital satisfaction and coparenting are importantly mediated by power dynamics within the couple (Halstead, De Santis, & Williams, 2016 ), and even mediates marital commitment (e.g., Lennon, Stewart, & Ledermann, 2013 ). If the quality of interpersonal relationship between those individuals who hold parenting roles determines coparenting quality as well, then the reason for this association lies on the fact that virtually all intimate relationships are substantially characterized by power dynamics; when partners perceive more rewards than costs in the relationship, they will be more satisfied and significantly more committed to the relationship (Lennon et al., 2013 ). As a result, the inclusion of power dynamics in the analysis of family issues becomes quintessential.

For the theory of dyadic power, power in its basic sense includes dominance, control, and influence over others, as well as a means to meet survival needs. When power is integrated into dyadic intimate relationships, it generates asymmetries in terms of interdependence between partners due to the quality of alternatives provided by individual characteristics such as socioeconomic status and cultural characteristics such as gender roles. This virtually gives more power to men than women. Power refers to “the feeling derived from the ability to dominate, or control, the behavior, affect, and cognitions of another person[;] in consequence, this concept within the interparental relationship is enacted when one partner who controls resources and limiting the behavioral options of the other partner” (Lennon et al., 2013 , p. 97). Ergo, this theory examines power in terms of interdependence between members of the relationship: the partner who is more dependent on the other has less power in the relationship, which, of course, directly impact parenting decisions.

As a case in point, Worley and Samp ( 2016 ) examined the balance of decision-making power in the relationship, complaint avoidance, and complaint-related appraisals in 175 heterosexual couples. Findings suggest that decision-making power has a curvilinear association, in which individuals engaged in the least complaint avoidance when they were relatively equal to their partners in terms of power. In other words, perceptions of one another’s power potentially encourage communication efficacy in the interparental couple.

The analysis of power in intimate relationships, and, to be specific, between parents is crucial because it not only relates to marital satisfaction and commitment, but it also it affects parents’ dyadic coping for children. In fact, Zemp, Bodenmann, Backes, Sutter-Stickel, and Revenson ( 2016 ) investigated parents’ dyadic coping as a predictor of children’s internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, and prosocial behavior in three independent studies. When there is a positive relationship among all three factors, the results indicated that the strongest correlation was the first one. Again, the quality of the marital and parental relationships has the strongest influence on children’s coping skills and future well-being.

From the overview of the two previous theories on family, it is worth addressing two important aspects. First, parenting requires an intensive great deal of hands-on physical care, attention to safety (Mooney-Doyle, Deatrick, & Horowitz, 2014 ), and interpretation of cues, and this is why parenting, from conception to when children enter adulthood, is a tremendous social, cultural, and legally prescribed role directed toward caregiving and endlessly attending to individuals’ social, physical, psychological, emotional, and cognitive development (Johnson et al., 2013 ). And while parents are making decisions about what they consider is best for all family members, power dynamics play a crucial role in marital satisfaction, commitment, parental modeling, and overall interparental communication efficacy in the case of postdivorce families. Therefore, the likelihood of conflict is latent within familial interactions while making decisions; indeed, situations in which family members agree on norms as a consensus is rare (Ritchie & Fitzpatrick, 1990 ).

In addition to the interparental and marital power dynamics that delineates family communication patterns, the familial interaction is distinctive from other types of social relationships in the unequaled role of emotions and communication of affection while family members interact and make decisions for the sake of all members. For example, Ritchie and Fitzpatrick ( 1990 ) provided evidence that fathers tended to perceive that all other family members agree with his decisions or ideas. Even when mothers confronted and disagreed with the fathers about the fathers’ decisions or ideas, the men were more likely to believe that their children agreed with him. When the children were interviewed without their parents, however, the majority of children agreed with the mothers rather than the fathers (Ritchie & Fitzpatrick, 1990 ). Subsequently, conflict is highly present in families; however, in general, the presence of conflict is not problematic per se. Rather, it is the ability to manage and recover from it and that could be problematic (Floyd, 2014 ).

One of the reasons for the role of emotions in interpersonal conflicts is explained by the Emotion-in-Relationships Model (ERM). This model states that feelings of bliss, satisfaction, and relaxation often go unnoticed due to the nature of the emotions, whereas “hot” emotions, such as anger and contempt, come to the forefront when directed at a member of an interpersonal relationship (Fletcher & Clark, 2002 ). This type of psychophysical response usually happens perhaps due to the different biophysical reactive response of the body compared to its reaction to positive ones (Floyd, 2014 ). There are two dimensions that define conflict. Conflict leads to the elicitation of emotions, but sometimes the opposite occurs: emotions lead to conflict. The misunderstanding or misinterpretation of emotions among members of a family can be a source of conflict, as well as a number of other issues, including personality differences, past history, substance abuse, mental or physical health problems, monetary issues, children, intimate partner violence, domestic rape, or maybe just general frustration due to recent events (Sabourin, Infante, & Rudd, 1990 ). In order to have a common understanding of this concept for the familial context in particular, conflict refers to as “any incompatibility that can be expressed by people related through biological, legal, or equivalent ties” (Canary & Canary, 2013 , p. 6). Thus, the concept of conflict goes hand in hand with coparenting.

There is a myriad of everyday family activities in which parents need to decide the best way to do them: sometimes they are minor, such as eating, watching TV, or sleeping schedules; others are more complicated, such as schooling. Certainly, while socializing and making these decisions, parents may agree or not, and these everyday situations may lead to conflict. Whether or not parents live together, it has been shown that “the extent to which children experience their parents as partners or opponents in parenting is related to children’s adjustment and well-being” (Gable & Sharp, 2016 , p. 1), because the ontology of parenting is materialized through socialization of values about every aspect and duty among all family members, especially children, to perpetuate a given society.

As the findings provided in this article show, the study of family communication issues is pivotal because the way in which those issues are solved within families will be copied by children as their values. Values are abstract ideas that delineate behavior toward the evaluation of people and events and vary in terms of importance across individuals, but also among cultures. In other words, their future parenting (i.e., parenting modeling) of children will replicate those same strategies for conflict solving for good or bad, depending on whether parents were supportive between each other. Thus, socialization defines the size and scope of coparenting.

The familial socialization of values encompasses the distinction between parents’ personal execution of those social appraisals and the values that parents want their children to adopt, and both are different things; nonetheless, familial socialization does not take place in only one direction, from parents to children. Benish-Weisman, Levy, and Knafo ( 2013 ) investigated the differentiation process—or, in other words, the distinction between parents’ own personal values and their socialization values and the contribution of children’s values to their parents’ socialization values. In this study, in which 603 Israeli adolescents and their parents participated, the findings suggest that parents differentiate between their personal values and their socialization values, and adolescents’ values have a specific contribution to their parents’ socialization values. As a result, socialization is not a unidirectional process affected by parents alone, it is an outcome of the reciprocal interaction between parents and their adolescent children, and the given importance of a given value is mediated by parents and their culture individually (Johnson et al., 2013 ). However, taking power dynamics into account does not mean that adolescents share the same level of decision-making power in the family; thus, socialization take place in both directions, but mostly from parents to children. Finally, it is worth noticing that the socialization of values in coparenting falls under the cultural umbrella. The next section pays a special attention to the role of culture in family communication.

The Role of Culture in Parenting Socialization of Values

There are many individual perceived realities and behaviors in the familial setting that may lead to conflict among members, but all of them achieve a common interpretation through culture; indeed, “all family conflict processes by broad cultural factors” (Canary & Canary, 2013 , p. 46). Subsequently, the goal of this section is to provide an overview of the perceived realities and behaviors that exist in family relationships with different cultural backgrounds. How should one approach the array of cultural values influencing parental communication patterns?

An interesting way of immersing on the role of culture in family communication patterns and its further socialization of values is explored by Schwartz ( 1992 ). The author developed a value system composed of 10 values operationalized as motivational goals for modern society: (a) self-direction (independence of thought and action); (b) stimulation (excitement, challenge, and novelty); (c) hedonism (pleasure or sensuous gratification); (d) achievement (personal success according to social standards); (e) power (social status, dominance over people and resources); (f) conformity (restraint of actions that may harm others or violate social expectations); (g) tradition (respect and commitment to cultural or religious customs and ideas); (h) benevolence (preserving and enhancing the welfare of people to whom one is close); (i) universalism (understanding, tolerance, and concern for the welfare of all people and nature); and (j) security (safety and stability of society, relationships, and self).

Later, Schwartz and Rubel ( 2005 ) applied this value structure, finding it to be commonly shared among over 65 countries. Nevertheless, these values are enacted in different ways by societies and genders about the extent to which men attribute more relevance to values of power, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, and self-direction, and the opposite was found for benevolence and universalism and less consistently for security. Also, it was found that all sex differences were culturally moderated, suggesting that cultural background needs to be considered in the analysis of coparental communication when socializing those values.

Even though Schwartz’s work was more focused on individuals and societies, it is a powerful model for the analysis of the role of culture on family communication and parenting scholarships. Indeed, Schwartz et al. ( 2013 ) conducted a longitudinal study with a sample of 266 Hispanic adolescents (14 years old) and their parents that looked at measures of acculturation, family functioning, and adolescent conduct problems, substance use, and sexual behavior at five time points. Results suggest that higher levels of acculturation in adolescents were linked to poorer family functioning; however, overall assimilation negatively predicted adolescent cigarette smoking, sexual activity, and unprotected sex. The authors emphasize the role of culture, and acculturation patterns in particular, in understanding the mediating role of family functioning and culture.

Ergo, it is crucial to address the ways in which culture affects family functioning. On top of this idea, Johnson et al. ( 2013 ) observed that Western cultures such as in the United States and European countries are oriented toward autonomy, favoring individual achievement, self-reliance, and self-assertiveness. Thus, coparenting in more autonomous countries will socialize to children the idea that achievement in life is an outcome of independence, resulting in coparenting communication behaviors that favor verbal praise and feedback over physical contact. As opposed to autonomy-oriented cultures, other societies, such as Asian, African, and Latin American countries, emphasize interdependence over autonomy; thus, parenting in these cultures promotes collective achievement, sharing, and collaboration as the core values.

These cultural orientations can be observed in parents’ definitions of school readiness and educational success; for Western parents, examples include skills such as counting, recognizing letters, or independently completing tasks such as coloring pictures, whereas for more interdependent cultures, the development of obedience, respect for authority, and appropriate social skills are the skills that parents are expecting their children to develop to evaluate school readiness. As a matter of fact, Callaghan et al. ( 2011 ) conducted a series of eight studies to evaluate the impact of culture on the social-cognitive skills of one- to three-year-old children in three diverse cultural settings such as Canada, Peru, and India. The results showed that children’s acquisition of specific cognitive skills is moderated by specific learning experiences in a specific context: while Canadian children were understanding the performance of both pretense and pictorial symbols skillfully between 2.5 and 3.0 years of age, on average, Peruvian and Indian children mastered those skills more than a year later. Notwithstanding, this finding does not suggest any kind of cultural superiority; language barriers and limitations derived from translation itself may influence meanings, affecting the results (Sotomayor-Peterson, De Baca, Figueredo, & Smith-Castro, 2013 ). Therefore, in line with the findings of Schutz ( 1970 ), Geertz ( 1973 ), Grusec ( 2002 ), Sotomayor-Peterson et al. ( 2013 ), and Johnson et al. ( 2013 ), cultural values provide important leverage for understanding family functioning in terms of parental decision-making and conflict, which also has a substantial impact on children’s cognitive development.

Subsequently, cultural sensitivity to the analysis of the familial system in this country needs to be specially included because cultural differences are part of the array of familial conflicts that may arise, and children experience real consequences from the quality of these interactions. Therefore, parenting, which is already arduous in itself, and overall family functioning significantly become troublesome when parents with different cultural backgrounds aim to socialize values and perform parenting tasks. The following section provides an account of these cross-cultural families.

Intercultural Families: Adding Cultural Differences to Interparental Communication

For a country such as the United States, with 102 million people from many different cultural backgrounds, the presence of cross-cultural families is on the rise, as is the likelihood of intermarriage between immigrants and natives. With this cultural diversity, the two most prominent groups are Hispanics and Asians, particular cases of which will be discussed next. Besides the fact that parenting itself is a very complex and difficult task, certainly the biggest conflict consists of making decisions about the best way to raise children in terms of their values with regard to which ethnic identity better enacts the values that parents believe their children should embrace. As a result, interracial couples might confront many conflicts and challenges due to cultural differences affecting marital satisfaction and coparenting.

Assimilation , the degree to which a person from a different cultural background has adapted to the culture of the hostage society, is an important phenomenon in intermarriage. Assimilationists observe that children from families in which one of the parents is from the majority group and the other one from the minority do not automatically follow the parent from the majority group (Cohen, 1988 ). Indeed, they follow their mothers more, whichever group she belongs to, because of mothers are more prevalent among people with higher socioeconomic status (Gordon, 1964 ; Portes, 1984 ; Schwartz et al., 2013 ).

In an interracial marriage, the structural and interpersonal barriers inhibiting the interaction between two parents will be reduced significantly if parents develop a noncompeting way to communicate and solve conflicts, which means that both of them might give up part of their culture or ethnic identity to reach consensus. Otherwise, the ethnic identity of children who come from interracial marriages will become more and more obscure (Saenz, Hwang, Aguirre, & Anderson, 1995 ). Surely, parents’ noncompeting cultural communication patterns are fundamental for children’s development of ethnic identity. Biracial children develop feelings of being outsiders, and then parenting becomes crucial to developing their strong self-esteem (Ward, 2006 ). Indeed, Gordon ( 1964 ) found that children from cross-racial or cross-ethnic marriages are at risk of developing psychological problems. In another example, Jognson and Nagoshi ( 1986 ) studied children who come from mixed marriages in Hawaii and found that the problems of cultural identification, conflicting demands in the family, and of being marginal in either culture still exist (Mann & Waldron, 1977 ). It is hard for those mixed-racial children to completely develop the ethnic identity of either the majority group or the minority group.

The question of how children could maintain their minority ethnic identity is essential to the development of ethnic identity as a whole. For children from interracial marriage, the challenge to maintain their minority ethnic identity will be greater than for the majority ethnic identity (Waters, 1990 ; Schwartz et al., 2013 ) because the minority-group spouse is more likely to have greater ethnic consciousness than the majority-group spouse (Ellman, 1987 ). Usually, the majority group is more influential than the minority group on a child’s ethnic identity, but if the minority parent’s ethnicity does not significantly decline, the child’s ethnic identity could still reflect some characteristics of the minority parent. If parents want their children to maintain the minority group’s identity, letting the children learn the language of the minority group might be a good way to achieve this. By learning the language, children form a better understanding of that culture and perhaps are more likely to accept the ethnic identity that the language represents (Xin & Sandel, 2015 ).

In addition to language socialization as a way to contribute to children’s identity in biracial families, Jane and Bochner ( 2009 ) indicated that family rituals and stories could be important in performing and transforming identity. Families create and re-create their identities through various kinds of narrative, in which family stories and rituals are significant. Festivals and rituals are different from culture to culture, and each culture has its own. Therefore, exposing children to the language, rituals, and festivals of another culture also could be helpful to form their ethnic identity, in order to counter problems of self-esteem derived from the feeling of being an outsider.

To conclude this section, the parenting dilemma in intercultural marriages consists of deciding which culture they want their children to be exposed to and what kind of heritage they want to pass to children. The following section will provide two examples of intercultural marriages in the context of American society without implying that there are no other insightful cultures that deserve analysis, but the focus on Asian-American and Hispanics families reflects the available literature (Canary & Canary, 2013 ) and its demographic representativeness in this particular context. In addition, in order to acknowledge that minorities within this larger cultural background deserve more attention due to overemphasis on larger cultures in scholarship, such as Chinese or Japanese cultures, the Thai family will provide insights into understanding the role of culture in parenting and its impact on the remaining familial interaction, putting all theories already discussed in context. Moreover, the Hispanic family will also be taken in account because of its internal pan-ethnicity variety.

An Example of Intercultural Parenting: The Thai Family

The Thai family, also known as Krob Krua, may consist of parents, children, paternal and maternal grandparents, aunts, uncles, grandchildren, in-laws, and any others who share the same home. Thai marriages usually are traditional, in which the male is the authority figure and breadwinner and the wife is in charge of domestic items and the homemaker. It has been noted that Thai mothers tend to be the major caregivers and caretakers in the family rather than fathers (Tulananda, Young, & Roopnarine, 1994 ). On the other hand, it has been shown that Thai mothers also tend to spoil their children with such things as food and comfort; Tulananda et al. ( 1994 ) studied the differences between American and Thai fathers’ involvement with their preschool children and found that American fathers reported being significantly more involved with their children than Thai fathers. Specifically, the fathers differed in the amount of socialization and childcare; Thai fathers reported that they obtained more external support from other family members than American fathers; also, Thai fathers were more likely to obtain support for assisting with daughters than sons.

Furthermore, with regard to the family context, Tulananda and Roopnarine ( 2001 ) noted that over the years, some attention has been focused on the cultural differences among parent-child behaviors and interactions; hereafter, the authors believed that it is important to look at cultural parent-child interactions because that can help others understand children’s capacity to socialize and deal with life’s challenges. As a matter of fact, the authors also noted that Thai families tend to raise their children in accordance with Buddhist beliefs. It is customary for young Thai married couples to live with either the wife’s parents (uxorilocal) or the husband’s parents (virilocal) before living on their own (Tulananda & Roopnarine, 2001 ). The process of developing ethnicity could be complicated. Many factors might influence the process, such as which parent is from the minority culture and the cultural community, as explained in the previous section of this article.

This suggests that there is a difference in the way that Thai and American fathers communicate with their daughters. As a case in point, Punyanunt-Carter ( 2016 ) examined the relationship maintenance behaviors within father-daughter relationships in Thailand and the United States. Participants included 134 American father-daughter dyads and 154 Thai father-daughter dyads. The findings suggest that when quality of communication was included in this relationship, both types of families benefit from this family communication pattern, resulting in better conflict management and advice relationship maintenance behaviors. However, differences were found: American fathers are more likely than American daughters to employ relationship maintenance behaviors; in addition, American fathers are more likely than Thai fathers to use relationship maintenance strategies.

As a consequence, knowing the process of ethnic identity development could provide parents with different ways to form children’s ethnic identity. More specifically, McCann, Ota, Giles, and Caraker ( 2003 ), and Canary and Canary ( 2013 ) noted that Southeast Asian cultures have been overlooked in communication studies research; these countries differ in their religious, political, and philosophical thoughts, with a variety of collectivistic views and religious ideals (e.g., Buddhism, Taoism, Islam), whereas the United States is mainly Christian and consists of individualistic values.

The Case of Hispanic/Latino Families in the United States

There is a need for including Hispanic/Latino families in the United States because of the demographic representativeness and trends of the ethnicity: in 2016 , Hispanics represent nearly 17% of the total U.S. population, becoming the largest minority group. There are more than 53 million Hispanics and Latinos in the United States; in addition, over 93% of young Hispanics and Latinos under the age of 18 hold U.S. citizenship, and more than 73,000 of these people turn 18 every month (Barreto & Segura, 2014 ). Furthermore, the current Hispanic and Latino population is spread evenly between foreign-born and U.S.-born individuals, but the foreign-born population is now growing faster than the number of Hispanic children born in the country (Arias & Hellmueller, 2016 ). This demographic trend is projected to reach one-third of the U.S. total population by 2060 ; therefore, with the growth of other minority populations in the country, the phenomenon of multiracial marriage and biracial children is increasing as well.

Therefore, family communication scholarship has an increasing necessity to include cultural particularities in the analysis of the familial system; in addition to the cultural aspects already explained in this article, this section addresses the influence of familism in Hispanic and Latino familial interactions, as well as how immigration status moderates the internal interactions, reflected in levels of acculturation, that affect these families negatively.

With the higher marriage and birth rates among Hispanics and Latinos living in the United States compared to non-Latino Whites and African American populations, the Hispanic familial system is perhaps the most stereotyped as being familistic (Glick & Van Hook, 2008 ). This family trait consists of the fact that Hispanics place a very high value on marriage and childbearing, on the basis of a profound commitment to give support to members of the extended family as well. This can be evinced in the prevalence of extended-kind shared households in Hispanic and Latino families, and Hispanic children are more likely to live in extended-family households than non-Latino Whites or blacks (Glick & Van Hook, 2008 ). Living in extended-family households, most likely with grandparents, may have positive influences on Hispanic and Latino children, such as greater attention and interaction with loving through consistent caregiving; grandparents may help by engaging with children in academic-oriented activities, which then affects positively cognitive educational outcomes.

However, familism is not the panacea for all familial issues for several reasons. First, living in an extended-family household requires living arrangements that consider adults’ needs more than children’s. Second, the configuration of Hispanic and Latino households is moderated by any immigration issues with all members of the extended family, and this may cause problems for children (Menjívar, 2000 ). The immigration status of each individual member may produce a constant state of flux, whereas circumstances change to adjust to economic opportunities, which in turn are limited by immigration laws, and it gets even worse when one of the parents isn’t even present in the children’s home, but rather live in their home country (Van Hook & Glick, 2006 ). Although Hispanic and Latino children are more likely to live with married parents and extended relatives, familism is highly affected by the immigration status of each member.

On the other hand, there has been research to address the paramount role of communication disregarding the mediating factor of cultural diversity. For example, Sotomayor-Peterson et al. ( 2013 ) performed a cross-cultural comparison of the association between coparenting or shared parental effort and family climate among families from Mexico, the United States, and Costa Rica. The overall findings suggest what was explained earlier in this article: more shared parenting predicts better marital interaction and family climate overall.

In addition, parenting quality has been found to have a positive relationship with children’s developmental outcomes. In fact, Sotomayor-Peterson, Figueredo, Christensen, and Taylor ( 2012 ) conducted a study with 61 low-income Mexican American couples, with at least one child between three and four years of age, recruited from a home-based Head Start program. The main goal of this study was to observe the extent that shared parenting incorporates cultural values and income predicts family climate. The findings suggest that the role of cultural values such as familism, in which family solidarity and avoidance of confrontation are paramount, delineate shared parenting by Mexican American couples.

Cultural adaptation also has a substantial impact on marital satisfaction and children’s cognitive stimulation. Indeed, Sotomayor-Peterson, Wilhelm, and Card ( 2011 ) investigated the relationship between marital relationship quality and subsequent cognitive stimulation practices toward their infants in terms of the actor and partner effects of White and Hispanic parents. The results indicate an interesting relationship between the level of acculturation and marital relationship quality and a positive cognitive stimulation of infants; specifically, marital happiness is associated with increased cognitive stimulation by White and high-acculturated Hispanic fathers. Nevertheless, a major limitation of Hispanic acculturation literature has been seen, reflecting a reliance on cross-sectional studies where acculturation was scholarly operationalized more as an individual difference variable than as a longitudinal adaptation over time (Schwartz et al., 2013 ).

Culture and Family Communication: the “so what?” Question

This article has presented an entangled overview of family communication patterns, dyadic power, family systems, and conflict theories to establish that coparenting quality plays a paramount role. The main commonality among those theories pays special attention to interparental interaction quality, regardless of the type of family (i.e., intact, postdivorce, same-sex, etc.) and cultural background. After reviewing these theories, it was observed that the interparental relationship is the core interaction in the familial context because it affects children from their earlier cognitive development to subsequent parental modeling in terms of gender roles. Thus, in keeping with Canary and Canary ( 2013 ), no matter what approach may be taken to the analysis of family communication issues, the hypothesis that a positive emotional climate within the family is fostered only when couples practice a sufficient level of shared parenting and quality of communication is supported.

Nevertheless, this argument does not suggest that the role of culture in the familial interactions should be undersold. While including the main goal of parenting, which is the socialization of values, in the second section of this article, the text also provides specific values of different countries that are enacted and socialized differently across cultural contexts to address the role of acculturation in the familial atmosphere, the quality of interactions, and individual outcomes. As a case in point, Johnson et al. ( 2013 ) provided an interesting way of seeing how cultures differ in their ways of enacting parenting, clarifying that the role of culture in parenting is not a superficial or relativistic element.

In addition, by acknowledging the perhaps excessive attention to larger Asian cultural backgrounds (such as Chinese or Japanese cultures) by other scholars (i.e., Canary & Canary, 2013 ), an insightful analysis of the Thai American family within the father-daughter relationship was provided to exemplify, through the work of Punyanunt-Carter ( 2016 ), how specific family communication patterns, such as maintenance relationship communication behaviors, affect the quality of familial relationships. Moreover, a second, special focus was put on Hispanic families because of the demographic trends of the United States, and it was found that familism constitutes a distinctive aspect of these families.

In other words, the third section of this article provided these two examples of intercultural families to observe specific ways that culture mediates the familial system. Because one of the main goals of the present article was to demonstrate the mediating role of culture as an important consideration for family communication issues in the United States, the assimilationist approach was taken into account; thus, the two intercultural family examples discussed here correspond to an assimilationist nature rather than using an intergroup approach.

This decision was made without intending to diminish the value of other cultures or ethnic groups in the country, but an extensive revision of all types of intercultural families is beyond the scope of this article. Second, the assimilationist approach forces one to consider cultures that are in the process of adapting to a new hosting culture, and the Thai and Hispanic families in the United States comply with this theoretical requisite. For example, Whites recognize African Americans as being as American as Whites (i.e., Dovidio, Gluszek, John, Ditlmann, & Lagunes, 2010 ), whereas they associate Hispanics and Latinos with illegal immigration in the United States (Stewart et al., 2011 ), which has been enhanced by the U.S. media repeatedly since 1994 (Valentino et al., 2013 ), and it is still happening (Dixon, 2015 ). In this scenario, “ask yourself what would happen to your own personality if you heard it said over and over again that you were lazy, a simple child of nature, expected to steal, and had inferior blood? . . . One’s reputation, whether false or true, cannot be hammered, hammered, hammered, into one’s head without doing something to one’s character” (Allport, 1979 , p. 142, cited in Arias & Hellmueller, 2016 ).

As a consequence, on this cultural canvas, it should not be surprising that Lichter, Carmalt, and Qian ( 2011 ) found that second-generation Hispanics are increasingly likely to marry foreign-born Hispanics and less likely to marry third-generation or later coethnics or Whites. In addition, this study suggests that third-generation Hispanics and later were more likely than in the past to marry non-Hispanic Whites; thus, the authors concluded that there has been a new retreat from intermarriage among the largest immigrant groups in the United States—Hispanics and Asians—in the last 20 years.

If we subscribe to the idea that cultural assimilation goes in only one direction—from the hegemonic culture to the minority culture—then the results of Lichter, Carmalt, and Qian ( 2011 ) should not be of scholarly concern; however, if we believe that cultural assimilation happens in both directions and intercultural families can benefit both the host and immigrant cultures (for a review, see Schwartz et al., 2013 ), then this is important to address in a country that just elected a president, Donald Trump, who featured statements racially lambasting and segregating minorities, denigrating women, and criticizing immigration as some of the main tenets of his campaign. Therefore, we hope that it is clear why special attention was given to the Thai and Hispanic families in this article, considering the impact of culture on the familial system, marital satisfaction, parental communication, and children’s well-being. Even though individuals with Hispanic ancentry were in the United States even before it became a nation, Hispanic and Latino families are still trying to convince Americans of their right to be accepted in American culture and society.

With regard to the “So what?” question, assimilation is important to consider while analyzing the role of culture in family communication patterns, power dynamics, conflict, or the functioning of the overall family system in the context of the United States. This is because this country is among the most popular in the world in terms of immigration requests, and its demographics show that one out of three citizens comes from an ethnic background other than the hegemonic White culture. In sum, cultural awareness has become pivotal in the analysis of family communication issues in the United States. Furthermore, the present overview of family, communication, and culture ends up supporting the idea of positive associations being derived from the pivotal role of marriage relationship quality, such that coparenting and communication practices vary substantially within intercultural marriages moderated by gender roles.

Culture is a pivotal moderator of these associations, but this analysis needs to be tethered to societal structural level, in which cultural differences, family members’ immigration status, media content, and level of acculturation must be included in family research. This is because in intercultural marriages, in addition to the tremendous parenting role, they have to deal with cultural assimilation and discrimination, and this becomes important if we care about children’s cognitive development and the overall well-being of those who are not considered White. As this article shows, the quality of familial interactions has direct consequences on children’s developmental outcomes (for a review, see Callaghan et al., 2011 ).

Therefore, the structure and functioning of family has an important impact on public health at both physiological and psychological levels (Gage, Everett, & Bullock, 2006 ). At the physiological level, the familial interaction instigates expression and reception of strong feelings affecting tremendously on individuals’ physical health because it activates neuroendocrine responses that aid stress regulation, acting as a stress buffer and accelerating physiological recovery from elevated stress (Floyd & Afifi, 2012 ; Floyd, 2014 ). Robles, Shaffer, Malarkey, and Kiecolt-Glaser ( 2006 ) found that a combination of supportive communication, humor, and problem-solving behavior in husbands predicts their wives’ cortisol and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)—both physiological factors are considered as stress markers (see 2006 ). On the other hand, the psychology of individuals, the quality of family relationships has major repercussions on cognitive development, as reflected in educational attainment (Sohr-Preston et al., 2013 ), and highly mediated by cultural assimilation (Schwartz et al., 2013 ), which affects individuals through parenting modeling and socialization of values (Mooney-Doyle, Deatrick, & Horowitz, 2014 ).

15.2 Sociological Perspectives on the Family

Learning objective.

Summarize understandings of the family as presented by functional, conflict, and social interactionist theories.

Sociological views on today’s families generally fall into the functional, conflict, and social interactionist approaches introduced earlier in this book. Let’s review these views, which are summarized in Table 15.1 “Theory Snapshot” .

Table 15.1 Theory Snapshot

Social Functions of the Family

Recall that the functional perspective emphasizes that social institutions perform several important functions to help preserve social stability and otherwise keep a society working. A functional understanding of the family thus stresses the ways in which the family as a social institution helps make society possible. As such, the family performs several important functions.

First, the family is the primary unit for socializing children . As previous chapters indicated, no society is possible without adequate socialization of its young. In most societies, the family is the major unit in which socialization happens. Parents, siblings, and, if the family is extended rather than nuclear, other relatives all help socialize children from the time they are born.

One of the most important functions of the family is the socialization of children. In most societies the family is the major unit through which socialization occurs.

Colleen Kelly – Kids Playing Monopoly Chicago – CC BY 2.0.

Second, the family is ideally a major source of practical and emotional support for its members. It provides them food, clothing, shelter, and other essentials, and it also provides them love, comfort, help in times of emotional distress, and other types of intangible support that we all need.

Third, the family helps regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction . All societies have norms governing with whom and how often a person should have sex. The family is the major unit for teaching these norms and the major unit through which sexual reproduction occurs. One reason for this is to ensure that infants have adequate emotional and practical care when they are born. The incest taboo that most societies have, which prohibits sex between certain relatives, helps minimize conflict within the family if sex occurred among its members and to establish social ties among different families and thus among society as a whole.

Fourth, the family provides its members with a social identity . Children are born into their parents’ social class, race and ethnicity, religion, and so forth. As we have seen in earlier chapters, social identity is important for our life chances. Some children have advantages throughout life because of the social identity they acquire from their parents, while others face many obstacles because the social class or race/ethnicity into which they are born is at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

Beyond discussing the family’s functions, the functional perspective on the family maintains that sudden or far-reaching changes in conventional family structure and processes threaten the family’s stability and thus that of society. For example, most sociology and marriage-and-family textbooks during the 1950s maintained that the male breadwinner–female homemaker nuclear family was the best arrangement for children, as it provided for a family’s economic and child-rearing needs. Any shift in this arrangement, they warned, would harm children and by extension the family as a social institution and even society itself. Textbooks no longer contain this warning, but many conservative observers continue to worry about the impact on children of working mothers and one-parent families. We return to their concerns shortly.

The Family and Conflict

Conflict theorists agree that the family serves the important functions just listed, but they also point to problems within the family that the functional perspective minimizes or overlooks altogether.

First, the family as a social institution contributes to social inequality in several ways. The social identity it gives to its children does affect their life chances, but it also reinforces a society’s system of stratification. Because families pass along their wealth to their children, and because families differ greatly in the amount of wealth they have, the family helps reinforce existing inequality. As it developed through the centuries, and especially during industrialization, the family also became more and more of a patriarchal unit (see earlier discussion), helping to ensure men’s status at the top of the social hierarchy.

Second, the family can also be a source of conflict for its own members. Although the functional perspective assumes the family provides its members emotional comfort and support, many families do just the opposite and are far from the harmonious, happy groups depicted in the 1950s television shows. Instead, and as the news story that began this chapter tragically illustrated, they argue, shout, and use emotional cruelty and physical violence. We return to family violence later in this chapter.

Families and Social Interaction

Social interactionist perspectives on the family examine how family members and intimate couples interact on a daily basis and arrive at shared understandings of their situations. Studies grounded in social interactionism give us a keen understanding of how and why families operate the way they do.

Some studies, for example, focus on how husbands and wives communicate and the degree to which they communicate successfully (Tannen, 2001). A classic study by Mirra Komarovsky (1964) found that wives in blue-collar marriages liked to talk with their husbands about problems they were having, while husbands tended to be quiet when problems occurred. Such gender differences seem less common in middle-class families, where men are better educated and more emotionally expressive than their working-class counterparts. Another classic study by Lillian Rubin (1976) found that wives in middle-class families say that ideal husbands are ones who communicate well and share their feelings, while wives in working-class families are more apt to say that ideal husbands are ones who do not drink too much and who go to work every day.

Other studies explore the role played by romantic love in courtship and marriage. Romantic love , the feeling of deep emotional and sexual passion for someone, is the basis for many American marriages and dating relationships, but it is actually uncommon in many parts of the contemporary world today and in many of the societies anthropologists and historians have studied. In these societies, marriages are arranged by parents and other kin for economic reasons or to build alliances, and young people are simply expected to marry whoever is chosen for them. This is the situation today in parts of India, Pakistan, and other developing nations and was the norm for much of the Western world until the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Lystra, 1989).

Key Takeaways

The family ideally serves several functions for society. It socializes children, provides practical and emotional support for its members, regulates sexual reproduction, and provides its members with a social identity.
Reflecting conflict theory’s emphases, the family may also produce several problems. In particular, it may contribute for several reasons to social inequality, and it may subject its members to violence, arguments, and other forms of conflict.
Social interactionist understandings of the family emphasize how family members interact on a daily basis. In this regard, several studies find that husbands and wives communicate differently in certain ways that sometimes impede effective communication.

For Your Review

As you think how best to understand the family, do you favor the views and assumptions of functional theory, conflict theory, or social interactionist theory? Explain your answer.
Do you think the family continues to serve the function of regulating sexual behavior and sexual reproduction? Why or why not?

Komarovsky, M. (1964). Blue-collar marriage . New York, NY: Random House.

Lystra, K. (1989). Searching the heart: Women, men, and romantic love in nineteenth-century America . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Rubin, L. B. (1976). Worlds of pain: Life in the working-class family . New York, NY: Basic Books.

Tannen, D. (2001). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation . New York, NY: Quill.

Socialization and the Family

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Joan E. Grusec 3 &
Hugh Lytton 4

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“The process whereby the child becomes a social being” is perhaps the most comprehensive short definition of what we mean by “socialization.” The word socialization implies that the individual lives in a social world, that is, within a group, and group living, by its nature, imposes its own restraints and patterns of living for animals as well as humans. It is in early childhood that the child most actively and rapidly acquires these patterns of behavior, and she does so by means and in the context of her interactions with her family. Hence the family—at least in most forms of Western society—is the primary agent of socialization.

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Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A1, Canada

Joan E. Grusec

Department of Educational Psychology, The University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4, Canada

Hugh Lytton

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Grusec, J.E., Lytton, H. (1988). Socialization and the Family. In: Social Development. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3768-6_5

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Int J Environ Res Public Health

Parental Socialization Styles: The Contribution of Paternal and Maternal Affect/Communication and Strictness to Family Socialization Style

1 Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), 48940 Leioa, Spain

Arantzazu Rodríguez-Fernández

2 Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), 01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain; [email protected] (A.R.-F.); [email protected] (E.G.); [email protected] (I.A.-A.)

Eider Goñi

Iratxe antonio-agirre.

The aim of this study is two-fold: (a) to determine the general degree of family affect/communication and strictness by examining the combination of the two classical dimensions of mother parenting style: affect/communication and strictness, and (b) to analyze the impact of both parents’ affect and strictness on the family style, thereby exploring the specific contribution made by each parent’s style and dimension. Participants were 1190 Spanish students, 47.1% boys and 52.3% girls (M = 14.68; SD = 1.76). The Affect Scale (EA-H) and the Rules and Demandingness Scale (ENE-H) (both by Fuentes, Motrico, and Bersabé, 1999) were used. Structural equation models (SEMs) were extracted using the EQS program. The results reveal that it is not the father’s and the mother’s parenting style combined, but rather the combination of maternal and paternal affect/communication, and maternal and paternal strictness which generates one perception of family affect and another of family strictness. The results also indicated that the weight of both dimensions varies in accordance with the parent’s gender, with maternal dimensions playing a more important role in family socialization style.

1. Introduction

1.1. parental socialization styles and their dimensions.

From childhood onwards, the family is the foremost context for socialization and individual development, and parents represent one of the most powerful influences in their children’s lives [ 1 , 2 ]. Far from being restricted to childhood, however, this influence continues throughout individuals’ entire lives [ 3 , 4 ], becoming particularly relevant in moments of change, such as adolescence, which is now considered the most complex period of the life cycle due to the multiple simultaneous challenges faced by young people during the teenage years [ 5 ].

Traditionally, research into the way in which parents bring up and socialize their children and the consequences of their different practices for children’s adjustment and wellbeing has focused mainly on parental socialization styles. Although several different models have been proposed since the initial publication of studies in this field [ 6 ], the most commonly-used is that resulting from the combination of two underlying dimensions which have guided the study of parenting for decades [ 7 , 8 ]: responsiveness and demandingness [ 9 , 10 ]. Both refer to patterns of parental practices that are grouped into these two central dimensions considered theoretically [ 10 ] and empirically [ 11 , 12 ] as orthogonal (independent) dimensions. The combination of both orthogonal dimensions results in a quadrant of four parental styles [ 10 , 12 ]: the authoritative or democratic and the permissive or indulgent styles, characterized by high responsiveness and high and low demandingness (respectively), and the authoritarian and the neglectful styles, characterized by low responsiveness and high and low demandingness, respectively [ 13 ].

The responsiveness dimension, also termed warmth, affect, or acceptance [ 14 ], has generated a large volume of research attesting to its importance in offspring’s positive development, flourishing, and emotional development (e.g., self-esteem, subjective well-being, lower risk of behavioral problems, mood disorders [ 13 , 15 , 16 , 17 ], or drug consumption [ 18 ]). This relation with positive adjustment has been observed all the way to adulthood across many different cultures [ 19 , 20 ].

The consensus regarding the demandingness dimension, often defined as control, is not as broad [ 21 ], perhaps due to the variety of different conceptions that have been proposed [ 22 ] since the initial pioneering studies [ 9 , 13 ]. For example, demandingness has been found to be positive when understood as behavioral control and supervision of adolescents’ conduct [ 22 , 23 ], although not when it takes the form of coercive and psychological control [ 1 , 14 , 24 , 25 ]. The general trend is to consider psychological control as being detrimental to children’s development, while behavioral control is only harmful if it becomes coercive [ 9 ] and adolescents perceive it as excessively invasive or affecting aspects they do not consider to come under the purview of parental authority [ 26 ].

In the present study, the two dimensions are encompassed under the terms affect-communication (for responsiveness) and discipline or strictness (for demandingness). Thus, the affect - communication dimension is similar to the classic responsiveness one, being characterized by emotional warmth and the provision of help and support in accordance with the child’s needs [ 9 ]. In other words, it reflects open communication and displays of care, affection, concern, and acceptance by parental figures [ 21 ]. Demandingness, on the other hand, is conceptualized in terms of strictness or firmness [ 27 , 28 ], a label adopted by recent studies [ 11 , 12 , 29 , 30 , 31 ] which refers to the rigidity with which parents exercise their authority [ 32 ] and impose rules and limits on their children’s behavior [ 4 ].

1.2. The Contribution of Parental Figures to the Establishment of Family Socialization Style

Parental socialization styles are defined more as an emotional context or climate than as a set of specific parenting practices [ 13 ], meaning that depending on said context, each parent’s individual practices (affect, communication, strictness, etc.) would have a different meaning for their child [ 33 ].

It is therefore important to take the styles and practices of both parents into consideration, since both contribute to the establishment of the family socialization style. Analyzing how the father’s and the mother’s practices combine with each other provides a more realistic insight into two-parent households and families [ 34 ]. Nevertheless, previous studies have rarely taken both parents (mother and father) into account [ 35 , 36 ], tending to place more emphasis on the maternal style than the paternal one [ 22 , 37 ], possibly because women have traditionally spent more time with their children than men [ 38 , 39 ], assuming greater responsibility for their care and upbringing [ 21 , 40 ].

When both parents have been taken into account, in most cases it was to determine their relative weight in, or contribution to, their children’s adjustment outcomes, with the results indicating that both parents play a significant role [ 24 , 25 , 26 , 41 , 42 ]. However, no consensus has yet been reached regarding which parent’s influence is stronger, with evidence existing in support of both the paternal [ 17 , 25 , 36 , 40 , 43 , 44 , 45 ] and the maternal contribution [ 27 , 46 ]. It is possible that this lack of convergence may be due, among other issues, to the type of variable analyzed, with some authors for example, arguing that maternal affect fosters children’s socioemotional development, while (a lack of) paternal affect results in behavioral problems [ 17 ].

Whatever the case, the practices of both parents are rarely analyzed in order to determine the family or global style established as a result of their interaction, which ultimately determines the socialization of the children living in the household. In the few studies which mention a "family style", participants are asked about their parents’ practices in a general, non-specific manner, with no distinction being made between mothers and fathers [ 3 , 47 , 48 ]. Alternatively, the score of a single parent is used [ 2 , 4 ] or family style is established on the basis of a mean score, simply combining the scores obtained by the father and the mother for each specific dimension [ 49 ].

On other occasions, family style is determined by comparing the mother’s and the father’s style [ 34 , 38 , 50 , 51 , 52 ] in order to assess the level of congruence or incongruence between them, without taking the dimensions underlying these styles into consideration [ 53 ].

1.3. The Contribution of Parenting Dimensions to the Establishment of Family Socialization Style

Just as studies which consider both the maternal and the paternal style do not seem to analyze their contribution to the family socialization style, nor do any of the studies found analyze the contribution of each parent’s practices to this same construct. In general, studies which consider the practices of both parents tend to observe their relationship with children’s outcomes separately, with few taking into account the possible combined or interaction effect of maternal and paternal parenting dimensions [ 25 , 34 , 53 , 54 ].

Studies which report dimension measures for both mothers and fathers have found that they tend to coincide and correlate positively with each other, although mothers are usually perceived as more affectionate, as well as exercising greater control and discipline than fathers [ 2 , 37 , 55 , 56 , 57 ]. This may be due to the fact that, despite social advances and the increase in parental co-responsibility, gender construction and social stereotypes still result in women continuing to be more involved than men in the care and upbringing of their children [ 37 ].

1.4. The Present Study

None of the studies cited above analyze the contribution made by each individual parent to the family style, through the exercise of their parenting practices or dimensions. However, given that only a combined vision of the practices of both parents [ 17 , 25 , 58 ], in the form of the family socialization style, will enable a fuller understanding of the climate and significance of said practices in the key socialization context that is the family, it is vital to explore the way in which both parenting dimensions ( affect-communication and strictness ) contribute to establishing this style.

It is therefore important to have separate measures of affect and strictness for each parent [ 24 , 59 , 60 ] and to explore further the relationship which exists between the different dimensions [ 1 , 61 ] in order to determine their combined effect [ 17 , 25 , 34 ] and calculate their relative weight in the establishment of the family socialization style or climate, as perceived by children. This is, therefore, the fundamental aim of the present study.

2. Materials and Method

2.1. participants.

A total of 1224 participants were recruited by random sampling, although following the elimination of those with unlikely response patterns (outliers) and those failing to complete the two questionnaires on paternal and maternal socialization styles (due to different reasons, e.g., having a deceased parent, not having a relationship with one of two parents, etc), the final sample comprised only 1190. Participants were aged between 12 and 17 years (M = 14.68; SD = 1.76) and were all students at 8 secondary schools (4 semi-private schools with 449 participants and 4 public ones with 741 participants) in the Spanish Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (ACBC). With regards to sex, 560 (47.1%) were boys and 622 (52.3%) were girls, and 1024 (86.1%) claimed to have a medium family socioeconomic and cultural level, 36 (3%) claimed to have a low level, and 101 (8.5%) had a high level.

In terms of living arrangements, 1010 (84.9%) lived with their nuclear or nuclear-extended family, 100 (8.75%) lived with the parent who had custody of them, and 21 (1.8%) lived alternatively with both parents, under a joint custody regime. Finally, 31 (2.8%) lived in step-families and 28 failed to provide any data about their family situation, although they did respond to the questionnaires for both parents.

2.2. Measures

Two questionnaires were used to assess parenting styles, one for each dimension (affect-communication and strictness). In both cases, the children’s version of the instrument was used. Participants responded to each item in accordance with their perception of the style employed by the parent in question (mother or father). Although both questionnaires comprise various subscales, in each one we chose that which corresponded to the most widely-accepted theory, which views responsiveness (or affect-communication) and demandingness (or strictness) [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 32 ] as dimensions which together make up the four quadrants of the parenting style grid [ 7 , 8 ]. In both questionnaires, respondents answered on a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = never to 5 = always), with higher scores indicating higher levels in all dimensions.

2.2.1. Affect-Communication Dimension

To measure each parent’s level of affect-communication, the subscale used was that of the same name within the Affect Scale (EA-H) [ 62 ]. This subscale is designed to assess children’s perceptions of their parents’ affect, communication, and interest in them. Although the affect-communication subscale comprises 10 items (e.g.: “He is affectionate to me”; “He/she comforts me when I am sad”; “He/she spends time talking to me”), rated on a 5-point scale from 1 = never to 5 = always, only 7 were used here (i2, i6, i8, i9, i11, i14, and i20). All had adequate indexes for the study, both as regards to the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for the subscale and in terms of its composite reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The goodness-of-fit indicators for the data in the CFA were Chi-squared = 48.96; p < 0.05; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.074; Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.965; Normed Fit Index (NFI) = 0.952; Non Normed Fit Index (NNFI) = 0.947; Incremental Fit Index (IFI) = 0.965 for paternal affect-communication; and Chi-squared = 33.63; p < 0.05; RMSEA = 0.063; CFI = 0.967; NFI = 0.951; NNFI = 0.943; IFI = 0.968 for maternal affect-communication. The values for composite reliability and AVE were (respectively) 0.876 and 0.505 for the father and 0.852 and 0.485 for the mother. The reliability indexes were therefore similar to those reported by other studies [ 21 ], and can be considered indicative of adequate composite reliability [ 63 ].

2.2.2. Strictness Dimension

To measure parents’ strictness, the Strictness subscale of the Rules and Demandingness questionnaire (ENE-H) [ 62 ] was used. Specifically, 7 out of the 10 items (e.g.: “He/She tries to control my life all the time?”; “He/She imposes very harsh punishments on me, so that I do not disobey again”; “He/She tells me that parents are always right”) contained in said subscale were used here (i2, i4, i9, i20, i23, i25, and i27), with responses given on the same Likert-type scale as that used in the affect-communication dimension. A CFA was conducted to verify the goodness-of-fit of the data and to determine the composite reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). In the case of both father’s (X 2 (13) = 39.75; p < 0.05; RMSEA = 0.067; CFI = 0.954; NFI = 0.933; NNFI = 0.925; IFI = 0.954) and mother’s strictness (X 2 (13) = 33.93; p > 0.05; RMSEA = 0.060; CFI = 0.953; NFI = 0.927; NNFI = 0.923; IFI = 0.953), the results of the CFA confirmed the suitability of the items used to measure the variable. The composite reliability values were also adequate, despite the average variance extracted being close to the cutoff point (0.50), since values under this threshold may be considered acceptable, providing the composite reliability coefficients are equal to or higher than 0.70 and the item-subscale correlation coefficients are equal to or higher than 0.40, both of which were true in this case [ 63 ]: composite reliability = 0.858 and AVE = 0.441 for father’s strictness and composite reliability = 0.826 and AVE = 0.471 for mother’s strictness.

2.3. Procedure

Approval for the study (M10_2015_076) was obtained from the Ethics Board for Research with Human Beings (CEISH-UPV/EHU) at the University of the Basque Country, which attests to the fact that the procedure respects the basic principles established by the American Psychological Association [ 64 ], including informed consent and right to information, protection of personal data and guarantees of confidentiality, non-remuneration, and the possibility of withdrawing from the study at any time. Once the study had been approved, several schools were randomly selected from the Basque Regional Government’s list of all the secondary schools in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. The schools were then informed of the research project and invited to participate. Whenever a school declined to participate, another was selected from the list using the same random procedure, although always respecting the proportional split between semi-private and public institutions. Only students whose parents/guardians signed an informed consent form participated in the study. All questionnaires were completed in class time under the supervision of members of the research team. All students in the same class completed the questionnaire at the same time, and the mean duration was thirty minutes. With the aim of mitigating the incidence of responses in keeping with the research hypothesis, the single-blind criterion was employed (i.e., students were unaware of the purpose of the study). Furthermore, both the confidentiality of the responses given, and the voluntary nature of the participation were guaranteed in order to reduce the effects of the social desirability bias as far as possible.

2.4. Analysis

Missing values (1.92%) were inferred using the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm and the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). Outliers (inconsistent or strange response patterns, or extreme responses) were analyzed, with 34 participants (2.8%) being eliminated as a result. No participant was eliminated from the study for failing to respond to the minimum number of items.

To test the fit of the structural model to the data and to carry out the different CFAs to verify the suitability of the items selected, the SEM method was used within the EQS program, version 6.1 (Multivariate Software, Encino, CA, USA) [ 65 ]. Since the data did not reach the multivariate normality level required for this type of methodology, and given that the Mardia coefficient obtained was higher than 25 (p < 0.01), the robust ML (Maximum Likelihood) estimation method was used at all times, combining robust goodness-of-fit indexes with Satorra–Bentler’s chi-squared and significance level [ 66 ].

The polychoric correlation matrices were also calculated. To determine the fit of the different models hypothesized, we tested them in accordance with the instructions proposed by experts, which suggest the use of the following combination of indicators [ 67 , 68 ]: Chi-squared, along with its associated probability, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Normed Fit Index (NFI), Incremental Fit Index (IFI), and Comparative Fit Index (CFI). While for the RMSEA values under 0.08 are considered acceptable, for all of the other indicators’ values must be at least 0.90. Finally, the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and Consistent Akaike Information Criterion (CAIC) indicators were calculated to compare the estimated models. In these indicators, lower values represent better fit due to the greater parsimony of the model.

To analyze the combination of the different dimensions which together make up parenting styles (both paternal and maternal) and their effect on family socialization style, three different structural regression models were empirically compared. The first model (M1) postulated that the four dimensions (mother’s affect-communication, father’s affect-communication, mother’s strictness, and father’s strictness) have a direct influence on family socialization style, as perceived by the child. The second model (M2) postulated that paternal dimensions (affect-communication and strictness) combine to form the paternal style, and that the maternal dimensions combine to form the maternal style, the child’s perception of both styles would then result in their perception of the family socialization style. The third and final model (M3) postulated that both affect-communication dimensions (father’s and mother’s) influence a variable called "family affect-communication", and both strictness dimensions (father’s and mother’s) influence a variable called "family strictness," both variables would then combine to give the family socialization style, as perceived by the child (see Figure 1 ).

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Hypothesized theoretical models.

Firstly, the suitability of the measurement model was tested, with the results indicating adequate fit indexes (X 2 (332) = 787.75; p < 0.05; RMSEA = 0.055; CFI = 0.908; NFI = 0.880; NNFI = 0.900; IFI = 0.909). Next, the three theoretical models were compared (see Table 1 ).

Goodness-of-fit indicators for the hypothesized theoretical models.

Note： Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Normed Fit Index (NFI), Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI), Incremental Fit Index (IFI), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and Consistent Akaike Information Criterion (CAIC).

As indicated by the confidence intervals, all three models were found to be significantly different from each other, thus confirming that they are indeed different structural models. The model with the poorest adjustment was M1 (in which the four dimensions directly influence family socialization style), since, although its Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA = 0.060) and the ratio between the Chi-squared value and the degrees of freedom (X 2 /df = 2.57), understood as general fit indicators, were within acceptable limits, the other indicators (CFI = 0.894; NFI = 0.839; NNFI = 0.880; IFI = 0.895) failed to reach the required cut-off point. Moreover, both the AIC and the CAIC had higher values than in the other two models, thereby indicating the poorest fit of all three models tested.

Both M2, which postulated that family socialization style is determined by the father’s style and the mother’s style (X 2 (330) = 765.72; X 2 /gl = 2.32; p < 0.05; RMSEA = 0.054; CFI = 0.912; NFI = 0.856; NNFI = 0.900; IFI = 0.913), and M3, according to which family socialization style is the result of the family affect-communication style and family strictness style (X 2 (330) = 668.51; X 2 /gl = 2.02 p < 0.05; RMSEA = 0.048; CFI = 0.932; NFI = 0.894; NNFI = 0.922; IFI = 0.932), were found to have a good fit. Nevertheless, M3 had better values, since its Chi-squared value, degrees of freedom ratio, and RMSEA were lower, and its CFI, NFI, NNFI, and IFI were higher than for M2. Moreover, although the NNFI value failed to reach the minimum 0.90 cut-off point, it did come very close to this limit. It should be remembered that the acceptance of any model is determined by the combination of all of its indicators, with experts recommending against taking any one value as a single reference for accepting or rejecting a model [ 67 ]. M3 also obtained lower AIC (AIC (M2) = 105.728; AIC (M3) = 8.515) and CAIC (CAIC (M2) = –1579.590; AIC (M3) = –1676.802) index values than M2, thus indicating that it is the preferred model for acceptance ( Figure 2 ). In none of the cases did the indices of modification and improvement of the three models point to the need to establish correlations between the indicators of the Strictness and Affect dimensions, on the contrary, their incorporation worsens the fit of any of the models, thus pointing to the orthogonality of the two classic dimensions.

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Standardized solutions of the accepted M3 model.

Regarding the effects observed between the variables studied, an individual analysis of the regression coefficients of the final model ( Figure 2 ) revealed that all of the proposed pathways reached significance level ( p < 0.01). Family socialization style was determined to a very similar extent by the general strictness style in the home (β = –0.704; p < 0.01) and the degree of affect and communication demonstrated by both parents (β = 0.658; p < 0.01), although strictness had a slightly greater influence (R 2 = 0.496) than affect-communication (R 2 = 0.433), as well as a negative effect on family socialization style.

The mother’s strictness was found to have considerably more influence (β = 0.972; p < 0.01; R 2 = 0.944) than the father’s (β = 0.700; p < 0.01 R 2 = 0.490) in determining family strictness style. The same was also true for family communication and affect style, i.e., it was the mother’s affect and communication (β = 0.858; p < 0.01; R 2 = 0.735) that had a greater effect than the father’s (β = 0.569; p < 0.01; R 2 = 0.324) on family affect-communication style, as perceived by the child.

4. Discussion

The present study aimed to explore the influence of parenting practices on the establishment of family socialization style, understood as an emotional context or climate [ 13 ] in which parenting practices may acquire different meaning when both the mother’s and father’s affect-communication and strictness are combined. Previous studies have often focused on analyzing the style of a single parent, mainly the mother [ 22 , 37 ], although subsequently the weight of both parents in adolescent socialization and development has been recognized, with some authors studying the effect of each parent’s practices on children’s adjustment or maladjustment separately [ 24 , 25 , 26 , 41 , 69 ].

Nevertheless, only a few studies have sought to explore family socialization style [ 25 , 34 , 53 , 54 ], despite the fact that it is a precursor to the practices of both parents and vital to determining how they interact and combine to explain final development outcomes. Indeed, the few studies that mention family style either base their observations on a single parent, ask participants for a general assessment without distinguishing between father and mother, or simply calculate the mean score obtained by both [ 3 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 70 ]. However, they do not analyze the specific contribution made by each dimension to the family socialization style, as perceived by children. Hence the decision to explore in this study the way in which the parenting practices of both parents combine in the child’s assessment of the global family socialization style.

In this study, the analysis of the proposed models indicated that family socialization style derives from both the combination of the father’s and the mother’s strictness and the combination of the father’s and the mother’s affect-communication, thereby giving rise to two dimensions that could be termed " family affect-communication " and "family strictness ". The combination of these two family dimensions in turn explains the family climate or style perceived by children. In addition, the results obtained in this work also indicate that the classical dimensions derived from parental practices (strictness and affection) are orthogonal dimensions (independent of each other), which offers empirical support to the results obtained in previous research [ 11 , 12 ].

In light of these findings, it is important to understand the exercise of maternal and paternal socialization practices in both dimensions (affect-communication and strictness), since their combined influence gives rise to different family styles or climates. Thus, the perception of one or both parents being strict, in the absence or presence of affect-communication from the same or the other parent, or from both, will have different effects in terms of family socialization style. In other words, the most important thing seems to be the child’s global and combined perception of their parental dyad, since the mother’s and the father’s practices seem to combine in each dimension, having both a synergistic and a certain buffer effect on one another [ 58 ], depending on the type of style adopted by each. It is therefore important to infer family style on the basis of the way in which paternal and maternal dimensions relate to each other, in order to determine their combined effect [ 17 , 25 , 34 ] and the proportional weight of each, rather than just a mean score, as has been the case in the past [ 49 ].

Another conclusion that can be drawn is that the two dimensions are almost equally important for determining family style, although strictness has a somewhat greater and negative effect, with an extremely strict family style on occasions canceling out the effect of even a high level of affect and communication. The results of this study are consistent with that observed in previous studies, in which, unlike parental discipline (particularly punitive and coercive discipline), both maternal and paternal affect seem to correlate positively with certain aspects of adolescent adjustment [ 1 , 71 , 72 ]. Our findings also coincide with those reported by studies which observed better adolescent adjustment outcomes when young people are brought up with a democratic or, particularly, indulgent style, characterized by a high level of affect and the absence (or moderate level) of strict discipline [ 3 , 4 , 73 , 74 ]. Neglectful and authoritarian styles, on the other hand, seem to be more closely related to adolescent emotional instability, maladjustment, and violence [ 3 , 48 , 49 ]. These results question the need for strict, authoritarian rule setting, particularly during adolescence, a vital moment in young people’s lives in which they need greater support for their autonomy [ 25 ] and therefore types of discipline based on guidance and reflection provided through affect and communication [ 71 , 75 ].

The results of the present study offer information regarding the weight of maternal and paternal practices in the establishment of a family socialization style, with the mother playing a predominant role in both dimensions, probably because traditionally, mothers have tended to spend more time with their children than fathers [ 38 , 39 ]. Furthermore, despite changes in modern society, it seems that in general, women continue to assume greater responsibility for their children’s care and upbringing [ 21 , 40 ]. Indeed, previous research has found that adolescent children tend to award higher scores to their mother than to their father in all dimensions, both positive and negative (affect, communication, control, discipline, etc.) [ 2 , 37 , 55 , 56 , 57 ].

It has also been found that children develop different expectations regarding their parents’ behavior depending (to a large extent) on the socially-established rules for men and women existing in the surrounding culture, which would explain the different weight of paternal and maternal practices in children’s perception of family style [ 17 , 37 ]. In other words, it is possible that, given existing female stereotypes regarding empathy, attention to other people’s needs, and sensitivity [ 76 ], as well as the social idea regarding what it means to be a "good mother" (i.e., dedicated, exclusive and caring [ 77 ], self-denying, and offering unconditional love and support), it may be that a child’s perception of severe or strict imposition of rules by their mother goes against both the "maternal ideal" and those stereotypes associated with women, and may therefore be counterproductive to the establishment of a positive family style. Indeed, previous research supports this idea, indicating that family conflict is reduced when parents, particularly mothers, use inductive discipline [ 75 ]. For its part, the continuing stereotype of the father figure as the breadwinner and ultimate authority in the family [ 38 ] may enable men to exercise strict discipline without having such a negative effect on family style as when it is exercised by women. This is consistent with the findings reported by other studies, in which maternal control is perceived as intrusive whereas paternal control, in the same environment, is considered more legitimate [ 26 ] and is not therefore perceived so negatively and is not linked (as maternal control is) to children’s stress [ 78 ] or behavioral problems [ 25 ]. Similarly, it is possible that paternal affect may contribute less to family style than maternal affect due to the social expectation of men’s greater independence [ 76 ] and autonomy, and therefore their lesser involvement in care tasks.

It is also possible that the different weight of mothers’ and fathers’ contribution to family socialization style may be due to other issues that have not been considered in this study, such as the age and sex of the child, or the age of the parents themselves [ 17 , 26 , 78 , 79 , 80 ]. In this respect, although there are numerous studies that find a differential impact of parental styles on adolescent development according to whether it is perceived from the father or from the mother [ 17 , 25 , 27 ], there is no clear consensus on the matter, as there is also evidence of a very similar impact [ 81 ]. Therefore, the differences could be due either to the sex of the dyad analyzed [ 25 , 80 ], or to the sex of the parent and the type of dimension studied [ 17 ], or even to the developmental phase or age of each member of the family, or, probably, to a combination of all of them. In this sense, considering jointly the dimensions of both parents in the form of socialization family style could contribute to clarify these complex relationships. In regards to the developmental phase or age for example, mothers have been found to have more influence during childhood and early adolescence [ 80 ], while fathers seem to become more prominent figures in their children’s lives towards the end of this period [ 2 ] and during young adulthood [ 36 ]. Besides, traditionally it has been considered that with increasing age, parents adapt their parental behaviors to their children’s changing needs, which translates into a child’s perception of less control [ 82 ], support, and affection [ 44 ], especially in the case of older adolescents. Indeed, previous studies have found that the incidence of maternal dimensions decreases with age, being higher at the beginning of adolescence [ 78 ]. In any case, there is not a unique consensus about the moderating effect of age, as sometimes no differences were found, observing the protective effect of an affective parenting style regardless of children’s age [ 48 , 49 ]. It would be, therefore, particularly interesting for future research to consider the possible moderating effect of variables such as sex and age on the influence that the family socialization style may have on adolescent development [ 80 , 83 ].

Another aspect that has not been considered in the present study is parenting consistency/inconsistency and how this affects family style and, ultimately, children’s development. One specific element of this would be consistency between parents, which despite being considered vital to children’s adjustment, has received relatively little empirical attention [ 53 ]. Indeed, the few previous studies which have been carried out in this field seem to indicate better adjustment among adolescents whose parents have similar parenting styles, characterized by a predominance of affect-communication [ 22 , 33 , 35 , 84 ], a finding which is consistent with the results observed here, which suggest that the affect-communication of both parents makes a significant and positive contribution to family style. Nevertheless, it has yet to be confirmed whether consistency between maternal and paternal parenting practices [ 35 , 84 , 85 , 86 ] really does foster a family socialization style that is more positive for children’s and young people’s development, and if so, how specifically it contributes to said psycho-social adjustment. In fact, there is evidence of the buffering effect of positive parental practices (e.g., affective) of one parent when there is a low quality in the relationship with the other [ 58 ], so it would be of great interest to delve deeper into these aspects of the consistency between paternal and maternal dimensions and their combination in the family style.

Another limitation to bear in mind is linked to the measures of parenting dimensions and styles. In this case, adolescent perceptions were used to determine these variables, since previous studies consider them to be more objective and less influenced by aspects such as the social desirability bias [ 3 , 4 , 21 ]. Nevertheless, future studies may wish to complement these perspectives with “objective” reports by outsiders, such as researchers [ 17 ], or with self-perception measures administered to parents themselves. In fact, the same instrument that has been used in this study presents a version to be completed by parents [ 62 ], although there are other tools that have also been used and adapted to include the filial, paternal, and maternal perspective [ 87 ], e.g., Children’s Report of Parental Behavior Inventory (CRPBI; [ 88 ]; Psychological Control Scale [ 89 ]). Previous research seems to show that there is a significant but moderate correlation between the perceptions of children and parents, although the study of the possible divergences is pointed out as an interesting line of research; it seems to depend, in part, on both the sex of the dyad and the measured construct [ 87 ].

Finally, it is noteworthy that, although the majority of adolescents who participated in this study (84.9%) lived with their nuclear or nuclear-extended family, another challenge for future research would be to replicate the results with other types of families, such as ones in which the parents are separated or divorced. In fact, even if previous research suggests that, regardless of family structure, it is the perception of affect and support from parents which is strongly associated to children’s developmental outcomes (e.g., self-esteem) [ 43 ], there could be differences in the weight of the dimensions in regards to the sex of the parent. As a matter of fact, in some studies, in joint-custody arrangements, having a supportive father appears to be as important [ 90 ], or even more, than having a supportive mother [ 43 ]. Besides, the type of arrangement seems to be related with the practices and parenting style of both the father and the mother, with non-residential fathers being more likely to be uninvolved or permissive, as compared to co-parenting or residential fathers, who tend to show a greater coherence with the mother’s style, a style of both of them that tends to be a more affective and involved one (e.g., democratic) [ 91 ]. Taking all of this into account, future research should go into greater depth with regard to the relations and interaction between the different dimensions of the parenting styles of both separated or divorced parents, as well as how those arrangements could influence the family parenting style [ 91 ]. Step families are another type of family which it would be interesting to analyze, since here we see the emergence of new "paternal" and "maternal" figures who engage in children’s upbringing without actually being their birth parents. Also, families made up by two fathers or two mothers, who may have already gone through a process of reflection regarding the kind of role each partner should play, and between whom there is perhaps not such an unequal presence as has traditionally occurred between fathers and mothers.

Another perspective not considered in this study is the possible influence of parental or adolescent’s psychological profiles [ 92 , 93 ], which could affect the way children perceive their relationship with their parents, and therefore, would influence both their perception of family style and their developmental outcomes. This type of approach would move beyond the aim of the majority of studies carried out to date in this field, which have focused mainly on nuclear families and have not taken into account the psychological profile of the participants.

5. Conclusions

This study highlights the importance of taking both the maternal and paternal figures into consideration when studying family socialization style, since despite recent social changes, the heterosexual two-parent family makeup continues to be the majority one, at least in the sample analyzed here. Therefore, if we wish to gain a better understanding of the complex relationship between family socialization and adolescent adjustment, it is vital to gather information on the practices of both parents [ 24 , 59 , 60 ].

Consistent with previous studies [ 3 , 4 , 73 , 74 ], the results found here confirm that displays of affection and good communication between parents and adolescent children makes a more important and positive contribution to the establishment of a positive family socialization style than strict rule setting, as well as helping to reduce conflict in the home environment [ 75 ]. For its part, the strict imposition of rules appears to be counterproductive, particularly during adolescence, a vital life stage in which young people seek to establish their identity and require a greater degree of support for the development of their autonomy [ 25 ]. It was also observed that, for both affect and strictness, mothers continue to have a stronger influence than fathers do on family socialization style. This seems consistent with the fact that, despite women’s increased presence in the public sphere and on the labor market, they continue to spend more time than men on care tasks [ 37 ], particularly family-related ones. Nevertheless, in line with that reported by previous research [ 17 ], the findings of the present study also highlight the importance of the father figure in the establishment of family style, which is why it is important to involve men more in children’s upbringing and care, as well as in parenting support programs and interventions [ 94 ]. Given that children’s upbringing is influenced by both the presence and absence of certain elements, and in light of the importance of affect and communication for both the establishment of family style or climate and adolescent development and adjustment [ 14 , 15 , 19 , 20 ], it is vital to develop programs and actions which seek to foster and promote the knowledge and use of positive parenting practices based on communication, affect, and listening. It is also imperative to implement policies designed to disseminate the importance of fathers’ involvement in their children’s upbringing, not only during childhood but also during adolescence, a developmental stage that is especially complex [ 5 ] due to the number of challenges young people must face at the same time, and during which, despite the growing importance of peers and friends, family continues to play a key role.

Author Contributions

E.G., A.R.F. and I.A. conceived the design and wrote the manuscript. A.R.F. and I.A.A. (4) analyzed the data, I.A., E.G., A.R.F. and I.A.A. reviewed the manuscript, read and approved the final version.

This research was funded by Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (EHUA15/15 y PPG17/61), Eusko Jaurlaritza (IT934-16) and Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (EDU2017-83949-P).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

5.3 Agents of Socialization

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you should be able to:

Evaluate the roles of families and peer groups in socialization
Describe how people are socialized through institutions like schools, workplaces, and the government

Socialization helps people learn to function successfully in their social worlds. How does the process of socialization occur? How do we learn to use the objects of our society’s material culture? How do we come to adopt the beliefs, values, and norms that represent its nonmaterial culture? This learning takes place through interaction with various agents of socialization, like peer groups and families, plus both formal and informal social institutions.

Social Group Agents

Social groups often provide the first experiences of socialization. Families, and later peer groups, communicate expectations and reinforce norms. People first learn to use the tangible objects of material culture in these settings, as well as being introduced to the beliefs and values of society.

Family is the first agent of socialization. Mothers and fathers, siblings and grandparents, plus members of an extended family, all teach a child what he or she needs to know. For example, they show the child how to use objects (such as clothes, computers, eating utensils, books, bikes); how to relate to others (some as “family,” others as “friends,” still others as “strangers” or “teachers” or “neighbors”); and how the world works (what is “real” and what is “imagined”). As you are aware, either from your own experience as a child or from your role in helping to raise one, socialization includes teaching and learning about an unending array of objects and ideas.

Keep in mind, however, that families do not socialize children in a vacuum. Many social factors affect the way a family raises its children. For example, we can use sociological imagination to recognize that individual behaviors are affected by the historical period in which they take place. Sixty years ago, it would not have been considered especially strict for a father to hit his son with a wooden spoon or a belt if he misbehaved, but today that same action might be considered child abuse.

Sociologists recognize that race, social class, religion, and other societal factors play an important role in socialization. For example, poor families usually emphasize obedience and conformity when raising their children, while wealthy families emphasize judgment and creativity (National Opinion Research Center 2008). This may occur because working-class parents have less education and more repetitive-task jobs for which it is helpful to be able to follow rules and conform. Wealthy parents tend to have better educations and often work in managerial positions or careers that require creative problem solving, so they teach their children behaviors that are beneficial in these positions. This means children are effectively socialized and raised to take the types of jobs their parents already have, thus reproducing the class system (Kohn 1977). Likewise, children are socialized to abide by gender norms, perceptions of race, and class-related behaviors.

In Sweden, for instance, stay-at-home fathers are an accepted part of the social landscape. A government policy provides subsidized time off work—480 days for families with newborns—with the option of the paid leave being shared between mothers and fathers. As one stay-at-home dad says, being home to take care of his baby son “is a real fatherly thing to do. I think that’s very masculine” (Associated Press 2011). Close to 90 percent of Swedish fathers use their paternity leave (about 340,000 dads); on average they take seven weeks per birth (The Economist, 2014). How do U.S. policies—and our society’s expected gender roles—compare? How will Swedish children raised this way be socialized to parental gender norms? How might that be different from parental gender norms in the United States?

Peer Groups

A peer group is made up of people who are similar in age and social status and who share interests. Peer group socialization begins in the earliest years, such as when kids on a playground teach younger children the norms about taking turns, the rules of a game, or how to shoot a basket. As children grow into teenagers, this process continues. Peer groups are important to adolescents in a new way, as they begin to develop an identity separate from their parents and exert independence. Additionally, peer groups provide their own opportunities for socialization since kids usually engage in different types of activities with their peers than they do with their families. Peer groups provide adolescents’ first major socialization experience outside the realm of their families. Interestingly, studies have shown that although friendships rank high in adolescents’ priorities, this is balanced by parental influence.

Institutional Agents

The social institutions of our culture also inform our socialization. Formal institutions—like schools, workplaces, and the government—teach people how to behave in and navigate these systems. Other institutions, like the media, contribute to socialization by inundating us with messages about norms and expectations.

Most U.S. children spend about seven hours a day, 180 days a year, in school, which makes it hard to deny the importance school has on their socialization (U.S. Department of Education 2004). Students are not in school only to study math, reading, science, and other subjects—the manifest function of this system. Schools also serve a latent function in society by socializing children into behaviors like practicing teamwork, following a schedule, and using textbooks.

School and classroom rituals, led by teachers serving as role models and leaders, regularly reinforce what society expects from children. Sociologists describe this aspect of schools as the hidden curriculum , the informal teaching done by schools.

For example, in the United States, schools have built a sense of competition into the way grades are awarded and the way teachers evaluate students (Bowles and Gintis 1976). When children participate in a relay race or a math contest, they learn there are winners and losers in society. When children are required to work together on a project, they practice teamwork with other people in cooperative situations. The hidden curriculum prepares children for the adult world. Children learn how to deal with bureaucracy, rules, expectations, waiting their turn, and sitting still for hours during the day. Schools in different cultures socialize children differently in order to prepare them to function well in those cultures. The latent functions of teamwork and dealing with bureaucracy are features of U.S. culture.

Schools also socialize children by teaching them about citizenship and national pride. In the United States, children are taught to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Most districts require classes about U.S. history and geography. As academic understanding of history evolves, textbooks in the United States have been scrutinized and revised to update attitudes toward other cultures as well as perspectives on historical events; thus, children are socialized to a different national or world history than earlier textbooks may have done. For example, information about the mistreatment of African Americans and Native American Indians more accurately reflects those events than in textbooks of the past.

Big Picture

Controversial textbooks.

On August 13, 2001, twenty South Korean men gathered in Seoul. Each chopped off one of his own fingers because of textbooks. These men took drastic measures to protest eight middle school textbooks approved by Tokyo for use in Japanese middle schools. According to the Korean government (and other East Asian nations), the textbooks glossed over negative events in Japan’s history at the expense of other Asian countries.

In the early 1900s, Japan was one of Asia’s more aggressive nations. For instance, it held Korea as a colony between 1910 and 1945. Today, Koreans argue that the Japanese are whitewashing that colonial history through these textbooks. One major criticism is that they do not mention that, during World War II, the Japanese forced Korean women into sexual slavery. The textbooks describe the women as having been “drafted” to work, a euphemism that downplays the brutality of what actually occurred. Some Japanese textbooks dismiss an important Korean independence demonstration in 1919 as a “riot.” In reality, Japanese soldiers attacked peaceful demonstrators, leaving roughly 6,000 dead and 15,000 wounded (Crampton 2002).

The protest affirms that textbooks are a significant tool of socialization in state-run education systems.

The Workplace

Just as children spend much of their day at school, many U.S. adults at some point invest a significant amount of time at a place of employment. Although socialized into their culture since birth, workers require new socialization into a workplace, in terms of both material culture (such as how to operate the copy machine) and nonmaterial culture (such as whether it’s okay to speak directly to the boss or how to share the refrigerator). In the chapter introduction, Noel did not fully embrace the culture of their new company. Importantly, the obligation of such socialization is not simply on the worker: Organizational behavior and other business experts place responsibility on companies; organizations must have strong onboarding and socialization programs in order to build satisfaction, productivity, and workplace retention (Cebollero 2019).

While some religions are informal institutions, here we focus on practices followed by formal institutions. Religion is an important avenue of socialization for many people. The United States is full of synagogues, temples, churches, mosques, and similar religious communities where people gather to worship and learn. Like other institutions, these places teach participants how to interact with the religion’s material culture (like a mezuzah, a prayer rug, or a communion wafer). For some people, important ceremonies related to family structure—like marriage and birth—are connected to religious celebrations. Many religious institutions also uphold gender norms and contribute to their enforcement through socialization. From ceremonial rites of passage that reinforce the family unit to power dynamics that reinforce gender roles, organized religion fosters a shared set of socialized values that are passed on through society.

Although we do not think about it, many of the rites of passage people go through today are based on age norms established by the government. To be defined as an “adult” usually means being eighteen years old, the age at which a person becomes legally responsible for him- or herself. And sixty-five years old is the start of “old age” since most people become eligible for senior benefits at that point.

Each time we embark on one of these new categories—senior, adult, taxpayer—we must be socialized into our new role. Seniors must learn the ropes of Medicare, Social Security benefits, and senior shopping discounts. When U.S. males turn eighteen, they must register with the Selective Service System within thirty days to be entered into a database for possible military service. These government dictates mark the points at which we require socialization into a new category.

Mass media distribute impersonal information to a wide audience, via television, newspapers, radio, and the Internet. With the average person spending over four hours a day in front of the television (and children averaging even more screen time), media greatly influences social norms (Roberts, Foehr, and Rideout 2005). People learn about objects of material culture (like new technology and transportation options), as well as nonmaterial culture—what is true (beliefs), what is important (values), and what is expected (norms).

Sociology in the Real World

Girls and movies.

Movies aimed at young people have featured a host of girls and women leads. Snow White , Cinderella , and Sleeping Beauty gave way to The Little Mermaid , Beauty and the Beast, and Mulan . In many of those cases, if the character is not a princess to begin with, she typically ends the movie by marrying a prince or, in the case of Mulan, a military general. Although not all “princesses” in Disney movies play a passive role in their lives, they typically find themselves needing to be rescued by a man, and the happy ending they all search for includes marriage.

Alongside this prevalence of princesses, many parents are expressing concern about the culture of princesses that Disney has created. Peggy Orenstein addresses this problem in her popular book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter . Orenstein wonders why every little girl is expected to be a “princess” and why pink has become an all-consuming obsession for many young girls. Another mother wondered what she did wrong when her three-year-old daughter refused to do “nonprincessy” things, including running and jumping. The effects of this princess culture can have negative consequences for girls throughout life. An early emphasis on beauty can lead to reduced interest in math and science among girls, as well as avoiding educational scenarios that are "typically feminine" (Coyne 2016).

Others acknowledge these issues, but find princess movies and "princess culture" less alarming. Some remind concerned parents that children have an array of media and activities around them, and the children may be happy wearing their princess outfit while digging for worms or going to hockey practice, which run counter to feminine stereotypes (Wagner 2019). Others indicate that rather than disallowing princess movies and merchandise, engaging with the children as they enjoy them might be more effective. And many people acknowledge that girls and women are often currently portrayed differently than they were in years past.

Disney seems to have gotten the message about the concerns. Its 2009 Tiana and the Frog was specifically billed as "a princess movie for people who don't like princess movies," and features a talented chef and business owner—who didn't need a man to rescue her—as its main character. Brave 's Merida and the title character in Moana seem to go out of their way to separate themselves from traditional princesses, and undertake great acts of bravery to help others. Frozen focuses on sisterly love rather than romantic love. And though she was never meant to be a princess, Star Wars ' Rey was the go-to girls Halloween costume for years after she was introduced in the movies.

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Agents of Socialization

Learn the agents of socialization and then general order they typically occur in.
Understand how we are socialized through formal institutions like schools, workplaces, and the government

Socialization Agents

Socialization agents are a combination of social groups and social institutions that provide the first experiences of socialization . Families, early education, peer groups, the workplace, religion, government, and media all communicate expectations and reinforce norms. People first learn to use the tangible objects of material culture in these settings, as well as being introduced to the beliefs and values of society.

Family is the first agent of socialization . Mothers and fathers, siblings and grandparents, plus members of an extended family, all teach a child what he or she needs to know. Familes, of course, come in all sorts of formations. Whether the young child is living with a biological parent, adopted by their parents, or exclusively raised by a sibling or a grandparent, this unit of family is what socializes the young child to the world first.

For example, they show the child how to use objects (such as clothes, computers, eating utensils, books, bikes); how to relate to others (some as “family,” others as “friends,” still others as “strangers” or “teachers” or “neighbors”); and how the world works (what is “real” and what is “imagined”). As you are aware, either from your own experience as a child or from your role in helping to raise one, socialization includes teaching and learning about an unending array of objects and ideas.

The particular values of the family unit are central to the socialization process. If one child is raised in a family where discussion of connections to people from all races, religions, and ethnicities is both valued and practiced, this child is understanding multi-culturalism as a necessary asset in society. Conversely, a child who is raised our discussions and behaviors that explicitly favor their racial or religious group over others, the child learns that multi-culturalism is a problem to be avoided. These two children could be sitting next to each other in the same preschool classroom.

First School Experience

The first ‘school’ experience for young children, whether it be day care or pre-school or kindergarten, generally serves as the second socialization agent for young children. Most U.S. children spend about seven hours a day, 180 days a year, in school, which makes it hard to deny the importance school has on their socialization (U.S. Department of Education 2004). Students are not in school only to study math, reading, science, and other subjects—the manifest function of this system. Schools also serve a latent function in society by socializing children into behaviors like practicing teamwork, following a schedule, and using textbooks.

A female teacher is shown sitting in a chair and reading a picture book to a group of children sitting in front of her on the floor.

Schools also socialize children by teaching them about citizenship and national pride. In the United States, children are taught to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Most districts require classes about U.S. history and geography. As the academic understanding of history evolves, textbooks in the United States have been scrutinized and revised to update attitudes toward other cultures as well as perspectives on historical events; thus, children are socialized to a different national or world history than earlier textbooks may have done. For example, information about the mistreatment of African Americans and Native American Indians more accurately reflects

Although it may seem extreme that people are so enraged about how events are described in a textbook that they would resort to dismemberment, the protest affirms that textbooks are a significant tool of socialization in state-run education systems.

Peer Groups

The Workplace

Different jobs require different types of socialization. In the past, many people worked a single job until retirement. Today, the trend is to switch jobs at least once a decade. Between the ages of eighteen and forty-six, the average baby boomer of the younger set held 11.3 different jobs (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). This means that people must become socialized to, and socialized by, a variety of work environments. In the past dressing professionally meant wearing dress clothes to help communicate your feelings of respect and importance about the work. Today, in many tech companies dressing in such a way is off-putting. Many startups prefer that their workers wear their ‘everyday’ more casual clothes, bring pets to work, and ideally, blur the line between when they are ‘on’ and work and when they are ‘away’ from work.

Although we do not think about it, many of the rites of passage people go through today are based on age norms established by the government. Individual governments provide facets of socialization for both individuals and groups. To be defined as an “adult” usually means being eighteen years old, the age at which a person becomes legally responsible for him- or herself. And sixty-five years old is the start of “old age” since most people become eligible for senior benefits at that point.

Mass media distribute impersonal information to a wide audience, via television, newspapers, radio, and the Internet. Media contributes to socialization by inundating us with messages about norms and expectations. With the average person spending over four hours a day in front of the television (and children averaging even more screen time), media greatly influences social norms (Roberts, Foehr, and Rideout 2005). People learn about objects of material culture (like new technology and transportation options), as well as nonmaterial culture—what is true (beliefs), what is important (values), and what is expected (norms).

Photo of the cover of Disney's The Little Mermaid movie

Pixar is one of the largest producers of children’s movies in the world and has released large box office draws, such as Toy Story , Cars , The Incredibles , and Up . What Pixar has never before produced is a movie with a female lead role. This changed with Pixar’s newest movie Brave , which was released in 2012. Before Brave , women in Pixar served as supporting characters and love interests. In Up , for example, the only human female character dies within the first ten minutes of the film. For the millions of girls watching Pixar films, there are few strong characters or roles for them to relate to. If they do not see possible versions of themselves, they may come to view women as secondary to the lives of men.

The animated films of Pixar’s parent company, Disney, have many female lead roles. Disney is well known for films with female leads, such as Snow White , Cinderella , The Little Mermaid , and Mulan . Many of Disney’s movies star a female, and she is nearly always a princess figure. If she is not a princess to begin with, she typically ends the movie by marrying a prince or, in the case of Mulan, a military general. Although not all “princesses” in Disney movies play a passive role in their lives, they typically find themselves needing to be rescued by a man, and the happy ending they all search for includes marriage.

Alongside this prevalence of princesses, many parents are expressing concern about the culture of princesses that Disney has created. Peggy Orenstein addresses this problem in her popular book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter . Orenstein wonders why every little girl is expected to be a “princess” and why pink has become an all-consuming obsession for many young girls. Another mother wondered what she did wrong when her three-year-old daughter refused to do “nonprincessy” things, including running and jumping. The effects of this princess culture can have negative consequences for girls throughout life. An early emphasis on beauty and sexiness can lead to eating disorders, low self-esteem, and risky sexual behavior among older girls.

Our direct interactions with social groups, like families and peers, teach us how others expect us to behave. Likewise, a society’s formal and informal institutions socialize its population. Schools, workplaces, and the media communicate and reinforce cultural norms and values.

Section Quiz

Associated Press. 2011. “Swedish Dads Swap Work for Child Care.” The Gainesville Sun , October 23. Retrieved January 12, 2012 ( http://www.gainesville.com/article/20111023/wire/111029834?template=printpicart ).

Barnes, Brooks. 2010. “Pixar Removes Its First Female Director.” The New York Times , December 20. Retrieved August 2, 2011 ( http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/first-woman-to-direct-a-pixar-film-is-instead-first-to-be-replaced/?ref=arts ).

Bowles, Samuel, and Herbert Gintis. 1976. Schooling in Capitalistic America: Educational Reforms and the Contradictions of Economic Life . New York: Basic Books.

Crampton, Thomas. 2002. “The Ongoing Battle over Japan’s Textbooks.” New York Times , February 12. Retrieved August 2, 2011 ( http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/12/news/12iht-rtexts_ed3_.html ).

Kohn, Melvin L. 1977. Class and Conformity: A Study in Values . Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press.

National Opinion Research Center. 2007. General Social Surveys, 1972–2006: Cumulative Codebook . Chicago: National Opinion Research Center.

O’Connor, Lydia. 2011. “The Princess Effect: Are Girls Too ‘Tangled’ in Disney’s Fantasy?” Annenberg Digital News , January 26. Retrieved August 2, 2011 ( http://www.neontommy.com/news/2011/01/princess-effect-are-girls-too-tangled-disneys-fantasy ).

Roberts, Donald F., Ulla G. Foehr, and Victoria Rideout. 2005. “Parents, Children, and Media: A Kaiser Family Foundation Survey.” The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Retrieved February 14, 2012 ( http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/7638.pdf ).

Rose, Steve. 2011. “Studio Ghibli: Leave the Boys Behind.” The Guardian , July 14. Retrieved August 2, 2011. ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jul/14/studio-ghibli-arrietty-heroines ).

“South Koreans Sever Fingers in Anti-Japan Protest.” 2001. The Telegraph . Retrieved January 31, 2012 ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1337272/South-Koreans-sever-fingers-in-anti-Japan-protest.html ).

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2014. “Number of Jobs Held, Labor Market Activity, and Earnings Growth Among the Youngest Baby Boomers.” September 10. Retrieved Oct. 27th, 2012 ( www.bls.gov/nls/nlsfaqs.htm ).

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. 2004. “Average Length of School Year and Average Length of School Day, by Selected Characteristics: United States, 2003-04.” Private School Universe Survey (PSS) . Retrieved July 30, 2011 ( http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/tables/table_2004_06.asp ).

“Why Swedish Men take so much Paternity Leave.” 2014. The Economist . Retrieved Oct. 27th, 2014. (http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/07/economist-explains-15)

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

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

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Agents of Socialization: Definition & Examples

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Agents of socialization are the people, groups, and social institutions that affect one’s self-concept, attitudes, and behaviors. For example, parents, teachers, priests, television personalities, rock stars, etc.

Agents of socialization teach people what society expects of them. They tell them what is right and wrong, and they give them the skills they need to function as members of their culture.

Primary agents of socialization include people with whom we have a close intimate relationship, such as parents, and usually occur when people are very young.
The family is usually considered the primary agent of socialization , and schools, peer groups, and the mass media are considered secondary socialization agencies.
Secondary agents of socialization are groups or institutions that influence an individual’s socialization process after or alongside primary agents like family.
They include secondary relationships (not close, personal, or intimate) and function to “Liberate the individual from a dependence upon the primary attachments and relationships formed within the family group” (Parsons, 1951).
Unlike primary agents of socialization (such as family and peers), secondary agents are typically less influential in shaping an individual’s fundamental beliefs and values.

What is Socialization?

Socialization is the process of learning the norms and customs of a society. Through socialization, people learn how to behave in a way that is acceptable to their culture.

Socialization also helps to ensure that members of a society know and understand the rules that they are expected to follow so that they can function effectively in society or within a particular group (Ochs, 1999).

The process of socialization can happen throughout one’s life, but it is most intense during childhood and adolescence when people are learning about their roles and how to interact with others.

Adult socialization may occur when people find themselves in new circumstances, especially in a culture with norms and customs that differ from theirs.

Several agents of socialization play a role in shaping a person’s identity, including family, media, religion, schools, and peer groups (Ochs, 1999).

The Purpose of Socialization

The purpose of socialization is to teach people the norms and customs of their culture so that they can function within it.

Norms are the rules that dictate how people are expected to behave in a given situation. Customs, meanwhile, are the traditional practices of a culture, such as its values, beliefs, and rituals (Ochs, 1999).

Socialization also helps to instill a sense of social control within members of a society so that they conform to its rules and regulations.

Social control is the process by which a society tries to ensure that its members behave acceptably. It can be done through punishments, rewards, or simply by teaching people what is expected of them. In some cases, social control is necessary to maintain order and prevent chaos.

In other cases, it may be used to protect the interests of those in power or to promote a certain ideology (Ochs, 1999).

Example Agents of Socialization

We normally refer to the people responsible for our socialization as agents of socialization and, by extension, we can also talk about agencies of socialization (such as our family, the education system, the media, and so forth).

Family members can include parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The family is the first and most important agent of socialization for children.

It is through families that people learn about culture and how to behave in a way that is acceptable to society. Families also teach people about language and communication, how to relate to others, and how the world works.

For example, families teach their children the difference between strangers and friends and what is real and imagined (Kinsbury & Scanzoni, 2009).

Race, social class, religion, and other societal factors influence the experiences of families and, as a result, the socialization of children.

Families from some cultures may socialize for obedience and conformity, while those from others may do so for creativity and individualism. Families from different social classes may have different lifestyles and provide their children with different opportunities for learning.

Gender norms, perceptions of race, and class-related behaviors also influence family socialization. For example, countries that provide paternity leave and accept stay-at-home fathers in the social landscape are more likely to socialize male children to be more willing to care for children when they are adults (Kinsbury & Scanzoni, 2009).

Schools are an important secondary agent of socialization. Most students spend most of the day at school, immersing themselves in both academic subjects and behaviors like teamwork, following a schedule, and using textbooks (Durkheim, 1898).

These school rituals reinforce what society expects from children. As Bowles and Gintis (1976) discuss, schools in much of the US and Western Europe instill a sense of competition into the way grades are awarded, and the way teachers evaluate students.

By participating in a race or math contest, children learn that in order to succeed, they must be better than others. This is an important value in capitalist societies , where people are expected to strive for personal gain.

In contrast, schools may also place more emphasis on working together and cooperating with others, as this is seen as a way to achieve the collective good.

Alternatively, in countries like Japan, children are expected to conform to group norms and not question teachers.

The type of school a child attends also shapes their socialization. For example, children who attend private schools are more likely to have parents who are wealthy and well-educated.

As a result, these children learn different values and beliefs than those who attend public school. Nonetheless, schools everywhere teach children the essential features of their societies and how to cope with bureaucracy, rules, expectations, waiting their turn, and sitting still for hours during the day (Bowles & Gintis, 1976).

3. Community / Neighborhood

Communities or neighborhoods consist of a group of people living in the same geographic area under common laws or groups of people sharing fellowship, a friendly association, and common interests.

The community is a socializing agent because it is where children learn the role expectations for adults as well as themselves. The community provides a sense of identity to individuals and helps to define what is right or wrong.

Children can acquire this socialization by modeling adults, having rules enforced on them, or experiencing consequences for their behavior (Putnam, 2000).

It also teaches children how to interact with people who are different from them in terms of race, ethnicity, social class, and religion. For example, children learn that it is polite to speak quietly in the library, but they can be loud when they are playing with friends at the park.

The community also offers opportunities for children to explore their interests and talents. For example, some communities have youth clubs, sports teams, and scouting groups. These activities allow children to try new things, make friends, and develop a sense of responsibility (Putnam, 2000).

People learn from their peers (the people of their own age and similar social status) how to dress, talk, and behave. People also learn about what is important to one’s peer group and what is not.

During adolescence, peers become even more important as agents of socialization. This is because adolescents are exploring their identities and trying to figure out who they are and where they fit in the world.

Peers provide support and guidance during this time and help people learn about the norms and values of their culture — as well as what to wear, eat, watch, and where to spend time.

On the downside, adolescent peer influences have been seen as responsible for underage drinking, drug use, delinquency, and hate crimes (Agnew, 2015).

During peoples’ 20s and 30s, peer groups tend to diminish in importance. This is because people are more likely to be working and have less free time. In addition, people are more likely to be married or in a committed relationship.

As a result, they are less likely to spend time with friends and more likely to socialize within their families.

However, parents with young children may broaden their peer groups further and accept more influence as they reach out to their surrounding communities to care for their children (Vandall, 2000).

5. Mass Media

The media works by providing information to a wide audience via television, newspapers, radio, and the Internet. This broad dissemination of information greatly influences social norms (Roberts, Foehr, and Rideout 2005).

The media teaches people about material objects, current events, and fashion but also enforces nonmaterial culture: beliefs, values, and norms. It also teaches people how to think about and react to political events, such as elections.

In addition, it provides information about what is happening in other parts of the world, how people in other cultures live, and how people from a particular society should perceive the way that others live.

6. Religion

Religions can be both formal and informal institutions and are an important avenue of socialization for many people.

Synagogues, temples, churches, mosques, and similar religious communities teach participants how to interact with their religion’s material culture — for example, the mezuzah, a prayer rug, or a communion wafer.

The ceremonies upheld by religion can often relate to family structure — like marriage and birth rituals, and religious institutions can reinforce gender norms through socialization. This reinforces the family unit’s power dynamics and fosters a shared set of values transmitted through the rest of society (Pearson-Merkowitz & Gimpel, 2009).

Historically, religious institutions have played a significant role in social change. For example, the civil rights movement in the United States was led by religious leaders such as Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Similarly, the women’s suffrage movement was also partly motivated by religious beliefs.

Today, religion continues to shape people”s socialization experiences. For instance, some religions encourage members to protest wars and volunteer to help the poor. In all of these cases, religious institutions socialize people to behave in a way that favors once-vulnerable groups (Pearson-Merkowitz & Gimpel, 2009).

7. Government

The government is another agent of socialization. It enacts laws that uphold social norms and values, and it also provides institutions and services that support citizens.

Government is notable in that it can fund a number of institutions that encourage socialization. For example, the government funds public schools, which play a key role in children”s socialization.

The government also funds other programs that provide opportunities for social interaction, such as after-school programs, parks, and recreation centers (Oberfield, 2014).

The military is another example of how the government can influence people”s socialization experiences.

For instance, the military teaches people how to work together in a hierarchy, follow orders, and use violence to achieve objectives. People who serve in the military often come from different backgrounds and have different values.

As a result, the military can be an agent for socializing people to collaborate with those from disparate races and classes against a common opponent (Oberfield, 2014).

The government can also create roles through legislation. For example, governments usually define an “adult” as being at least eighteen years old, the age at which a person becomes legally responsible for themselves.

Meanwhile, 65 brings the onset of “old age” as seniors become eligible for benefits. These roles motivate people to be socialized into a different category, learning to conform to both the government”s and broader society”s expectations of age (Oberfield, 2014).

Other Agents of Socialization (Ethnicity and class)

Ethnic socialization is the process by which people learn about their ethnic group’s culture and history. It is a type of socialization that occurs within ethnic groups.

Ethnic socialization helps prepare children for the challenges and opportunities they will face as members of an ethnic group. It also helps them develop a positive sense of self and a strong sense of identity.

It can also lead to the acquisition of patterns of speech, beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes of an ethnic group by an individual who comes to see themselves come to see themselves and others as members of that group.

Both parents and peers are primary ethnic socialization agents, but agents as large as the media and the wider community also play a role (Conger & Dogan, 2007).

Class socialization is the process by which people learn about their social class and how to behave in a way that is appropriate for their class. It is a type of socialization that occurs within social classes.

Like ethnic socialization, class socialization helps prepare children for the challenges and opportunities they will face as members of a social class.

Children who undergo class socialization learn to discern other members of their social class as well as develop attitudes of trust and mistrust toward those from other social groups (Conger & Dogan, 2007).

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between socialization and enculturation.

Enculturation is a process by which people learn the customs and traditions of their culture. Socialization, on the other hand, is the process by which people learn the norms and values of their society.

While socialization is the process of learning socially acceptable behavior in every culture, enculturation is the process of socialization in a particular culture. That is to say, enculturation is a product of socialization (Cromdal, 2006).

What is the difference between culture and socialization?

Culture is the unique set of beliefs, values, customs, and knowledge of a group of people. Socialization is the process by which people learn the norms and values of their culture. Culture is passed down from generation to generation through socialization (Cromdal, 2006).

One way to think about the difference between culture and socialization is that culture is what people believe, and socialization is how those beliefs are transmitted.

For example, American culture is often classified as highly individualistic. Individualism is the idea that each person is responsible for themselves. This belief is passed down through socialization experiences, such as parents teaching their children to be independent.

What are the most important agents of socialization?

Agents of socialization are the individuals, groups, or institutions that influence our self-concepts, attitudes, behaviors, and orientations toward life. They play a crucial role in shaping us into socially adept individuals.

The most important agents of socialization typically include:

Family: The family is usually the first and most impactful agent of socialization. From infancy, family members impart values, norms, and biases, influencing a child’s personality, emotional development, and behavior.

Schools: After the family, schools play a significant role in socialization. They expose children to new cultural values, expectations, and peer groups, and help them develop a sense of independence.

Agnew, R. (2015). General strain theory and delinquency. The handbook of juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice, 2 , 239-256

Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (2011). Schooling in capitalist America: Educational reform and the contradictions of economic life . Haymarket Books.

Cromdal, J. (2006). Socialization .

Conger, R. D., & Dogan, S. J. (2007). Social Class and Socialization in Families .

Kingsbury, N., & Scanzoni, J. (2009). Structural-functionalism. In Sourcebook of family theories and methods (pp. 195-221). Springer.

Parsons, T. E., & Shils, E. A. (1951). Toward a general theory of action .

Pearson-Merkowitz, S., & Gimpel, J. G. (2009). Religion and political socialization. The Oxford handbook of religion and American politics , 164-190.

Oberfield, Z. W. (2014). Becoming bureaucrats: Socialization at the front lines of government service . University of Pennsylvania Press.

Ochs, E. (1999). Socialization. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 9 (1/2), 230-233.

Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community . Simon and schuster.

Rideout, V., Roberts, D. F., & Foehr, U. G. (2005). Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18-Year-olds . Executive Summary.

Vandell, D. L. (2000). Parents, peer groups, and other socializing influences. Developmental psychology, 36 (6), 699.

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4: Influences of Family, Society, and Culture on Childhood

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Susan Eliason
Bridgewater State University

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Learning Objectives

This week you will:

Describe and analyze the influences of family, society, and culture influence the lives of children.

Introduction

How are childhoods influenced by nature and nurture? This week we will consider how family society and culture influence the lives of children. You will explore how the natural sciences (biology) and social sciences (anthropology, psychology, social work, and sociology) study these influences on children. We will use an interdisciplinary approach to learn more about the topic of sexuality. I like to use Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory to illustrate how the influences of nurture impact childhood. Watch Urie Bronfenbrenner Ecological Theory explained on You Tube on Blackboard to learn more about this model . How might Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological theory help you study your research question or childhood in general ?

Terms and Definitions

Important concepts to look for in this chapter:

Socialization: the process where children learn to meet the expectations of and how to fit into a society.
self-chosen and self-directed
an activity in which means are more valued than end
structure, or rules determined by the players
imaginative, non-literal, mentally removed in some way from “real” or “serious” life
involves an active, alert, but non-stressed frame of mind. (Gray, 2008)
Competence: The ability, capacity, or qualification to perform a task, fulfill a function, or meet the requirements of a role to an acceptable standard.
Cultural Relativism : a person’s beliefs and activities should be understood based on that person’s own culture.
Developmentalism : The behavior of children is shaped by physical, psychological, and emotional development. Maturity is determined by age and stage of development.
Diversity : There are many different types of childhood.
Ethnicity : The culture of people in a given geographic region, including their language, heritage, religion and customs. To be a member of an ethnic group is to conform to some or all of those practices. Race is associated with biology, whereas ethnicity is associated with culture.
Familialization : the caring of children in individual households and homes by family members rather than in state institutions.
Gender : The condition of being male, female, or neuter. In a human context, the distinction between gender and SEX reflects the usage of these terms: Sex usually refers to the biological aspects of maleness or femaleness, whereas gender implies the psychological, behavioral, social, and cultural aspects of being male or female (i.e., masculinity or femininity.) [American Psychological Association, 2015]
Friendship : Children’s affective social relations with their peers and others.

American Psychological Association. (2015). APA dictionary of psychology (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Ecological Systems Theory – used often in Social Work

Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) developed the ecological systems theory to explain how everything in a child and the child’s environment affects how a child grows and develops. The theory is illustrated in the figure below. This chapter will concentrate on the the Micro and Mesosystem levels. I find this model helpful in understanding the influences of nurture on childhood.

Bronfenbrenners_Ecological_Theory_of_Development_English.jpg

The microsystem is the small, immediate environment the child lives in. How these groups or organizations interact with the child will have an effect on how the child grows; the more encouraging and nurturing these relationships and places are, the better the child will be able to grow. Furthermore, how a child acts or reacts to these people in the microsystem will affect how they treat her in return. Each child’s special genetic and biologically influenced personality traits, what is known as temperament, end up affecting how others treat them.

The mesosystem , describes how the different parts of a child’s microsystem work together for the sake of the child. For example, if a child’s caregivers take an active role in a child’s school, such as going to parent-teacher conferences and watching their child’s soccer games, this will help ensure the child’s overall growth.

The exosystem includes the other people and places that the child herself may not interact with often herself but that still have a large effect on her, such as families workplaces, extended family members, the neighborhood,.

The macrosystem , which is the largest and most remote set of people and things to a child but which still has a great influence over the child. The macrosystem includes things such as the relative freedoms permitted by the national government, cultural values, the economy, wars, etc.

Chronosystem developmental processes vary according to the specific historical events that are occurring as the developing individuals are at one age or another. Moreover, cultures also are continually undergoing change.

As you read and explore the topics in the chapter, think about how the influences impact children.

Nature and Nurture Shape Childhood

Now, let’s use the concept of sexuality to see how nature and nurture are interconnected.

Nature and nurture, biology and culture, work together to shape human lives. Nature and nurture are intertwined, processes.

Do you assume biology (nature) is destiny that may be minimally modified by culture (nurture, or environment) throughout childhood?
Do you assume environment (nurture) is a more important factor in shaping individual psychology than biology (nature)?
Specifically, what is the relationship between biology and culture with respect to sexuality ?

The biological features of sex and sexuality are determined by chromosomes and hormones such as testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. Biologically, there are more than 2 sexes – chromosomes which can be XX, XY, XXX, XXY, XO, XYY. XX is female and XY is male; usually if the Y exists the person is generally seen as male. O produces ambiguous sexual features. Hormones and sex are apparent at seven weeks in utero.

The difference between sex and gender is: sex is male or female and is biological . Gender is meaning given to biological sex by culture . We develop a gender identity which is how an individual identifies as masculine or feminine. Gender is a spectrum. We learn gender roles during childhood, such as, appropriate behaviors and work or division of labor

Can a male can be a female?
Is it only one or the other?
Are gender and sexuality fluid over a lifespan?
Can they change? Is sex a spectrum like gender?
nadleehi (born male functions in women roles)
Dilbaa (born female functions in male role)

I challenge you to reflect on gender and sexual diversity. Imagine you have a child who is born with an intersex anatomy [XXX, XXY, XO, XYY] You read up on diagnostic testing and the recommendations of the Intersex Society of North America , that suggest you give your child a binary gender assignment (girl or boy). Do you follow the advice of the ISNA? Why/why not? If not, what do you name your child? How do you dress your child? As your child acquires language, what pronouns do you use for your child? Would you use he, she, ze, or they? You inform yourself and read about current possibilities at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center’s article on Gender Pronouns What is ‘competency’?

Families should help children mature and become competent. The concept of competency is related to the concept of agency discussed in Chapter 2. Listening to children and respecting their opinions can contribute to their personal development. A supportive environment can lead to children to making better decisions, prepare them to participate in society and strengthen their accountability. Children’s competency or abilities may be recognized, ignored, encouraged or inhibited. The supporting adults’ willingness to respect children’s decisions will determine whether the children’s choices are honored Figure 1, described by Alderson (1992) and illustrated by Orr (1999), illustrate the internal and external variants that may influence a child’s competency. (van Rooyen, Water, Rasmussen, & Diesfeld, 2015)

When we consider competence, we should also think about cultural relativism, are there universal standards we can apply to childhood? Is the UNCRC a set of universal standards? Implementation of the UNCRC can be difficult when violations of the rights of children are justified on the basis of cultural practice. Think about the practice of female circumcision.

In 1996, a 17-year-old girl named Fauziya Kassindja arrived at Newark International Airport and asked for asylum. She had fled her native country of Togo, a small west African nation, to escape what people there call excision.

Excision is a permanently disfiguring procedure that is sometimes called “female circumcision,” although it bears little resemblance to the Jewish ritual. More commonly, at least in Western newspapers, it is referred to as “genital mutilation.” According to the World Health Organization, the practice is widespread in 26 African nations, and two million girls each year are “excised.” In some instances, excision is part of an elaborate tribal ritual, performed in small traditional villages, and girls look forward to it because it signals their acceptance into the adult world. In other instances, the practice is carried out by families living in cities on young women who desperately resist. For more information read the World Health Organization Fact sheet (2017) Female genital mutilation

Cultural relativism would accept the practice. Does the UNCRC allow the practice?

Role of families

As discussed during Week 1, we see the world through our cultural lens, we are cultural conditioned. Conditioning happens at different levels

Societal [Macrosystem in Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory]
Institutional [Exosystem in Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory]
Group [Microsystem in Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory]
Individual [The center of Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory]

The group level or microsystem in Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory includes families. One of the major influences on childhood is families. The family is the principal institution responsible for childbearing and childrearing so society assumes a more passive role in facing the commitments and costs connected to childhood. The UNCRC gives all children the right to a family. The right to a family allows children to be connected to their history, and it offers a protective perimeter against violation of their rights. Children separated from their families can become victims of violence, exploitation, trafficking, discrimination and all other types of abuse. However, sometimes the family which should be protecting the child is in fact inflicting the abuse.

Families are the first to have the power to act on behalf of the child and ensure their rights are respected. Hopefully, their objectives are to protect the child and to secure the child an education, development, security, health and morality. To achieve these objectives, a family should provide supervision by controlling the child’s comings and goings, relationships, and communications. For example, they may forbid the child from maintaining relationships with certain persons that they believe are not in his or her best interest. Families make educational decisions including religious and sex education and decide on the health care to give their child. Families are responsible for the needs of the child, such as food, clothing, shelter, educational costs, vacations (if possible), and health coverage. What happens to children when families find it difficult to provide basic needs? Families often struggle with finding time, money and resources to effectively parent. In the US, families may have difficulty earning a living wage, finding social supports, securing affordable housing, high-quality child care and paid family leave. It can be difficult to provide a nurturing environment all children need and may result in neglectful or abusive environment.

Did you know that in 2016 the relative poverty rate for children 0-5 in the U.S. was more than 25%; for ages 0-18 years the rate was about 22%. In other words about 1 out of 4 young children in the United States live in poverty. What changes in the US might lower the child poverty rate? How can we create environments that enrich the lives of all young children and their families, allowing them the opportunity to realize their full human potential?

A former student shared: So I definitely think that the Department of Children and Families (DCF) needs to be more pro-active in checking in on families, especially families living under the poverty line, to ensure they are receiving assistance if needed and that the child is living in a stable home where he/she is healthy and can thrive. I agree with the student that all children deserve a safe and healthy environment and our society should support them. I wonder why income often is the only resource considered when giving families assistance. To help you think about interacting with diverse families, please read the following scenario:

You are a teacher in the 4-year-old room at Kids Place child care center.Daequan and Mathew are two children in your class. Both were born at 30 weeks’ gestation and had hospital stays of about 6 weeks. Both are in generally good health and are monitored for respiratory illnesses. For the most part, the boys are reaching their developmental milestones, with slight delays in language/emotional development.

At the present time, Daequan and his mother, Shania, are living in a homeless shelter. Their home burned down 2 weeks ago and they had nowhere else to go. Matthew is part of an intact family. Ralph and Sue are his parents, and he has an older brother, Nick. The family lives in an affluent community a mile from Kids Place.

Which child would appear to be experiencing a greater number of risk factors that can affect his development?
With which family would it appear to be easier to develop a partnership? Why?

Then you learn:

Daequan and his mother have a number of extended family members available for support and will be moving into an apartment within a month’s time. Shania has contacted a number of local agencies for assistance to rebuild her and her son’s lives.

Matthew’s father travels 3 weeks out of the month. Sue is on medication for depression and has recently started drinking around the boys during the evenings and weekends. She turns down offers of help from her friends and family and tells them everything is fine with her marriage and her ability to raise her sons.

What questions might you or others ask to find out “the whole story”? Ruby Payne (2009) describes the nine resources by which one negotiates their environment. Poverty is when you need too many of these resources, not just financial.

Language (ability to speak formally)
Support systems
Relationships/role models
Knowledge of middle class rules

How do you and other discover what resources are available to children and families? How do you build on a families strengths. Everything that improves the economic security, safety and peace of mind of families improves parenting—and increases children’s chances for growing into healthy, compassionate and responsible adults. These include living wages and reliable hours, secure housing, high-quality childcare, paid family leave, safe neighborhoods, flex time, desegregation and social inclusion. Which disciplinary perspectives might help you understand family influences on childhood?

Friendships

Besides family and other adults in the culture, peers can be an influence on childhood. Recent research shows the importance of friendship, and its impact on mental and physical health. Preschool friendships are helpful in developing social and emotional skills, increasing a sense of belonging and decreasing stress. (Yu, Ostrosky, & Fowler, 2011). People who feel lonely or socially isolated tend to be more depressed, have more health issues and may have a shorter lifespan. (Lewis, 2016). Having a support system can help us handle hardships.

Selman and colleagues identified five successive stages in how children view friendships. The chart below illustrates the theory. Why might it be helpful to understand the stages of friendship? How would it inform your possible work with children and families?

Play in one way in which families and peers interact with the child. Play is essential to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth and is one of the rights in the UNCRC. Article 31 of the UNCRC states:

1. Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

2. Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.

It is through play that children engage and interact in the world around them at an early age. Play allows children to create and explore a world they can master, conquering their fears while practicing adult roles, developing new competencies that lead to enhanced confidence and the resiliency they will need to face future challenges.

Child-directed play allows children to practice decision-making skills, move at their own pace, discover their own areas of interest, and ultimately engage fully in the passions they wish to pursue. When play is controlled by adults, children follow adult rules and lose some of the benefits child-directed play offers them, such as developing creativity, leadership, and group skills. Play builds active, healthy bodies. Play is a simple joy that is a cherished part of childhood. However, play can be challenged by child labor and exploitation practices, war and neighborhood violence, living in poverty, over scheduling, and pressures on children to achieve. (Ginsburg, 2007)

A wonderful resource to learn more about play is available on the National Association for the Education of Young Children website . After reviewing the information on the website reflect on these questions:

How can we enhance the opportunities for balance in children’s lives that will create the optimal development to prepare them to be academically, socially, and emotionally equipped for future growth? How can we make sure we play enough?

Genes make us human, but our humanity is a result of the complex interplay of biological and cultural factors. This week you read about the of the influences of family, society, and culture as they bear on the lives of children. As you discuss, try to answer: How are interactions between children and adults shaped, modified and redefined by overlapping institutional and organizational forces such as the economy, family, education, politics, religion, and so on? What is the impact of experiences in childhood later in life?

After reading this chapter and completing the activities you should be able to

Describe and analyze the influences of family, society, and culture influence the lives of children as seen the discussion and assumptions inventory

Reflection and Discussion

This week we explored the influences of family, society, and culture influence the lives of children. Reflect on your understanding of these ideas:

Now you are ready to type in Pages or in a Word document, a minimum of 3 paragraphs explaining your connections, extensions, and curiosities. Copy and paste your response in the Blackboard discussion or in class

Collaborative Research Project

So far during this course, you brainstormed a research question and should be using at least 2 disciplines to examine the question. Your work this week is to present your preliminary findings as a draft of the final project. Soon you will submit a video or some other oral report as well as written materials. You will likely use the same format as the Assumption Inventory. The report should

Summarize your research question ( What ). Remember to relate the question to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)
Present the research from different disciplines that help to answer or explain the question. ( So What )
Apply criteria listed in the grading rubrics to create a persuasive presentation
Discuss possible solutions. (This is the start of the Now What of the project)
Complete a peer feedback questionnaire.

Ginsburg, K. R. (2007) The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds. Pediatrics, 119, (1). doi: 10.1542/peds.2006-2697 Available at http://pediatrics.aappublications.or...1/182.full.pdf

Lewis, T. (2016). This common characteristic may be as big a risk to your health as smoking. Business Insider Website available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-social-isolation-affects-your-health-2016-1

Selman, R. (1981). The child as a friendship philosopher. In S. A. Asher & J. M. Gottman (Eds.), Development of Children’s Friendships. (pp. 250-251). (Original work published 1978) Retrieved from http://books.google.com

van Rooyen, A., Water, T., Rasmussen, S., and Diesfeld, K. (2015). What makes a child a ‘competent’ child? The New Zealand Medical Journal, 128, (1426). Available at www.nzma.org.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/46110/van-Rooyen-1628FINAL1426.pdf

Yu, S. Y., Ostrosky, M. M. & Fowler, S. A. (2011). Children’s Friendship Development: A Comparative Study. Early Childhood Research and Practice, 13 , (1).

COMMENTS

The Role of Family in Socialization
A family is a fundamental institution that assists an individual or child to develop into an acceptable member of the society. Although each parent in a family has a role in the upbringing of a child, in many cases, the mother initiates the socialization process in a child. Besides giving the sense of belonging or identity, a family imparts ...
Family, Culture, and Communication
Introduction. Family is the fundamental structure of every society because, among other functions, this social institution provides individuals, from birth until adulthood, membership and sense of belonging, economic support, nurturance, education, and socialization (Canary & Canary, 2013).As a consequence, the strut of its social role consists of operating as a system in a manner that would ...
The First Agent of Socialization: Family
Key Takeaways. The family is the first agent of socialization because they have the first and greatest contact with the child. A child's socialization begins at birth and continues throughout his or her lifetime through the other agents of socialization, such as school, and mass media. Children learn norms, values, beliefs, and attitudes ...
PDF SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL LEARNING The Role of Families in Supporting Social
Specifically, family helps young people: make sense of their own emotions, develop capacity for self-awareness, and learn to manage and regulate emotions; [feeling] develop, understand and navigate relationships with others, and strengthen social skills for. maintaining these relationships; [relating] and.
15.2 Sociological Perspectives on the Family
Summarize understandings of the family as presented by functional, conflict, and social interactionist theories. Sociological views on today's families generally fall into the functional, conflict, and social interactionist approaches introduced earlier in this book. Let's review these views, which are summarized in Table 15.1 "Theory ...
Socialization Processes in the Family: Social and Emotional Development
Children learn moral values and social conventions through a process of socialization, much of which involves parenting. The process is bidirectional and involves a complex interplay between evolutionary predispositions and genetic and socio-cultural factors. Children's perception of, or assignment of meaning to, parenting interventions is central. Socialization occurs in different ...
Socialization in the Family: The Roles of Parents.
In this chapter we explore research relevant to the role that parents play in socialization. We focus on the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral processes associated with socialization and their antecedents in parenting actions. We also focus on parenting in a Western industrialized context in which the bulk of research has been conducted. We briefly comment on parents as primary agents of ...
Special Issue on Family Socialization: Diversity in Strategies, Beliefs
Socialization is a multifaceted process based on the goals and aspirations guiding adults in transmitting values and norms. This process is co-active and dynamic and varies greatly depending on contexts and cultural identities (Lerner & Callina, Citation 2014; Overton, Citation 2007).Families play a key role in socializing children's behaviors, emotions, beliefs, and attitudes.
Socialization and the Family
Abstract. "The process whereby the child becomes a social being" is perhaps the most comprehensive short definition of what we mean by "socialization.". The word socialization implies that the individual lives in a social world, that is, within a group, and group living, by its nature, imposes its own restraints and patterns of living ...
Family Relationships and Well-Being
The quality of family relationships, including social support (e.g., providing love, advice, and care) and strain (e.g., arguments, being critical, making too many demands), can influence well-being through psychosocial, behavioral, and physiological pathways. Stressors and social support are core components of stress process theory ( Pearlin ...
Parental Socialization and Its Impact across the Lifespan
The present study examined parental socialization and its short- and long-term impact on the psychosocial development of adolescents and adult children. The sample consisted of 2150 Spanish participants, 623 adolescents (12-18 years), 619 young adults (19-35 years), 502 middle-aged adults (35-59 years), and 406 older adults (60 years or ...
A Framework for Studying Family Socialization Over the Life Cycle:
We identify three sources of family socialization experiences: socialization that occurs early in family life and creates a repertoire of behavior that may be carried into subsequent family relationships; lessons learned as a result of transitions from one family to another; and socialization experiences in a person's current family.
Parental Socialization Styles: The Contribution of Paternal and
1.1. Parental Socialization Styles and their Dimensions. From childhood onwards, the family is the foremost context for socialization and individual development, and parents represent one of the most powerful influences in their children's lives [1,2].Far from being restricted to childhood, however, this influence continues throughout individuals' entire lives [3,4], becoming particularly ...
11.3: Sociological Perspectives on the Family
In most societies, the family is the major unit in which socialization happens. Parents, siblings, and, if the family is extended rather than nuclear, other relatives all help to socialize children from the time they are born. Figure 11.3. One of the most important functions of the family is the socialization of children.
Special Issue on Family Socialization: Diversity in Strategies, Beliefs
Socialization is a multifaceted process based on the goals and aspirations guiding adults in transmitting values and norms. This process is co-active and dynamic and varies greatly depending on contexts and cultural identities (Lerner & Callina, 2014; Overton, 2007). Families play a key role in socializing children's behaviors, emotions ...
5.3 Agents of Socialization
Family. Family is the first agent of socialization. Mothers and fathers, siblings and grandparents, plus members of an extended family, all teach a child what he or she needs to know. For example, they show the child how to use objects (such as clothes, computers, eating utensils, books, bikes); how to relate to others (some as "family ...
Agents of Socialization
Socialization Agents. Socialization agents are a combination of social groups and social institutions that provide the first experiences of socialization. Families, early education, peer groups, the workplace, religion, government, and media all communicate expectations and reinf orce norms. People first learn to use the tangible objects of ...
PDF The Role of the Family in the Socialization of Children
1. Introduction. Man being social origin and social aspects of child development constitutes the basis of his human life. Necessary social, psychological fitness, enjoyment of social skills, self ...
Agents of Socialization: Definition & Examples
Family: The family is usually the first and most impactful agent of socialization. From infancy, family members impart values, norms, and biases, influencing a child's personality, emotional development, and behavior. Schools: After the family, schools play a significant role in socialization. They expose children to new cultural values ...
4: Influences of Family, Society, and Culture on Childhood
This week we will consider how family society and culture influence the lives of children. You will explore how the natural sciences (biology) and social sciences (anthropology, psychology, social work, and sociology) study these influences on children. We will use an interdisciplinary approach to learn more about the topic of sexuality.
Essay about the Role of Family in Socialization
Essay about the Role of Family in Socialization. This essay sample was donated by a student to help the academic community. Papers provided by EduBirdie writers usually outdo students' samples. Socializing is a process by which principles and traditions are transmitted to the young generation. It helps in nurturing the guidelines and ...
Socialization and gender roles within the family: a study on
The way we are, behave and think is the final product of socialization. Since the moment we are born, we are being moulded into the being society wants us to be. Through socialization we also learn what is appropriate and improper for both genders. The vast literature on this topic has pointed out a consolidation of the debate. It allows us to identify important problematic bonds relative to ...

The Role of Family in the Process of Socialization Essay

Article contents

Introduction

Family: Theoretical Perspectives

Family Communication Patterns Theory

Dyadic Power

The Role of Culture in Parenting Socialization of Values

Intercultural Families: Adding Cultural Differences to Interparental Communication

An Example of Intercultural Parenting: The Thai Family

The Case of Hispanic/Latino Families in the United States

Culture and Family Communication: the “so what?” Question

Further Reading

Related Articles

15.2 Sociological Perspectives on the Family

Social Functions of the Family

The Family and Conflict

Families and Social Interaction

Key Takeaways

For Your Review

Socialization and the Family

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Parental Socialization Styles: The Contribution of Paternal and Maternal Affect/Communication and Strictness to Family Socialization Style

Arantzazu Rodríguez-Fernández

Eider Goñi

1. Introduction

1.2. The Contribution of Parental Figures to the Establishment of Family Socialization Style

1.3. The Contribution of Parenting Dimensions to the Establishment of Family Socialization Style

1.4. The Present Study

2. Materials and Method

2.2. Measures

2.2.1. Affect-Communication Dimension

2.2.2. Strictness Dimension

2.3. Procedure

2.4. Analysis

4. Discussion

5. Conclusions

Author Contributions

Conflicts of Interest

5.3 Agents of Socialization

Social Group Agents

Peer Groups

Institutional Agents

Big Picture

The Workplace

Sociology in the Real World

Agents of Socialization

Socialization Agents

Peer Groups

The Workplace

Section Quiz

Share This Book

Agents of Socialization: Definition & Examples

What is Socialization?

The Purpose of Socialization

Example Agents of Socialization

3. Community / Neighborhood

5. Mass Media

6. Religion

7. Government

Other Agents of Socialization (Ethnicity and class)

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between culture and socialization?

What are the most important agents of socialization?

Margin Size

4: Influences of Family, Society, and Culture on Childhood

Introduction

Ecological Systems Theory – used often in Social Work

Nature and Nurture Shape Childhood

Role of families

Friendships

After reading this chapter and completing the activities you should be able to

Reflection and Discussion

Collaborative Research Project

COMMENTS