Read and comprehend the following text.

Sociologists use the term agents of socialization to refer to the various people and groups that socialize an individual into his or her culture/s. Here are a few different agents of socialization. Think about how they have affected the way you think about yourself and the world around you.

✓ Your family is a primary group that was responsible for your earliest and most important socialization. Your family has likely shaped everything from your habits to your moral values to your sense of humor and — most fundamentally — your sense of yourself. Who are you? What are the best and the worst things about you? Your parents and other close relatives have their own answers to those questions, and you can hardly have escaped being deeply affected by their views on the subject.

✓ School is another prime agent of socialization. Teachers and administrators typically make no bones about the fact that their socially-designated job is not just to transmit knowledge but to transmit culture. Government-run schools in many societies are limited to officially transmitting civic culture rather than religious or ethnic culture, but even then, schools drop a heap of socialization on every student every day — from a nation’s founding ideals to which side of the hallway you’re supposed to walk on. School is also a prime site of socialization by peers.

✓ A church (or sacred place) is a place where people go to connect with the spiritual world, but also — often very deliberately — to be socialized. Religious leaders and sacred texts often make strong prescriptions about everything ranging from when killing is acceptable to when wearing lipstick is acceptable. Religious services often include solemn rituals and have dress codes marking them as unusually important. People do sometimes switch religions, but they remain forever affected by the socialization they have received in communities of faith.

✓ The socializing power of the media is a matter of permanent debate. People are active viewers, listeners, and readers who watch, listen to, and read media for many different reasons and learn different things from the same songs, shows, or books. That said, people certainly learn many important cultural lessons from media, sometimes as profound as the value of diversity, sometimes as mundane as the latest dance craze.

Answer the following questions.

3.1. What does the term “agents of socialization” mean? What is the main function of the agent of socialization?

3.2. How does the family as a primary group affect you? What are other functions of the family in socializing? What are the best and the worst things about you?

3.3. What are the functions of the school and university? What values does your university instill in you?

3.4. How does the church socialize a person? Can you think of any principles that your religion teaches you?

3.5. What is the role of media in socialization?

Say if the following statements True or False.

1. The family is responsible for the earliest and most important stage in socialization.

2. Teachers and administrators are responsible for transmitting only knowledge.

3. A church provides the fulfillment of the spiritual needs of the people.

4. Religious leaders do not decide on dress code in religious organizations.

5. People never in life switch religions.

6. Media transmits cultural values.

7. Peers at school influence the mind of the person.

Vocabulary study.

5.1. Explain the meaning of the underlined words in the text.

5.2. Make up proper combinations based on the given text.

 

transmit	1. religions
spiritual	2. socialization
sacred	3. debate
switch	4. prescriptions
permanent	5. world
strong	6. culture
agents of	7. place

 

 

5.3. Explain the differences of the following combinations: transmit knowledge and transmit culture.

5.4. From the text collect key words connecting to the topic Family, School, Religion, Media in a form of a mind map.

6. Skill activity. Analyze facts in light of the studied text discuss in class.

· Advertisers spend the most on the Drama genre.

· The average cost for a 30 second advertisement on Primetime is $7,800.

· The average person watches 3 and half hours of Youtube per month.

· The average number of channels a person watches is 17.5.

• Most watched TV night is Sunday. The least watched TV night is Friday.

http://www.projectcasting.com/news/10-interesting-tv-facts-you-did-not-know/

Research and creative activity.

7.1. Prepare a presentation about agents of socialization.

7.2. Complete the table after finding out what values Family, School, Church, Media instill in different countries. Let each student be responsible for one country.

	Family	School	Church	Media
Ukraine
Germany
Iraq
India
Japan

 

 

7.3. Compose a summary for the article 5 in the Extra Reading part.

Unit 10

Mainstream and Subculture

 

Ice breaking questions.

What is popular today in the world?

What is the fashion today in your city, in your university?

What is radical fashion, subculture fashion?

There is a usual behavior at the disco club. What behavior would you call strange at the disco club?

Do you prefer following the crowd, or do you prefer following the minority?

Read and comprehend the following text.

 

A. Defining “Mainstream”

There are different ways of studying culture, different ways of producing culture, and different ways of interpreting culture. There are some very widely shared cultural norms and some very popular cultural products: things that just about everyone likes or knows about. These things can be called mainstream culture. Parts of mainstream culture include:

✓ Mainstream products: • Blockbuster movies and popular songs • Flags and other popular symbols • Sacred texts.

✓ Mainstream ideas and values: • Widespread religious beliefs • Ideas about what type of people are most important (men or women, white or black) • Ideas about what type of government is best (democracy, communism).

✓ Mainstream practices: • National holidays • Rituals such as saying a prayer or a national pledge, watching a popular sport, or voting • Dating and marriage practices.

Mainstream culture includes some of a society’s most cherished traditions and widely shared values. Even in societies that have many different cultural traditions, products, ideas, values, and practices in mainstream culture can provide common ground that help everyone get along — and have something to talk about over the backyard fence!

Think about fashion: It sometimes seems like everyone is wearing one brand of shoes one year.

B. Defining Subculture

The word subculture refers to a culture that is strikingly, often deliberately, different from mainstream culture. Values and practices associated with a subculture will often seem odd to mainstream people, and they may even cause outrage.

A good example of a subculture that caused outrage can be found in the 1970s punk subculture in England. Members of that subculture adopted styles of dress that were designed to shock mainstream Brits. Punks pierced their lips with safety pins, spiked and dyed their hair, and — most offensively — used the British flag in disrespectful ways.

Subcultures reject mainstream culture, but there can’t be such a thing as subculture if there’s no mainstream culture to reject!

Subcultures can even have subcultures of their own — groups of people who keep certain norms and practices of the subculture, but deliberately reject others. When subcultures reach a certain level of popularity, they may be absorbed into mainstream culture, thus ceasing to be different or shocking.

Answer the following questions.

3.1. What does the term mainstream mean? What are the parts of the mainstream? Give some examples of the mainstream culture?

3.2. What does the term subculture mean? Provide examples of the subculture? Describe the subculture of the punks. What happens when subculture becomes popular?