SOCIOLOGY OF LAW

SOCIOLOGY OF LAW

The sociology of law (or legal sociology) is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies. While some socio-legal scholars see the sociology of law as "necessarily" belonging to the discipline of sociology, others see it as a field of research caught up in the disciplinary tensions and competitions between the two established disciplines of law and sociology. Yet, others regard it neither as a sub-discipline of sociology nor as a branch of legal studies and, instead, present it as a field of research on its own right within a broader social science tradition. For example,
 Roger Cotterrell describes the sociology of law without reference to mainstream sociology as "the systematic, theoretically grounded, empirical study of law as a set of social practices or as an aspect or field of social experience".

Irrespective of whether the sociology of law is defined as a sub-discipline of sociology, an approach within legal studies, or a field of research in its own right, it remains intellectually dependent mainly on mainstream sociology, and to lesser extent on other social sciences such as social anthropology, science, social, criminology and psychology, i.e. it draws on social theories and employs social scientific methods to study law, legal institutions and legal behavior.

 More specifically, the sociology of law consists of various sociological approaches to the study of law in society, which empirically examines and theorizes the interaction between law and legal institutions, on the one hand, and other (non-legal) social institutions and social factors, on the other. Areas of socio-legal inquiry include the social development of legal institutions, forms of social control, legal regulation, the interaction between legal cultures, the social construction of legal issues, legal profession, and the relation between law and social change.

The sociology of law also benefits from and occasionally draws on research conducted within other fields such as comparative law, studies, jurisprudence, legal theory, law and economics and law and literature.

                                                                        Socialization

Socialization (or socialization) is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists and educationalists to refer to the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies. It may provide the individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their own society; a society develops a culture through a plurality of shared norms, customs, values, traditions, social roles, symbols and languages. Socialization is thus ‘the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained’.

 Socialization, however, is not a normative term: it describes a process which may or may not affect the reflexive agent, and which may or may not lead to desirable, or 'moral', outcomes. Individual views on certain issues, such as race or economics, may be socialized (and to that extent normalized) within a society. Many socio-political theories postulate that socialization provides only a partial explanation for human beliefs and behaviors; that agents are not 'blank slates' predetermined by their environment. Scientific research provides strong evidence that people are shaped by both social influences and their hard-wired biological makeup. Genetic studies have shown that a person's environment interacts with their genotype to influence behavioral outcomes, whilst the linguistic theory of generative grammar demonstrates how something such as the capacity for learning changes throughout one's lifetime. 

Theories

Socialization is the primary means by which human infants begin to acquire the skills necessary to perform as a functioning member of their society, and are the most influential learning processes one can experience. Although cultural variability is manifest in the actions, customs, and behaviors of whole social groups (societies), the most fundamental expression of culture is found at the individual level. This expression can only occur after an individual has been socialized by its parents, family, extended family and extended social networks. This reflexive process of both learning and teaching is how cultural and social characteristics attain continuity.

Clausen claims that theories of socialization are to be found in Plato, Montaigne and Rousseau and he identifies a dictionary entry from 1828 that defines 'socialize' as 'to render social, to make fit for living in society' (1968: 20-1). However it was the response to a translation of a paper by Georg Simmel that the concept was incorporated into various branches of psychology and anthropology (1968: 31-52).

In the middle of the 20th century, socialization was a key idea in the dominant American functionalist tradition of sociology. Talcott Parsons (Parsons and Bales 1956) and a group of colleagues in the US developed a

Agents/units of Socialization

 In the social sciences, institutions are the structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given human collectivity. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence, transcending individual human lives and intentions, and with the making and enforcing of rules governing cooperative human behavior. Types of institution include:

§  The Family

§  Religion

§  Peer Group

§  Education

§  Economic systems

§  Legal systems

§  Penal systems

§  Psychiatric hospitals and Asylums

§  Mass media and News media

§  Organizations

§  Art and Culture

§  Language

Media and socialization

Theorists like Parsons and textbook writers like Ely Chinoy (1960) and Harry M. Johnson (1961) recognized that socialization didn’t stop when childhood ends. They realized that socialization continued in adulthood, but they treated it as a form of specialized education. Johnson (1961), for example, wrote about the importance of inculcating members of the US Coastguard with a set of values to do with responding to commands and acting in unison without question.

Later scholars accused these theorists of socialization of not recognizing the importance of the mass media which, by the middle of the twentieth century were becoming more significant as a social force. There was concern about the link between television and the education and socialization of children – it continues today – but when it came to adults, the mass media were regarded merely as sources of information and entertainment rather than moulders of personality. According to these

Some sociologists and theorists of culture have recognized the power of mass communication as a socialization device. Dennis McQuail recognizes the argument:

… the media can teach norms and values by way of symbolic reward and punishment for different kinds of behaviour as represented in the media. An alternative view is that it is a learning process whereby we all learn how to behave in certain situations and the expectations which go with a given role or status in society. Thus the media are continually offering pictures of life and models of behaviour in advance of actual experience.

—McQuail 2005: 494)

Gender socialization and gender roles

Henslin (1999:76) contends that "an important part of socialization is the learning of culturally defined gender roles." Gender socialization refers to the learning of behavior and attitudes considered appropriate for a given sex. Boys learn to be boys and girls learn to be girls. This "learning" happens by way of many different agents of socialization. The family is certainly important in reinforcing gender, but so are one’s friends, school, work and the mass media. Gender roles are reinforced through "countless subtle and not so subtle ways" (1999:76).

Racial socialization

Racial socialization has been defined as "the developmental processes by which children acquire the behaviors, perceptions, values, and attitudes of an ethnic group, and come to see themselves and others as members of the group".The existing literature conceptualizes racial socialization as having multiple dimensions. Researchers have identified five dimensions that commonly appear in the racial socialization literature: cultural socialization, preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust, egalitarianism, and other. Cultural socialization refers to parenting practices that teach children about their racial history or heritage and is sometimes referred to as pride development. Preparation for bias refers to parenting practices focused on preparing children to be aware of, and cope with, discrimination. Promotion of mistrust refers to the parenting practices of socializing children to be wary of people from other races. Egalitarianism refers to socializing children with the belief that all people are equal and should be treated with a common humanity.

                                                                           Acculturation

Acculturation is the exchange of cultural features that results when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first hand contact; the original cultural patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct.^[1] (Kottak 2007)

Despite definitions and evidence that acculturation entails two-way processes of change, research and theory have continued with a focus on the adjustments and changes experienced by minorities in response to their contact with the dominant majority.

Thus, acculturation can be conceived to be the processes of cultural learning imposed upon minorities by the fact of being minorities. Ifenculturation is first-culture learning, then acculturation is second-culture learning. This has often been conceived to be a unidimensional, zero-sum cultural conflict in which the minority's culture is displaced by the dominant group's culture in a process of assimilation.

The traditional definition sometimes differentiates between acculturation by an individual (transculturation) and that by a group, usually very large (acculturation).

Additionally, "acculturation" has been used by Matusevich as a term describing the paradigm shift public schools must undergo in order to successfully integrate emerging technologies in a meaningful way into classrooms (Matusevich, 1995). The old and the new additional definitions have a boundary that blurs in modern multicultural societies, where a child of an immigrant family might be encouraged to acculturate both the dominant as well as the ancestral culture, either of which may be considered "foreign", but in fact, they are both integral parts of the child's development.

Beginning perhaps with Child (1943) and Lewin (1948), acculturation began to be conceived as the strategic reaction of the minority to continuous contact with the dominant group. See Rudmin's 2003 tabulation of acculturation theories.[1] Thus, there are several options the minority can choose, each with different motivations and different consequences. These options include assimilation to the majority culture, a defensive assertion of the minority culture, a bicultural blending of the two cultures, a bicultural alternation between cultures depending on contexts, or a diminishment of both cultures. Following Berry's (1980; 2003) terminology, four major options or strategies are now commonly called assimilation, separation, integration, and marginalization.

Definition

Acculturation is a process in which members of one cultural group adopt the beliefs and behaviors of another group. Although acculturation is usually in the direction of a minority group adopting habits and language patterns of the dominant group, acculturation can be reciprocal--that is, the dominant group also adopts patterns typical of the minority group. Assimilation of one cultural group into another may be evidenced by changes in language preference, adoption of common attitudes and values, members’ hip in common social groups and institutions, and loss of separate political or ethnic identification.