Chapter 13: The Sociology of Socialization

LEE GARTH VIGILANT & JOHN WILLIAMSON

The sociology of socialization Socialization is the most interdisciplinary subfield in the social sciences because of the rich history of arguments across disciplinary lines, discourses between psychology and sociology, sociology and anthropology, and between the social and natural sciences (Clausen 1968; Goslin 1969; Watson 1924). The idea that environmental forces are responsible for human behavior was in direct opposition to the view that instinctual and hereditary factors were largely in charge. This debate came to prominence in the mid-1800s beginning with Darwin's natural selection and adaptation discoveries ([1872] 1966) and has continued over the last century with varying degrees of intensity. By 1900, the nature ( hereditary ) versus nurture ( environment ) argument concerning whether biological and instinctual forces were overriding social and environmental ones in determining human behavior was at its most intense. Moreover, the emerging discipline and social movement of eugenics in the Americas, which was a ...

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