Introduction
Social life is a rather complicated matter as far as people are involved in numerous social relations with each other and with the society as a whole. Due to this, it is important to understand the essence of these relations and see whether a person is properly socialized and introduced into the society and whether he or she meets the social requirements of the society. Culture, as one of the most significant aspects of the social life, is of crucial significance for the formation of a social personality in a human being, and this paper will focus on culture as one of the manifestations of human social life (Andersen and Taylor, chapter 2). Theories and concepts applied to the issues of culture will be exemplified by life experiences of a friend of mine who will be called Jane Morrison for the purposes of privacy policy and confidentiality.
Sociology in Life
To start with, it is necessary to state that culture has numerous definitions and scholars still argue about the uniform one that would synthesize all dimensions of culture. Nevertheless, drawing from the existing definitions, culture can be viewed as a set of all achievements and progressive ideas of the mankind in the spheres of art, science, language, etc.: “Culture is the general way of life, including norms, customs, beliefs, and language. Human society is a system of social interaction that includes both culture and social organization.” (Andersen and Taylor, 94) Thus, to view the experiences of my friend from the perspective of culture, it is necessary to consider the process of his socialization through the lenses of race, social class and gender factors. Moreover, the effect of cultural values and norms, language and cultural ethnocentrism and relativism on the development of the personality of this woman and on the shaping of his social life will also be considered.
First of all, it is obvious that culture is a set of values and norms that a person learns in the initial stages of his or her life, and this process is called socialization. The hero of this story went through a complicated process of socialization due to her peculiar background and racial identity. As the chapter 2 of the book by Andersen and Taylor states, culture is a means of holding the human society together, so the elements that form this culture are very important. Among others, thus, the aspects of culture such as race, ethnicity, gender and belonging to a certain social class are of paramount meaning for personality formation. For the person under consideration these aspects were rather difficult as she is a representative of African-American ethnic group which has long been discriminated and disregarded in the US society: “The United States is a multicultural nation. Yet, even with numerous cultures here in the U.S., we have a dominant culture with core values that are part of our fabric.” (Mini-Lecture 6, 2)Due to this, and the fear that Americans have towards wrong things, according to Barry Glassner’s article in the book by Fergusson (chapter 2, article 7), the socialization of Jane Morrison was full of obstacles and problems.
For example, the admission to school was at first made more difficult by the racial discrimination while it was hard for an African-American to study together with white children. Then the consequences of the Affirmative Action made it hard for Jane as she was eagerly admitted to the school she wanted to study in, but white children looked at her as if she took her place undeservedly instead of some white children just because she was an African-American. Moreover, gender factor made it even more difficult for Jane as her being a girl made her into a subject of discrimination from the male students in her class. Also, her gender made it difficult for her to achieve her further goals in employment as employers did not want to employ her as females were thought by them as less initiative and potentially less successful workers.
Thus, the bright manifestation of the phenomenon of cultural ethnocentrism could be observed in the US society in the situation with Jane and many other people who have faced similar problems: “Ethnocentrism is the act of judging other cultures based on the values and norms of one’s own culture.” (Mini-Lecture 6, 2) The American society had a period in its history during which it considered white culture and its values to be the only proper ones, while the cultures of minor ethnic groups were viewed from this perspective only as inferior ones. However, the scientific approach to this issue is a cultural relativism which presupposes the presence of free choice of values and ideas presented to the people of different cultures (Ferguson, chapter 2, article 8). In Jane’s case, the members of the society with whom she was in social relations used the approach of ethnocentrism while they had to be more tolerant and act in accordance with cultural relativism to be more correct and polite.
What was even more important was that Jane’s belonging to the African-American ethnic group predetermined her having a special accent that was inherited by her from her ancestors who lived in Nigeria and moved to the USA in the middle of 1950s. Despite of the fact that Jane only visited Nigeria for several times and lived all her life in the USA, her accent was one of her major problems. Years of studying and communicating using the American English did not allow her to get rid of that accent and it prevented her from success while applying for a position of a secretary because her accent could misguide the people with whom she had to communicate for the company’s purposes. Scholars and ordinary people, for instance visitors of the discussion forum Sociology Connection with Romana Pires, admit the presence of an accent in all people of different ethnic groups but their ideas can not change public attitude towards it: “My behavior changes because of the culture but I still have my native accent from my country even though I had been stay at US for over 20 yrs.” (Sociology Connection with Romana Pires, 2008). Thus, accent which is understood by scholars as an integral part of a person’s cultural identity, led to serious problems in the social life and the process of social interrelations experienced by Jane Morrison.
Further on, as it is not surprising the issue of Jane’s belonging to the working class of the American society played a practical joke on her. Having issues with access to education and later to employment, Jane had to face the challenges connected with the issues of health care: “Thus, racial and ethnic minorities in general have poorer access to health care than others; the poor have less access, as do those of lower social class status.” (Andersen and Taylor, 96) From this example, it is clear that the social structure of the society proved its being class based once again in the situation with Jane. This woman became the instrument of social regulation and her class belonging to the lower class of the society made her into a participant of regulatory relations between members of different classes in the society.
Conclusion
Thus, to conclude the present paper, it is necessary to state that society is a complicated way of interactions and relations between human beings. People have established society with its principles and values to make their co-existence easier but in many cases social norms and values seem to be misinterpreted by people. Culture is of paramount importance for the socialization of a human being and for the formation of his or her personality, but wrongly interpreted culture becomes a cause for prejudice and stereotyping. The case of Jane Morrison considered in this paper is a bright example of the difficulties a person can come across in his or her life based on differences in cultures in relation to the dominant forces of the society. In other words, Jane Morrison had culture with its own values and norms but they were interpreted by the society from the ethnocentric point of view which led to social discrimination of this person based on her ethnic identity, gender and social class belonging factors. Such agents of socialization as the society, social institutions and people had an adverse effect on Jane’s socialization as they were intended to aid it but turned out to be obstacles on its way. Nevertheless, Jane managed to cope with her tasks resulting in becoming a socialized personality adjusted to living in a human society.
Works Cited
- Andersen, Margaret L., and Howard F. Taylor. 2007 (5th ed.). Sociology: The Essentials. United States: Wadsworth.
- Ferguson, Susan J. (ed.). 2008 (5th ed.). Mapping the Social Landscape: Readings in Sociology. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
- Mini-Lecture 6. Culture. Sociology Connection with Romana Pires. 2008. Web.
- Sociology Connection with Romana Pires. Open forum for sociology learners to explore social topics for the advancement of their own understanding of themselves in society. 2008.