1. Your 5-year-old child hits another child without reason while playing. You have never seen him/her do this before.

2. Every night, your 4-year-old child refuses to go to bed.

3. Your 10-year-old child offers to help you clean up the house.

4. Your oldest child, a 16-year-old, has started smoking. You smoke, but do not want your children to smoke.

5. You want your 14-year-old to take care of your younger children when you are at work, but he/she complains, "It's not my job."

Now read

Now read the text "How We Learn to Behave." When you finish, turn to the tasks on

page 19.

Many behaviors are learned in families.

HOW WE LEARN TO BEHAVE

• A woman turns off her cell phone as she enters a movie theater.

• A driver eats a candy bar and puts the paper wrapper in the ashtray.

• A couple decides to have a baby.

Being polite, neat, and family-oriented are characteristics of the well- socialized American. Socialization is the process of learning how to behave in the society we live in. For societies to exist, there must be some organized way of teaching the members what is expected of them and how they are to behave. Through socialization, the infant develops into a person like one of those described above.

Every society tries to socialize its members. The task is performed by several groups and institutions (called socializing agents). The family, the school, and the peer group (that is, people of the same age) are the most important socializing agents. Of these, the family is the most important, especially during the first few years of life. A review of various studies of families has concluded that warm, supportive, moderately strict family environments usually produce happy and well-behaved children; and that cold, rigid, and overly strict families tend to cause youngsters to become rebellious, resentful, and insecure (Gecas 1981).

How, then, do families and other socializing agents teach children how to behave? Two important ways are by sanctions (rewards and pun­ishments) and by modeling.

Rewards and punishments

socialization

the process of learning what to expect and how to behave in the society the individual lives in

Sanctions are consequences following a behavior that influence whether the behavior will be repeated. Positive sanctions mean that the behavior is followed by something that is a reward. If a child asks a parent "May I have some gum please?" and the parent gives the child some gum, the child learns that saying "please" at the end of a request results in getting

what he asked for. Negative sanctions (also known as punishments) mean that something bad happens after a behavior occurs. When a child says "Gimme some gum" and the parent says "No gum until you learn to ask politely" and does not give the child the gum, the child learns that it is not a good idea to speak this way because he does not get what he wants.

Modeling

Modeling refers to learning by watching the behavior of others - espe- 6 daily parents - and copying that behavior. Modeling influences both positive and negative behavior. For example, children who are respect­ful to elderly people have probably seen their parents do things such as helping older people onto trains and buses. On the other hand, chil­dren whose parents are alcoholics are more likely than other children to become alcoholics themselves.

Differences across cultures

It is easy to assume that every culture socializes children in the same 7 way. Studies of other cultures, however, show that children are social­ized differently depending on the culture they are brought up in.

A study of 6- to 11-year-old children in six farming communities in 8 the United States, Kenya, Okinawa, northern India, the Philippines, and Mexico is a good example of these studies. Beatrice and John Whiting (1975) found a big difference between the types of household chores that children were expected to do in these cultures. More importantly, they found that parental expectations about work around the house were an important part of children's socialization. Where children were expected to take care of other younger children and do chores that helped the whole household (as in the Kenyan and Mexican commu­nities studied), they quickly learned to be responsible and caring toward others. In communities like the one studied in the United States, where children were only expected to do chores such as clean­ing their rooms and picking up toys, they were less likely to develop these traits at an early age. Of course, not every family in a particular culture socializes their children in exactly the same way - and this would be true of expectations about household chores also. Neverthe­less, many cross-cultural differences in socialization have been identi­fied by researchers.

Other evidence of these differences in socialization practices comes 9 from a study of how traditional Vietnamese and Chinese socialize their children (Dillard 1987). In these families, the needs of the group are seen as more important than the needs of the individual, and so chil­dren learn that their first responsibility is to their parents rather than to themselves. For example, many children work hard at school so that their parents will be proud of them.

After you read

Task 1 language focus: defining

Textbooks contain many definitions of words or expressions that have a special meaning within the field of study. These words or expressions are sometimes called technical terms. Understanding the structure of these definitions will make it easier to recognize them in texts and help you learn to define the terms you use in writing assignments.

Read the following examples from "How We Learn to Behave." Circle the term being defined and underline the words that link the term and its meaning.

1. (Socialization) is the process of learning how to behave in the society we live in.

2. Sanctions are consequences following a behavior that influence whether the behavior will be repeated.

3. Positive sanctions mean that the behavior is followed by something that is a reward.

4. Negative sanctions (also known as punishments) mean that something bad happens after a behavior occurs.

5. Modeling refers to learning by watching the behavior of others - especially parents - and copying that behavior.

2 Work with a partner. Discuss the meanings of these words from the text and write a one-sentence definition for each using some of the patterns in the sentences above.

socializing agents (par. 3) peer group (par. 3) household chores (par. 8) cross-cultural differences (par. 8)

Task 2 building vocabulary: learning words related to the topic

It is usually easier to remember words if we learn them as part of a group of related words. So it is a good idea to spend some time after you read a text finding words that you can group together for learning.

1 These words from the text describe different kinds of behavior: polite, neat, well- behaved, rebellious, resentful, respectful, responsible, caring.

Work with a partner. Write the words in the chart that follows to show which kinds of behavior are likely to lead to a positive sanction (a reward) and which to a negative sanction (a punishment). Use the context of the word in the text and a dictionary if necessary.

Positive sanction	Negative sanction
polite	rebellious

2 Add these other kinds of behavior to the chart: kind, rude, cheerful, aggressive, obedient, disobedient, selfish, cruel.

Task 3 summarizing

Summarizing is an essential study skill. It means reducing a whole text to a few sentences. A good summaiy shows that you have understood what the text is about and what the most important points are. When you write a summary for your own purposes, you can freely use as many words from the text as you like. However, when you summarize in an essay, you should use your own words as much as possible.

The paragraph below summarizes the text "How We Leam to Behave." Fill in the miss­ing words by looking back at the text.

Socialization is the process^- learning how to behave in the society we live

in. The job of socialization is performed by several groups called

. The family, the school, and the peer group are the most important socializing agents, and of these three, the is the most important, espe­

cially in the early years. Two important ways that families and other socializing agents

teach children to behave are and . _

. Sanctions are the that follow a particular behavior and

influence whether or not the behavior will be . Sanctions can be positive

( _) or negative (punishments). Modeling is learning by _ the behavior of others - especially parents - and copying that behavior. Children are social­ized differently depending on the they are brought up in.

Task 4 applying what you read

Finding ways to apply new knowledge is a good way to deepen your understanding of new subject matter.