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Socialization: The Concept

• Explain the concept of socialization.

Limits of Socialization

• Describe the nature versus nurture debate.

Theories of Socialization

• Understand the difference between "self," "I," and "me" in terms of a person's social development.
• Understand the difference between the "other" and the "generalized other" in terms of social development.
• Explain how imitation, play, and games are key stages in a child's development.
• Describe Eric Erikson's eight stages of development.

Agents of Socialization

• Compare and contrast the family, school, peers, the media, and total institutions as important socializing components.
• Understand the concepts of adult socialization and resocialization.

Social Interaction

• Describe the components of Robert Merton's role theory.
• Describe the work of gender theorists and the emphasis they place on gender roles when they study socialization.

The Social Construction of Reality

• Explain what it means for something to be "socially constructed."
• Describe the three basic tenets of the theory of symbolic interactionism.
• Explain Erving Goffman's dramaturgical theory.
• Define ethnomethodology and describe Harold Garfinkel's "breaching experiments."
• Describe how a new technology, such as the Internet, creates new social situations that people have to learn how to navigate.

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W. W. Norton & Company has been independent since its founding in 1923, when William Warder Norton and Margaret D. Norton first published lectures delivered at the People's Institute, the adult education division of New York City's Cooper Union. The Nortons soon expanded their program beyond the Institute, publishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By mid-century, the two major pillars of Norton's publishing program—trade books and college texts—were firmly established. In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees, and today—with a staff of 400 and a comparable number of trade, college, and professional titles published each year—W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees.