Week 4 · Readings & resources

Week 4 — Readings & Resources

Introduction to Sociology Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 4 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 10 items (4 readings and 6 videos). Allow 65–76 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more practice, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (18–20 min total)

① Who teaches you to be you? Nature, nurture, and the agents

Chapter 4, Section “The six agents: name who does the teaching” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Socialization, nature and nurture, and the six agents” · Remember: biology gives you the capacity to learn, and the people and places around you decide what you learn with it.

Social Development: Crash Course Sociology #13 — CrashCourse — how nature and nurture work together, why care and human contact matter so much early in life, and a first tour of the theories of how a self develops. This builds on Week 3's work with culture and its norms. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)
Socialization: Crash Course Sociology #14 — CrashCourse — a quick tour of the agents of socialization, from family and peers to school, media, and work, with resocialization and total institutions at the end. Use it while working through the Week-4 module overview. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)
Is temperament determined by genetics? — MedlinePlus Genetics — a short government health page on how much of a person's temperament traces to genes and how much to the setting they grow up in; read it as a concrete case of nature and nurture working together, not competing. (reading, 3–5 min)
The Hidden Curriculum In Under 5 Minutes — Theory In 5 — a two-minute explainer on what a school teaches without ever putting it on the syllabus. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)

② How does a self grow? Cooley's mirror and Mead's stages

Chapter 4, Section “Mead's stages: grow a self in three steps” · Session 1, Segment 2, “The looking-glass self and Mead's stages” · Remember: the looking-glass self is Cooley's, and the stages and the generalized other are Mead's.

What is The Looking Glass Self: Charles Horton Cooley — Sociologylearners — a walk through Cooley's idea that you see yourself in what you imagine others think of you, with everyday examples of each step. (video, 8 min) (captions: automatic)
What is Mead's Stages of the Self? (Five minute sociology #9) — Dr. Maples — a five-minute explainer on how children move from imitation to play to games, and how that leads to the generalized other. (video, 5 min) (captions: automatic)

③ Can a self be rebuilt? Total institutions and resocialization

Chapter 4, Section “Resocialization: strip a self and rebuild it” · Session 2, Segment 3, “Resocialization and total institutions” · Remember: a strict place is not a total institution unless one authority runs every part of daily life.

Basic Training — Military OneSource — a guide for families of new recruits on what basic training looks like, from arrival and the first haircut and uniform to a schedule set by others and limited contact with home; skim it with the one-authority test in mind. (reading, 8–12 min)
Erving Goffman - Asylums — Social Theory on Film — a short film on Goffman's study of total institutions, showing how entry rituals strip away an old identity and a new routine builds another. Stop here before status, roles, and the front stage; next week takes those up. (video, 9 min) (captions: creator)

④ Does the learning ever stop? Rehearsing a role

Chapter 4, Section “Anticipatory socialization and the life course: rehearse a role, keep learning” · Session 2, Segment 4, “Anticipatory socialization and the life course” · Remember: you can start learning a role before you hold it, and new roles keep arriving all through life.

Registered Apprenticeship for Career Seekers — Apprenticeship.gov — the federal apprenticeship site's page on learning a trade from a mentor while working; read it as anticipatory socialization in action, where a newcomer learns how experienced workers think and act before becoming one. (reading, 3–5 min)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Hidden Curriculum — The Glossary of Education Reform — an education reference glossary's entry on the unwritten lessons schools teach about behavior, rules, and authority; read the opening definition and the examples, and skip the later debates about school reform. (reading, 7–10 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com