Modeling, then Coaching: Towards a New Theory of Primary Socialization

• In Event: 238 - Regular Session. Children/Youth/Adolescents

Abstract

Although sociologists have long studied young children, little is known about how adults and peers together influence a child’s behavior. This is a critical oversight given the increase in children who spend their primary socialization years in daycare. Using two years of ethnographic observations, this article describes how children and adults collaborate to influence children’s everyday behavior. Children and adults used three tactics to influence behavior: preparatory coaching, situated coaching, and modeling. Based on these findings, I propose a new theory of socialization that underlines how socialization strategies among peers and adults align. Conceptualizing socialization as a set of strategies that adults and peers enact clarifies how social inequalities are reproduced.

Author

• Casey Lorene Stockstill, University of Wisconsin-Madison