SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Social development means acquiring the ability to behave or act in accordance wit the expectations of the society. It is a two-sided process through which children become integrated into the larger society or social community of people. The first side of social development is socialisation which is the process by which children are helped to acquire the values, the standards and knowledge of their society. The second one is social development itself which boarders on how personality is formed; that means various ways involved in helping children acquire their distinctive characteristics of thinking, behaving and feeling. To develop socially means that the individual has to learn how to live with various kinds of people and to acquire the ability to mix and live well within the wider society.
Social development begins early in life in form of gregarious behaviour around the third month and at the time babies can differentiate between people and are able to respond to them. At this time their senses of sight and hearing are developing to the point that they are made use of. When this happens, babies are maturationally ready to socialise. Adults are babies’ first social contact to whom they make their first responses. Three processes are involved in the socialisation of an individual. Though these processes are separate and distinct they are so interrelated that failure in one may lower the ability
of the individual to socialize. Only very few individuals succeed in the three processes. These processes are:
Learning to Behave in Socially Approved Ways There are social standards of behaviour that are set by every group. To effectively belong to this group, one is expected not only to acquaint himself with the standards of behaviour but also to conform to the standards. Conformity is a term used to portray a behaviour that seeks to or intends to fulfil group expectations.
Playing Approved Social Roles
Each social group has its own traditional behaviour approved for its members. These social roles are approved for the male, female, for the learner and the teacher.
Development of Social Attitude
For somebody to become socialised, he must like people and social activities to make good social adjustment and be accepted by the group.
Social people are those who are successful in the three processes involved in socialisation. These fit into the group with which they are identified and are in turn accepted by the group. Gregarious people are social people who always want to be with other people and are satisfied when they are with people.
Non-social are people who are not successful in the three processes of socialisation and by
extension in the characteristics that characterize social people.
Unsocial people are non-social people who do not have any idea of what the social group expects and they fall short of social expectations. Social expectations are what the group expects of their children and are defined in terms of developmental tasks or learning experiences. Unsocial people are therefore not accepted and as a result they are forced to spend much of their time in solitude.
Antisocial are the people who are aware of the social expectations but do violate these expectations because of their antagonistic stand or attitudes towards people. The result is that they are neglected and rejected by the social group (Hurlock, 1978).
Social Development During Infancy
Social development begins early in infancy when the child begins to form, think, feel and relate to people. The infant makes five social contacts by means of five signaling and orienting behaviours.
These are:
a. Crying b. Gazing c. Babbling d. Smiling e. Imitation
Each type of behaviour appears on its own but as they develop, they become aimed at certain people, meaning they are not generalised.
Crying:
This makes one of the earliest impacts on the environment. It is not a pleasurable or pleasant act to parents or caretakers except perhaps the first cry, which is the only one that is appreciated. Crying serves its own purpose, which is to call the attention of people around. Early crying is not distinguishable, that is, for the mother it is not easy to know why the child is crying – whether he is crying because of hunger or sickness or any other uncomfortable condition or because he is left alone. When a crying child is picked up or carried by an adult and he does not stop crying, he needs some other thing in form of food or comfort. As the child grows older he begins to communicate in specific ways and the mother can distinguish at this time why he is crying. By the end of one year, crying is directed at certain people and it is meant to produce a social response. As crying decreases the other types of behaviour increases. For example, a three-year-old- child decreases crying by 50% more than a one- year-old child.
Gazing
What is gazing? Gazing is looking steadily at somebody or objects for a long time, or long steady look. This is the first behaviour which infants orient themselves with in the world. By it they begin to take in information. It has been found that quite early in life infants can distinguish shapes, sizes and patterns and this they do through gazing. It is also known that they prefer patterns to plain objects and also prefer patterns with bright colours to patterns
with plain or dull colours. By the age of four to five months, babies prefer looking at their mother’s face to other people’s faces or to other things. This is an indication that the infant is beginning to form a new kind of relationship, which has been on for quite some time perhaps, from the time he was born.
Smiling:
This develops in three stages a. Reflexive smiling
b. Unselective social smiling c. Selective social smiling
During the first month of life infants smile spontaneously to some internal states and normally parents or caretakers notice that the smile is mechanical – one minute he will smile and another minute the smile will cease. It is so shallow that it is not natural. The smile might be as a result of some nervous movement. This could be caused by some sort of high pitched sounds perhaps, which the baby notices. Such smiles are fleeting and they disappear as quickly as they come. The infants do not communicate anything with such smiles.
From four to six weeks this type of smile changes dramatically and has more warmth and depth. He smiles broadly with relish and some kind of facial expression. It is social and communicates something. Normally at this age, babies smile at inanimate objects which include fan, shaking objects, that is, ones being carried about by air or moving objects. Smile at this age is more social than
the smile of a one month old baby but it is still unselective.
From five to six months, the baby is able to distinguish faces and actual social smiling sets in, it is not only social it is also selective. In other words, he can smile at familiar faces rather than strange faces. He makes strange gestures when a stranger moves near him and he prefers to be near familiar people.
Babbling:
From about the age of four to six weeks, babies begin to make sounds which are called gargling and cooing and they make these sounds in response to sounds of noises and the sight of a moving face or a moving object. He begins the signal of social interests. This type of sound from two months has a different connotation and it is usually the familiar voice that is more likely to elicit sounds like gargling and cooing. It is on this type of sound that he is going to build up what is called babbling.
As the child babbles, he hears his own sound unlike in smiling and as he hears his own sound, he continues to babble. Babbling continues in different stages and paves the way for language development.
From about three to four months distinctive vowel sounds can be distinguished and beginning from about nine months the baby is interested and able to repeat sounds which he or she hears other people make. Babbling also has implications for imitative behaviour. The baby will imitate the sounds made by people around him.
Imitation
This is a social behaviour and people do not imitate by way of sounds only, they also imitate by way of movement made by other people and when such imitation is reinforced more of it continues.
When a child, for instance, says ‘mama’ and the mother responds positively either by repeating what the child says or says some other thing like ‘my child’, the child will repeat ‘mama’ again. As long as the response is positive, the child will continue to repeat ‘mama’. This shows that the child reacts through reinforcement by the mother or any significant adult around. Imitation enriches the child’s social experiences and the attempt by the child to repeat what he hears or sees always leads to many playful and pleasant experiences with parents and caretakers and this is important for child/
parent interaction. From the very beginning, imitative behaviour is directed towards selected familiar people and these are the people towards whom the child has developed some specific attachment.
By way of summary, it has been found by research that numerous relationships exist between the amount of stimulation which mothers provide and their infants social responsiveness. In other words, where a mother or a caretaker provides social stimulation, the child is more responsive.
Such a child can reach out and make friends, where as non socially responsive babies will look at you nonchalantly and may not make friends easily, (Piaget throws a lot of light on stimulating environment, conducive to help children develop
responsive social behaviour). Mothers who are physically and emotionally responsive to their babies encourage social initiative and active exploration of their environment.
Social Development During Pre-School Years (Pre-gang)
Between the ages of 2-5 years, many of the expressive behaviours acquired in infancy crystallize in individual patterns and the young child begins to develop attitudes, preferences and individual ways of doing things usually during the pre-school years.
During this period, children learn how to make social contacts, how to relate and get along with other people. They also learn to adapt to others and how to cooperate with them during play. Follow-up studies carried out by Allport (1954) and Jones (1965) show that social attitude and behaviour established at this period usually continue with little changes. It is also the time when social contacts established with other children increase, determining in part how their social development will progress.
Comparatively, children who attend nursery schools, day care centres or kindergarten usually make more number of social contacts with their peers and perhaps better adjustment than those who have no experience of pre-school. The reason is that those who have pre-school experience are better socially equipped by both the home and the pre- school for active social contacts than those who
depend only on family members for their social contacts or activities.
As the years progress, the time they spend with adults continue to decrease and they also derive less joy with such contacts. On the other hand, their interests in peer groups or playmates of their own age increase and they enjoy having them around. Because they have desire to be independent they try to put up some resistance toward the authority of the adult. Marshal (1958) in his study reveals that as children advance in years they become more friendly with one another and their tendency towards hostility decreases. Common forms of social behavioural patterns of this period include cooperation, rivalry, generosity, empathy, imitation, attachment, desire for social approval, etc.
However, the father is important during the pre-school years. This is because so far a great deal of the care has been undertaken by the mother. And in some countries, efforts are being made for men to be injected into pre-social programme by introducing male teachers and male helpers. The children at this period are known to require male figures for their satisfactory social requirements.
This is for balance within the home since the family consists of both male and female.
The presence of fathers helps girls to develop a positive self concept and it appears that the treatment girls get from their father at this period helps them to perceive how a man should treat a woman. In other words, this constitutes part of her
lesson on relationship between a girl and a boy, a man and a woman.
This period is crucial in concept formation and the totality of the concept formed is what we feel about ourselves and this culminates in everything we hear or see other people do. This helps in developing personality. If the concept so formed is not good, there is a gap and something goes wrong.
The father has a duty to help to nurture the girl in forming a good concept and in developing a healthy personality.
Middle Childhood
This covers the elementary school years.
Temperamentally, the individual childhood-child is carefree, very active and generally satisfied with his or her lot. If you watch him or her, he is light footed.
If he offends he willingly renders apologies. He is very happy, nothing bothers him, he feels satisfied.
Perhaps this is the happiest period of the average (childhood) child depending on his experiences which may be favourable or unfavourable. He plays many games, develops skills, generally interacts with peers and other children. This period is known as the ‘golden’ years of childhood.
Two major events occur at this period
1. entering school which occupies his attention for the next few years. This is a major event and the first major step in divorcing the child of the intimacy which he receives from his home.
2. the second major event of this period is that entering school, helps to take the child away from the family because peers become increasingly important. Peers begin to increase in importance, standard, taste and in everything practically. They become the necessary yardstick by which the child measures everything.
Entering into school gives the child a feeling of importance and maturity. He now enters the ‘gang age’, when social consciousness develops rapidly.
Childhood gang is local and spontaneous. There is no adult approval, but it is a substitute for adult society and what it has not offered them. It forms a shield and relief from adult supervision and their watchful eyes. Gangs are found in good and substandard environment. Gang members are selected because they can do things that others enjoy doing. Some gangs are large and some are relatively small. Gang members used secret names, signals, insignia – caps, shirts, hand bands. The six-year-old child gets excited when he knows he is going to a real school and getting into this role of adulthood, which he is longing for. He is poised for learning and very ready to learn and ready to acquire a large number of skills. In schools, skills are learnt such as reading, writing, calculating, etc. Social skills of relating to others such as peers, teachers, parents, older and younger children are also acquired. They learn all kinds of games, some of them have figure skills and some have physical skills.
This is a great age of skill learning. These skills they pick up with little or no efforts. This is because they have overgrown locomotive inhibition and are away from their parents’ watchful eyes. In terms of mental alertness they can learn fast. They have same age, same sex groups and they operate within these groups. During this time their self- concept continues to grow and they compare themselves. They begin to listen to each other. Some are gifted and they are proud of this. At this time, they are crude and straight forward and they call each other by nicknames.
Adult organised groups are formed for the benefit of childhood child. Such groups include Boys’ Scout movement, Red Cross, Boy’s Brigade as opposed to the groups which they themselves organise. Adults form these groups in order to help teach them certain values which are beneficial to them.
Summary
It seems that looking at children generally, it appears that there are some inborn differences between males and females. It has been observed that males are usually more aggressive on the average and the environmental influences do not offer satisfactory explanation to this aggressive tendency. It is not easy to determine whether it is the environment or any other factor that is responsible for this aggressive behaviour. Boys are also found to have better quantitative, visual and special abilities.
Girls on the other hand tend to have superior verbal
ability. Quite apart from these inborn differences between the sexes, the other means by which the sexes acquire sex role identity is by socialisation.
How does a girl acquire female sex role identity?
This function falls under the ambit of the mother.
Through informal approach, most of the time she teaches her daughter what her sex role should be in the home. She shows her what things she has to do, directs her on how to do them. The mother should be her role model in the acquisition of sex role identity. With time, the girl learns to differentiate a female’s role from that of the male. On the other hand, the father makes sure that the male child acquires male sex role identity.
It is not easy in this present day and age for a man to perform this crucial function. This is because the father is always in the office. (In the olden days, men would take pains to teach boys what they were supposed to do or what were supposed to be their sex role). In urban centres, sex role for boys is not clear cut because there seems to be no particular role especially meant for them.
Socialisation:
Socialisation is the process which enables the child to take his place in the human society.
Through the process, the individual learns the modes of behaviours which enables him to behave the way his society likes. He uses all his sense to imbibe the way that the society accepts. He learns to talk, comport himself and behave in a way that is acceptable to the society. He learns to eat the way the