Social Constructionism – Introduction to Women

Running head: MIDTERM EXAM 1
Midterm Exam
Name
Institution

SOC 322: Midterm Exam
1. The social construction of childhood is the notion that childhood remains constructed
or seen differently by diverse societies. This concept of childhood is intensely intertwined with
other elements in society. Example of this social constructs are children as evil, kids as innocent
and kids as good. Most sociologists indeed see childhood as something defined and created by
society. They claim that what individuals mean by childhood as well as the status of kids in
society is not static but differs between different places, times and cultures.
2 Socialization often occurs when a kid learns the values, actions and attitudes
appropriate to people as a members of a specific group within the society. Culture refers to the
collection of assumptions, values and beliefs that individuals from a particular cultural
background share. On the other hand socialization refers to the process of transmitting these
assumptions, values and beliefs from one generation of individuals to the next. This shows that
socialization strongly influence the beliefs, actions and behavior of children. It is true that
biological factors for example hormone levels, genetic influences, and brain chemistry affects the
behavior of an individual. Therefore, all these indicate that childhood socialization remains based
both culturally and biologically.
5. Custodial grandparents indeed remain represented in all races. Nevertheless,
grandparents in racial as well as ethnic minority groups remain many in the population of
caregivers. There are many factors that may cause the grandparents to look after their
grandchildren. Factors such as child and neglect, military deployment, unstable home life,
addiction as well as incarceration rate, as well as economic factors have led to an increase in the
number of custodial grandparents. The increase rate of incarceration for both men and women
has indeed left most of the children in the United States in the hands of their grandparents as
their main caregivers.
2