Resocialization
Sometimes people find themselves in situations where they are forced to learn entirely new socialization patterns. They might choose to get married, have a child, or join a group like the military. Sometimes this change is forced, like when a person goes to prison. In any of these cases, they have to learn a new set of norms and behavior patterns. This is called resocialization.
Resocialization is the process by which existing social roles are radically altered or replaced.
Some resocialization involves a total institution and the intense socialization that come with them. Boarding schools, orphanages, military branches, juvenile detention, and prisons are examples of total institutions. A core difference among these total institutions is the fact that some are voluntary while others are mandated.
A total institution is an institution that controls almost all aspects of its members' lives and all aspects of the individual life is controlled by those in authority in the institution.
Erving Goffman was a well-published Canadian Sociologist who lived from 1922-1982. Among his many studies of society was a monograph entitled, "Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and other Inmates" (1961' NY Doubleday).
Goffman defines total institutions as places where "like-situated individuals are cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life…" (page xiii).
He also suggested that total institutions have a method of depriving individuals of their former life. "The recruit comes into the establishment with a conception of himself made possible by certain stable social arrangements in his home world. Upon entrance, he is immediately stripped of the support provided by these arrangements. In the accurate language of some of our oldest total institutions, he begins a series of abasements, degradations, humiliations and profanations of self. His self systematically, if often unintentionally, mortified…"(Page 14).
In other words, in many total institutions, the person being resocialized is stripped of his or her former identity by being forced to wear uniforms and follow strict routines. They are often limited in their contact with their former world. These processes "break" the person of their individuality and make them more likely to conform to the new norms.
