Most of us consider family to be the basic unit of the society; every person is related to a family right from birth up to the time they die and family helps a person in times of sorrow and joy. More importantly, the family plays a crucial role in the development of a person’s behavior, norms, values and social identity. However, as most of us have lived in some kind of family, we may think that we are experts of the topic, but that is not always true. We cannot fully understand the experience we gain from family institution without appreciating and understanding the environment in which it takes place. As many of us hope to create a family one day, either through marriage, have some children, most interestingly, some families are content and happy while others are wrought with conflict. In my case, I have chosen to write how family has influenced my behavior because of it has helped me to gain some social control. Without social control, I would consider my social patterns to fall apart. Certainly, the most effective way explaining the amount of social control that I have gained from my family is conscience. My family has taught me not to steal because I have been taught and believed that steal is a deviant behavior. I can say that there is some level of conformity to the rules which my family has set such as our sense of self-respect demands; it has always been our internal social control in our family. As a result, I am grateful for the family that I have because it has taught me to be responsible in my actions by being independent instead of being tempted to steal anything from other people. In this essay, I believe that the family institution will be a useful analysis of my identity formation because it has enabled me to have self-esteem, a sense of belonging, interpersonal competence, peaceful conflict resolution and a positive view of my personal future.

My Identity and Family Institution

Different sources and different individuals have come up with various ways of defining a family. In a general definition, family refers to one or more people living in the same household and who are related to each other through birth, marriage, or adoption. Family as a social institution has been defined as a medium that assists in establishing the collective image of behavior. The family is the basic institution of the society that establishes the sexual relations between men and women (Barratt, 2011). Taking to an extreme, the idea of family institution can take different forms and can include whomever individuals choose to be the family such as a neighbor, a teammate or a dog. Nevertheless, family institution serves certain social functions such as reproduction which ensures the survival or all human beings and the society, and the socialization process of the children. Many social scientists have agreed that there are two types of family: nuclear family and the extended family. Nuclear family has been considered to the one consisting of married couples with or without children or at least a parent with his or her children. Extended family comprises grandparents, aunties, uncles, and cousins (Barratt, 2011).

The question, “Who am I?” has been very important to me especially during adolescent. Adolescent is a time when physical, cognitive and social changes take place and often, my parents had been bewildered by the rapid changes that took place in me which, were reflected in my musical tastes, friends, romantic partners and moral conduct. I believe when I was a teenager, I derived my sense of identity from my family. My parents had always been concerned in the way I we related with one another; how I communicated, expressed myself freely and, they would receive feedback and support me, helping me to build my self esteem. I often received weekly letters and a phone call from home so that they could make me understand that there was a reason to trust them with my feelings and establish connectedness. In addition, my cousin family could invite me to their house to eat first mango of the season together and we could discuss challenges that I faced when interacting with my friends such as engaging in conflicts. As a result, they helped me in knowing how to resolve conflicts in a peaceful manner.

However, I can attest that there are some benefits and drawbacks that have been associated with my relationship with my family. First, my family has had a positive impact on my status. Status has been defined as the rank an individual holds in a group, within the society based on esteem and prestige acquired through economic success or accumulation of wealth (Barratt, 2011). Despite my family belongs to the middle-income class, my parents have always emphasized that I learn how to “fit in” with other friends and adults regardless of our social status. In acculturation process, my parents have encouraged me to choose my identity based on social class; as a result, this has increased my status for being able to blend with rich and low-income neighbors. Being bicultural in terms social status has made me happy by being able to conform to the pressures resulting from social classes both at home and away. However, some of the drawbacks that I can say the family has influenced on my identity concern their higher academic expectations are the conflicts between academic success and social popularity. Sometimes family can be more permissive, making me to feel anxious and experience social pressure when learning.

The family has also influenced my roles in both a positive and negative way. Roles have been defined as functions assumed by a person in a particular situation. Normally, children learn values and norms from their close relationships with their parents. Respect is a value that my family has instilled in my identity; moreover, they have helped me to develop a healthy sexual identity as a result of their positive guidance. However, sometimes the nurturing process can cause pressure especially when I am interaction with my friends in search of my own identity. Depending on my family conflict behavior, that is, their emotional reactions, sometimes it can have a negative impact on my emotional security. Lastly, a reference group has been defined as a group to which we compare ourselves such as peer groups (Barratt, 2011). Peer groups that I join have always been a concern to my family and they have encouraged that I form peer groups with a sense of responsibility as my reference groups. I have found this to be very important to my identity; they have helped me to set high aspirations, develop good moral conduct and served as a standard of evaluating myself. However, the family can set high expectation of the reference group that they recommend for their children. Sometime, my family may have higher expectations in academic performance and may dictate that I chose and this has resulted in dilemma between my membership group and the group they want me to identify with as the reference group.

Societal Forces

Gender can be conceptualized as a social force from the view of how people attempt to signify a masculine or feminine self and also, a person’s attempt to categorize others in relation to their presentation of masculine and feminine self-hood. For example, the male-patriarchal societies tend to express male dominance and gendered roles against the female genders. In sociology, agency refers to the capacity of the individuals to act. In regard to gender as a social force, individual agency refers to how people define themselves based on their accomplishments and how they separate themselves from others. For instance, men have a tendency to agency whereby they distinguish their success based on what they do in workforce, as opposed to women who have been defined by what they do at home (Callero, 2013).

Race and ethnicity is a socially constructed myth that has been used to classify people according to power, class, minority and dominant groups, segregation and discrimination. For example, ethnic and racial minority group is not necessarily about the group with the least number of individuals, but those who are stripped of their powers within a stratified social order. Early accounts have shown that African-American people was considered being inferior to the White, which subjected them to discrimination such as their differences in educational opportunities (Callero, 2013). In my view, there have been various stereotypes about race and ethnicity. There are those who believe that Hispanics and African-Americans are lower achieving group and therefore, low testing benchmarks should be set in the educational policy in a plain, simple way. I disagree with that.

Social class can also be a form of social force by the disposition of power based on wealth, status and lifestyle. Those who are wealthy are considered to have a command of considerable power and those without wealth have low status. More often, people will try to move up the social ladder but there are some opportunities that are a pathway for the class mobility such as education. For instance, students with good education grades have a high class mobility compared with those who have poor grade since they can get good jobs that are well paying (Garner, 2010).

Gender, race and ethnicity and social class have had an impact on my identity from the perspective of my family setting. I come from a liberal family that advocates equality in most social situations; how I interact with people from different ethnic groups, how I relate with male and female gender and how I compare myself with others who are from different socio-economic statuses. My family abhors discrimination at all cost and this has helped me to express respect to other people regardless gender, race and ethnicity, and social class.

Conclusion

Family institution has changed my perspective on the way I view people based on gender, ethnicity, race or social class. Studying analyzing family institution, it has helped me to know myself better and treat others fairly. Family institution has played a great role in shaping my identity. Collectively, family institution has instilled a bicultural identity where I consider being able to “fit in” every social environment to be the key towards extending social networks. Regardless of the stereotypes that have been fabricated about gender, ethnicity, race and social class, I think the principle virtue that I have learned from my family is to show respect to all people.

References

Barratt, W. (2011).Social class on campus: Theories and manifestations. New York, NY: Stylus

Publishing

Callero, P. (2013). The myth of individualism: How social forces shape our lives. Forbes

Boulevard: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Garner, R. (2010). Social theory: Power and identity in the global era. New York, NY:

University of Toronto Press

CLICK BUTTON TO ORDER NOW