Early sociologists paid little attention to this aspect of a new recruit’s orientation—the entire educational process, the process of learning. Focusing on the environment and hereditary aspects, scholars engaged in a fruitless debate regarding nature versus nurture— nature signifying the physical, that is, the geographical environment, and nurture hinting at social and cultural transmission.
The environmentalists gave a one-sided emphasis to the role that physical environment plays in shaping people, the society and culture; the biologists—particularly the promoters of eugenics (powered by the racist ideology)—tried to explain differences between societies in terms of biologically inherited traits, and propounded the theory of racial superiority. They did not dwell on the processes through which a child became a full member of society and the follower of a way of life called culture.
Before we discuss the processes of socialization and enculturation, it will be useful to briefly summarize the debate on environment and society, using mainly the discourse presented in MacIver and Page. The authors’ concern is expressed in the Foreword to this section: ‘Since every social group, whether racially or nationally or “culturally” defined, distinguished as class or as community, we face the question whether these differences are determined mainly by heredity or by the conditions of life.’ Attachment to soil is found to be greatest amongst plants; animals’ attachment to the soil is not that great, but their dependence on the environment cannot be denied. The same is true of humans, although they exhibit greater adaptability to varying environments. But environment understood in a broader sense also includes our habits, our ways of living. Since these differ from group to group, we can say that groups live in different environs. In this sense, environment has two components: physical and social. In order to survive, humans are involved in three kinds of adaptation—physical adaptation, biological adaptation and social adaptation.
Purely physical adaptation occurs whether we will it or not: it is independent of our strivings and our aims … whatever the conditions are, whether wilderness or city, poverty or prosperity, whether in the eyes of men they are favourable or unfavourable, good or evil, this unconditional physical adaptation remains with all its compulsion (MacIver and Page, 1955: 77).
Biological adaptation means ‘that a particular form of life is fitted to survive or to prosper under the conditions of the environment. We say that fish are adapted to a marine environment or tigers to the conditions of life in the jungle’ (ibid.). If there are no physical conditions for the adequate functioning of the organism, there occurs maladaptation. Social adaptation, ‘however, involves some standard of value….. Various sociologists speak of the process of adjustment or of accommodation……, The peculiar thing about Man is that ‘he selects and modifies his environment in such a way that the inevitable adaptation shall admit the greater fulfilment of his wants’.
Heredity and Man-Made Environment
MacIver and Page made an important distinction between nature-made environment and man-made environment. Furthermore, they divided the man-made environment into the ‘outer’ and ‘inner’ environment of a social Man. What they called the outer environment is more commonly referred to in anthropological literature as ‘material culture’ likewise, the inner environment is the ‘non-material’ culture. To quote the authors: ‘The inner is society itself and endures only so long as the society endures. It consists of the organizations and regulations, the traditions and institutions, the repressions and liberations of social life, of what we collectively name the social heritage (1955: 78).
It is in this framework that they examined some of the evidence presented in social science literature on heredity and environment. Implicit in their argument was that human beings are influenced both by their natural and social environment; that is why, despite belonging to the same species, Homo Sapiens live in varied socio-cultural environments. However, they do not deny the role of heredity, which serves as a limiting factor in the same manner as the natural environment. They refute the deterministic theories of both the eugenicists and the environmentalists.
Inspired by the theories of Charles Darwin, the issue of racial superiority was raised by Francis Galton in his Hereditary Genius, published in 1869. That was the period of colonization, and this theory came in handy to the colonizers seeking to justify their rule. ‘Survival of the Fittest’ and ‘Struggle for Existence’ were the key phrases the colonizers borrowed from Darwin and used to assert their supremacy over the heathens. Interestingly enough, Karl Pearson—a mathematician—used the data on race and intelligence and developed his formula for the correlation coefficient to establish a correlation between two variables.3 He came to the conclusion that ‘the influence of the environment is far less than that of heredity in the determination of important human differences’ (MacIver: 81). Following Pearson, several studies were carried out to support this line of reasoning. One of them compared the intelligence scores of Negroes and Whites. There have also been studies of physical traits. For example, the Japanese were compared with Americans with regard to their stature, and the obvious conclusion was reached that the Japanese were shorter compared to the Americans. However, these studies did not examine whether a change in food habits or lifestyle or physical location can result in an increase in stature—as is now found. Similarly, there have been studies of occupational groups. In one study, the authors found that ‘inequality of earnings between the several occupational classes has its origins in a fundamental inequality of native endowments, rather than in an inequality of opportunities’. Again, the conclusions were along expected lines. But MacIver and Page raise the same question: ‘what do they tell us of the respective amounts of influence of heredity and environment in determining these class differences?’
Some of the researchers conducted controlled experiments. For this purpose, they ‘paid attention to those cases in which biological inheritance might be regarded as practically identical’. They decided to conduct research on twins. Twins are of two types: dizygotic (fraternal) and monozygotic (identical). The latter type is supposed to have more or less similar biological features as they developed from the same ovum. They are ‘more alike than fraternal twins’. The results of such studies have shown that there exist close similarities,
[B]ut so have significant differences. Among these studies should be mentioned the detailed reports of the famous identical quintuplets, the Dionnes, who in spite of their ‘single-egg’ common heredity (and similar but in no sense identical environment) have quite noticeable variations in physical and mental traits and especially personality and temperament (ibid.: 91).
Then there are studies of identical twins reared apart. A major study was carried out where 19 pairs of identical twins were reared in different environments (separate homes) and 50 pairs of identical twins and 52 pairs of fraternal twins were reared together. While the authors ‘found considerable differences of many types between identical twins reared apart, they concluded that physical traits are least affected by the environment, that achievement and various skills are somewhat more sensitive to environmental influence, and that personality characteristics are most affected’.
Studies were also undertaken of children of different parentages reared together. These studies took environment as the constant and examined the role of heredity. Again, the results hinted at the complex relationship between heredity and environment.
In addition to these studies, we may also mention the stories of feral children—children abandoned in the wilderness and reared by other animals. The famous case of Ramu from Lucknow, reported in the January 1961 issue of The Illustrated Weekly of India, is mentioned in Box 12.1. The child survived, but developed the same habits of eating as the wolves that looked after him. The absence of a social or cultural environment did not allow the feral child to become a human; he remained an animal. His biological capital helped him learn from the environment in which he was placed, but he remained socially incapacitated.
References are also found in social science literature of studies of isolated children. In 1938, a 5 year-old girl named Anna was found in rural Pennsylvania, ‘wedged into an old chair with her arms tied above her head’. This child of a mentally impaired woman was unwelcome and sent to different agencies but was brought back and kept hidden in a store room, away from the sight of her enraged grandfather. Sociologist Kingsley Davis went to see her after she was rescued and found that the child was totally withdrawn, unable to talk, smile, or make any gestures. With Davis’ help, she was given good care and within 10 days, showed remarkable improvement. After about 18 months, at around seven years of age, she learnt to walk, eat and play with toys. She could use words when she was 10, the age when she passed away.
Around the same time, another girl named Isabelle was found in the same condition as Anna. Through a special learning programme, Isabelle learned as many as 2,000 words within 18 months, at the age of eight. She gradually became normal and attended school.
Leave a Reply