In the previous chapter attention was directed exclusively to the influ-
ence of the family on the socialization process. This emphasis was due to
the centrality of the family in the first few years of the child's life, a
centrality that results from the relative isolation of the nuclear family unit.
It is an important feature of the socialization process in this society, how-
ever, that from this very restricted social setting the child moves out into
an increasingly diverse and complex social environment. Although infancy
in America is almost universally spent wholly within the nuclear family,
children vary in the extent of their extrafamilial experiences between
infancy and the time they go to school.

A number of factors influence the extent and quality of such pre-school
experiences. The proximity of grandparents and other kin will affect the
child's exposure to other adults besides his parents and to other significant
age-mates besides his siblings. The kind of neighborhood the family lives
in will be significant. The crowded tenement provides different oppor-
tunities than the sparsely populated suburb, and within either the age dis-

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