Definition and Meaning of Socialization
Learning the way of life, attitudes, and values of a social
group, community, or culture. Socialization is essential for the development of
individuals who can participate and function within their societies, as well as
for ensuring that a society's cultural features will be carried on through new
generations. Socialization is most strongly enforced by family, school, and
peer groups and continues throughout an individual's lifetime.
Socialization is a processes with the help of which a living
organism is changed into a social being. It is a process through which the
younger generation learns the adult role which it has to play subsequently. It
is a continuous process in the life of an individual and it continues from
generation to generation.
The newborn is merely an organism. Socialization makes him
responsive to the society. He is socially active. He becomes a ‘Purush’ and the
culture that his group inculcates in him, humanizes him, and makes him
‘Manusha’. The process indeed, is endless. The cultural pattern of his group,
in the process gets incorporated in the personality of a child. It prepares him
to fit in the group and to perform the social roles. It sets the infant on the
line of social order and enables an adult to fit into the new group. It enables
man to adjust himself to the new social order.
Socialization stands for the development of the human brain,
body, attitude, behavior and so forth. Socialization is known as the process of
inducting the individual into the social world. The term socialization refers
to the process of interaction through which the growing individual learns the habits,
attitudes, values and beliefs of the social group into which he has been born.
From
the point of view of society, socialization is the way through which society
transmits its culture from generation to generation and maintains itself. From
the point of view of the individual, socialization is the process by which the
individual learns social behavior, develops his ‘self.
The
process operates at two levels, one within the infant which is called the
internalization of objects around and the other from the outside. Socialization
may be viewed as the internalization of social norms. Social rules become
internal to the individual, in the sense that they are self-imposed rather than
imposed by means of external regulation and are thus part of individual’s own
personality.The individual therefore feels an urge to conform.
Secondly,
it may be viewed as essential element of social interaction. In this case,
individuals become socialized as they act in accordance with the expectations
of others. The underlying process of socialization is bound up with social
interaction.
Socialization
is a comprehensive process. According to Horton and Hunt, Socialization is the
process whereby one internalizes the norms of his groups, so that a distinct
‘self emerges, unique to this individual.
Socialization is a continuous and life long process till to
the end of life. An individual learns language, culture, values, norms, attitudes and behaviors which
molds his/her personality and becomes a social-being. This is the only process
which a person develops his/her personality and self when an individual
interacts with other members of his/her family and community or groups.
Individual learns more about culture and they transmit these norms to the next
generation. Family is important to the socialization process because their
parents affect a child personality a lot. Parents are the source of social indemnity
of their children.
Below
are the some important definitions of socialization by well known sociological
philosophers:
a) The
life long process by which as individual becomes the proper member of society
and develops human characteristics (DMacionis).
b) It is a learning process in
which groups interact and learn social norms also develop his/her self (Horton
and Hunt).
c) It is the process of
learning the norms of the group and society (Ogburn)
d) It
is the process through which social beings develops relationships and
association with each other (Maciver)
e) A
process of learning to live and work together is called socialization (Bogardus).
Agents of Socialization
Socialization can occur
outside of these agents but society relies on these agents doing most of the
socialization. There's nothing "official" about these agents, at
least not in our society. Totalitarian societies attempt to establish official
agents of socialization but in a democratic society no government agency
licenses or certifies them.
Our society relies on four
major agents of socialization:
a) Family
b) Media
c) Peers
d) School
A) FAMILY
The family is the earliest
and without question the most influential agent of socialization. It grabs the
child at birth, when the child is most helpless and dependent, and does not let
go for a whole lifetime. Socialization via the family goes from cradle to
grave.
Foundation
for all civilized behavior: ƒ
Language abilities (example,
learning to talk) ƒ
Body control for (example,
toilet training)
Emotional control (example
do not hit your sister) ƒ
Rules of public conduct (example,
do not throw food) ƒ
Moral values (example, lying
is a sin)
Access to the emotional
bond between parent and child, an extremely strong and effective socializing
mechanism. Lifetime impacts affecting the person's self-esteem, emotional
health, identity, and personality.
•Origin point of gender
roles (masculine and feminine behavior; fundamental division of the social
world into men and women).
•Origin point of
ethnocentricism and racism (racial and ethnic prejudice).
•Source of original social
capital that determines life chances. ƒ
Social capital - resources
useful for gaining advantages in life; includes such things as family and
friendship networks, community schools, family's social class background, technology
available in home or school, etc. ƒ
Life chances - probability
of achieving the "good things" in life, such as, health, wealth,
happiness, security, power, etc.
The amazing power of the
family as an agent of socialization comes from a combination of two factors:
1. The family has almost
exclusive control of the person during the first years of life and preeminent
control during the childhood and adolescent years.
Preeminent control - Cultural
norms and the law recognize the parent's right to determine what is best for
their children as trumping the rights of almost any institution 2. Parent-child
emotional bond motivates the child to be socialized and the parents to do the
difficult, messy job of socialization.
Being socialized is
difficult and painful. What's better than the uninhibited, self-centered, and
dependent life of the child?
Think about toilet training
(although not for too long). Urinating and bowel movements whenever and
wherever is certainly easier than learning to hold it until reaching a
bathroom.
Think about anger and
aggression. Isn't it better to lash out and hit someone immediately if make you
angry rather than learning to hold your anger, talk, be nice, compromise, etc.?
Why would children put up
with being socialized?
As if they had a choice!
The child's dependent situation and emotional attachment to parents motivates
the child to be socialized.
• Without adults, human
children are very vulnerable, largely helpless. They could not survive without
adults so the loss of parental support is very scary, perhaps life threatening.
Such anxiety is very motivating.
• Built into the human
animal is a basic love bond between parent and child. Children want to please
their parents. They want their parents love, support, and affection. Anything
that seems to threaten that emotional bond is very scary. Such anxiety is very
motivating.
Socialization uses that
dependency and emotional bond to motivate children to put up with the difficult
demands of socialization and open themselves up to the lessons being taught by
their parents.
For parents socialization
is no picnic. You could not pay people enough to do the job. It's messy,
difficult, demanding, and often frustrating.
It's a 24 hour / 7 days a
week / 365 weeks a year job, with no vacations, lousy pay, hours, and work
conditions, and no benefits. Why would anybody do it?
Because they love their
children. Socialization uses that love bond to motivate adults to take on and
persist in the difficult job of socializing children. The power of the family
is strongest during infancy and toddler years. After that the media, then
peers, and finally school challenges its exclusive access to the child. By
later childhood the family's power as a socialization agent has weakened
considerably.
In the adolescent years
that power is further weakened by peer group influences and the predominance of
the media in teenage subculture. Overall there has been an historical trend of
the family's power as an agent of socialization being steadily eroded by the
media, peer subculture, and schooling. The family returns as a predominant
agent of socialization during the adult years with the roles of marital partner
and parent.
B) MASS MEDIA
Includes:
• Television
• Radio
• Movies
• Music
• Books, magazines, etc.
•Internet Somewhere around
the age of two or three, children in our society first encounter the media as
an agent of socialization in the form of TV. Socialization comes through from
children's shows, cartoons, and, most especially, commercials.
Socialization comes through
the characters, images, words, and narrative story lines. Some media
specifically acts to be an agent of socialization (e.g., children's programs
such as Sesame Street) but most only strive to be entertainment.
Today the media seriously challenges
the family. Children spend as much or more time in front of the TV as
interacting with parents. Messages and values carried by the media are powerful
and seductive. Many of those messages and values challenge or directly
contradict what parent's teach their children.
Media influence continues
and strengthens in adolescence based on a merger of teen subculture, pop
culture (music & movies), and corporate marketing. Sports, increasingly a
branch of marketing, become especially influential for teenage boys. The
internet (web pages, e-mail, chat rooms) have emerged as another media source
important to teens, again especially boys.
The power of the media declines in adult years but still remains strong. Pop culture continues strong but loses its subculture support. Sports and the internet continue as agents of socialization, especially for males. News (both TV and print) emerge as new agent of socialization in the adult years.
C) PEER GROUPS
Peers are people of roughly
the same age (same stage of development and maturity), similar social identity,
and close social proximity. They're friends, buddies, pals, troops, etc.
Typically, children encounter peer group influence around age three or so.
Usually these are neighbors, family members, or day care mates. With peers, the
child begins to broaden his or her circle of influence to people outside of the
immediate family. Often peer interaction in the earliest years is closely
supervised by parents so it tends to parallel and reinforce what is learned in the
family.
What is added to
socialization, even in these closely supervised situations, are social skills
in group situation with social equals? Before this time children basically
dealt with people in a superior position. As childhood progresses, peer group
interactions become more autonomous (less observed and supervised by adults).
The lessons learned also
progress from basic rules of group interaction to more complex strategies of
negotiation, dominance, leadership, cooperation, compromise, etc. These lessons
are learned first in play and later through games. Peers also establish the
platform for children to begin challenging the dominant power of parents and
family.
In adolescence, peer group
relationships become extremely important, rising up to directly challenge the
family. In direct alliance with the media, teenage peers form their own
subculture. They learn how to navigate the complexities and nuances of group
interaction largely without adult guidance or supervision.
Peer group socialization
also becomes linked to puberty and the all important role of sexuality and
sexual relations in life. Peer groups are where teens largely learn about sex
and being sexual and practice the skills of sexuality. Paralleling this, the gender
role socialization begun in the family is extended, deepened, and reinforced.
In the adult years the demands of work and family overwhelm most peer group
relations and the influence of peers seriously declines as an agent of
socialization, only to return during the elderly years.
D) SCHOOL
Traditionally around seven
years old the child enters the school system in the first grade. Today the
process often starts earlier in Kindergarten or day care.
Socialization
takes three forms in school:
Official curriculum
What the school system and
its teachers announce as their content and goal.
It includes the knowledge
& skills learned in English, math, history, etc. The school is the official
place where our society transmits it accumulated knowledge and skills from one
generation to next. It's also the place where we officially pass on our
cultural values, tradition, and heritage, at least the "official"
heritage. This curriculum often reinforces but what was learned in the family
but it can also challenge family socialization (example, teaching values of
tolerance to a child from a racist family)
Social curriculum
This is learning social
behavior appropriate for peer groups that are not friendship groups, which then
become the model for secondary group interactions. Many of the skills learned
in peer groups are transferable but now the child learns to communicate, negotiate,
dominate, etc. with peers outside of their immediate social circle, often from
diverse social backgrounds.
In many ways this social
curriculum reinforces and deepens gender role socialization started in the
family and continued in the peer group. By middle school and high school, teens
have largely learned the social curriculum. It is replaced more and more by
peer social interaction in the hallways, in the parking lot, under the
bleachers, etc. and broadens away from general group interaction to interaction
in sexualized situations. In additionally, adolescence is introduced to the
social curriculum through organized sports.
Hidden curriculum
This is learning the rules
of behavior need to function in formally organized groups. It includes such
behavior maxims as:
• Don't talk when the
teacher is talking
• Get your assignments in
on time
• Not all teachers have the
same rules for their class
• When a teacher tells
another student to stop talking, it is not a good idea to start talking to your
neighbor since the teacher has already expressed disapproval of that action.
It
includes positive reinforcement for such values as:
• Precision
• Self-reliance
• Competitiveness
• Obedience
As preparation for the
adult world of formal organization and workplace authority, the hidden
curriculum stresses such things as formalization and standardization, following
instructions, obedience to authority figures that are not Mom and Dad, learning
to control behavior and fit into the group, pleasing (even manipulating)
authority figures, and working in teams.
OTHER AGENTS OF SOCIALIZATION
· Religion
· Work
Place
· The
State
· Military
Types of Socialization
Socialization is the learning process wherein we
develop our personality through adapting another person`s culture.
Human
infants are born without any culture yet. When a baby is born, socialization
takes place in order for him to have a culture based on what his parents and
his environment would teach him. So what exactly is socialization?
Socialization
is the process of knowing another person`s culture and learning how to live
within it. When we talk about culture, we are referring to the totality of moral
norms, values, language, attitudes and other aspects comprising a society. All
of us have roles to accomplish within our society, and socialization helps us
to harbor knowledge and skills to satisfy these societal role
Socialization
is an important part of the process of personality formation in every
individual. It is true that genetics is the reason behind the structure of
human personality, but socialization is the one that causes this personality to
be molded to specific directions through the process of accepting or rejecting
beliefs, attitudes and societal norms. Because of the dynamics in
socialization, we tend to have different personalities although we are living
in the same society. For example, the Yanomamo Indians living on the border
area between Brazil and Venezuela tend to train the younger generation of boys
to become aggressive and strong. On the other hand, the Semai tribe living on
the central Malay Peninsula in Malaysia does not like violence and hostility.
This is why the younger generation of boys is trained to become gentle and
peace-loving.
Generally, there are five (5) Types of Socialization:
1.
Primary Socialization
2. Secondary
Socialization
3.
Developmental Socialization
4.
Anticipatory Socialization
5.
Re-socialization Socialization
1. Primary Socialization:
This type of socialization happens when a child learns the values, norms and
behaviors that should be displayed in order to live accordingly to a specific
culture. Example: A child hears his father talk bad words against an old lady.
The child would think that this behavior is socially acceptable, so he would
start talking bad words against older people.
2. Secondary Socialization:
This type of socialization occurs when a person learns an appropriate behavior
to be displayed within a smaller group which is still part of a larger society.
The changes within the values, attitudes and beliefs of an individual are seen
to be less important than the changes made in him as he participates in the
larger society. Example: A high school graduate chooses a career in Business
Management after participating in a small group career seminar led by college
business majors.
3. Developmental Socialization: This
type of socialization involves a learning process wherein the focus in on
developing our social skills. Example: A shy senior high school student starts
to teach English to new freshmen students in order to develop verbal
communication.
4. Anticipatory socialization:
This type of socialization refers to the process wherein a person practices or
rehearses for future social relationships. Example: A child anticipates
parenthood as he observes his parents perform their daily roles.
5. Re-socialization: This
type of socialization involves rejecting previous behavior patterns and
accepting new ones so the individual can shift from one part of his life to
another. Re-socialization is said to be happening throughout human life cycle.
Characteristics of Socialization
Socialization
not only helps in the maintenance and preservation of social values and norms
but it is the process through which values and norms are transmitted from one
generation to another generation.
Below
are some basic features of socialization
1.
Inculcates basic discipline
2.
Helps to control human behavior
3. Socialization is rapid if there is more humanity among the- agencies of
socialization
4. Socialization
takes place formally and informally
5.
Socialization is continuous process
1. Inculcates basic discipline: Socialization
inculcates basic discipline. A person learns to control his impulses. He may
show a disciplined behavior to gain social approval.
2. Helps to control human behavior: It
helps to control human behavior. An individual from birth to death undergoes
training and his, behavior is controlled by numerous ways. In order to maintain
the social order, there are definite procedures or mechanism in society. These
procedures become part of the man’s/life and man gets adjusted to the society.
Through socialization, society intends to control the behavior of its-members
unconsciously.
3. Socialization is rapid if there is
more humanity among the- agencies of socialization: Socialization
takes place rapidly if the agencies’ of socialization are more unanimous in
their ideas and skills. When there is conflict between the ideas, examples and
skills transmitted in home and those transmitted by school or peer, socialization
of the individual tends to be slower and ineffective.
4. Socialization takes place formally and
informally: Formal socialization takes through direct
instruction and education in schools and colleges. Family is, however, the
primary and the most influential source of education. Children learn their
language, customs, norms and values in the family.
5. Socialization is continuous
process: Socialization is a life-long process. It does not cease when a child
becomes an adult. As socialization does not cease when a child becomes an
adult, internalization of culture continues from generation to generation.
Society perpetuates itself through the internalization of culture. Its members
transmit culture to the next generation and society continues to exist.
Importance of Socialization
The
process of socialization is important from the point of view of society as well
as from the point of view of individual. Every society is faced with the
necessity of making a responsible member out of each child born into it. The
child must learn the expectations of the society so that his behavior can be
relied upon.
He
must acquire the group norms in order to take the behavior of others into
account. Socialization means transmission of culture, the process by which men
learn the rules and practices of social groups to which belongs. It is through
it that a society maintains its social system, transmits its culture from
generation to generation.
From
the point of view of the individual, socialization is the process by which the
individual learns social behavior, develops his self. Socialization plays a
unique role in personality development of the individual.
It
is the process by which the new born individual, as he grows up, acquires the
values of the group and is molded into a social being. Without this no
individual could become a person, for if the values, sentiments and ideas of
culture are not joined to the capacities and needs of the human organism there
could be no human mentality, no human personality.
The
child has no self. The self emerges through the process of socialization. The
self, the core of personality, develops out of the child’s interaction with
others.
In
the socialization process the individual learns the culture as well as skills,
ranging from language to manual dexterity which will enable him to become a
participating member of human society.
Socialization
inculcates basic disciplines, ranging from toilet habits to method of science.
In his early years, individual is also socialized with regard to sexual behavior.
Society
is also concerned with imparting the basic goals, aspirations and values to
which the child is expected to direct his behavior for the rest of his life. He
learns-the levels to which he is expected to aspire.
Socialization
teaches skills. Only by acquiring needed skills individual fit into a society.
In simple societies, traditional practices are handed down from generation to
generation and are usually learned by imitation and practice in the course of
everyday life. Socialization is indeed an intricate process in a complex
society characterized by increasing specialization and division of work. In
these societies, inculcating the abstract skills of literacy through formal
education is a central task of socialization.
Another
element in socialization is the acquisition of the appropriate social roles
that the individual is expected to play. He knows role expectations, that is
what behavior and values are a part of the role he will perform. He must desire
to practice such behavior and pursue such ends.
Role
performance is very important in the process of socialization. As males,
females, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, parents, children, student’s
teachers and so on, accepted social roles must be learned if the individual is
to play a functional and predictable part in social interaction.
In
this way man becomes a person through the social influences which he shares
with others and through his own ability to respond and weave his responses into
a unified body of habits, attitudes and traits. But man is not the product of socialization
alone. He is also, in part, a product of heredity. He generally possesses the
inherited potential that can make him a person under conditions of maturation
and conditioning.
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