Socialization

Meaning and definition of socialization

Socialization is a process through which the individual internalizes the social values under the influence of social and cultural influences and develops his personality. Socialization helps him/her achieve the aims of social responsibility and individual independence. The role of socialization is very important in individual's life from two points of view. The individual's life develops through socialization. Socialization develops his personality and the process of mental interaction.It can also be defined as a process by which individuals acquire the knowledge, language, social skills, and value to conform to the norms and roles required for interaction into a group or community. It is a combination of both self-imposed and externally-imposed rules and the expectations of the others.Sociologists believe that social environment, social norms, values, beliefs, laws and so on transform into a social individual. The individual is influenced by the culture and his groups, the family, neighborhood, tribe village and city in the process of socialization.Though heredity plays an important part in determining the individual's physical contribution, his physical strength and so on, but so far as learning of behavior is concerned, the social dimension is more important.

The major process of acquiring culture is known as socialization.The socialization helps us to learn the language of culture.Norms are known to be the conception in which the appropriate and expected behavior that is held by most of the members of the society lies down. Socialization in general also refers to the process of acquiring culture.The anthropologists use this term enculturation for the process of the people being socialized with a particular type of culture.

Socialization is the most important topic to be discussed today in the process of the personality formation. We know that the much of human personality is considered to be the result of the genes, characteristics, and also socialization process can help us go in particular directions with the help of encouraging people’s specific beliefs as well as the attitudes by selectively providing experiences. As for an example, the people of the Semaitribesmen living in the central Malay Peninsula of Malaysia are known to be one of the gentle people who do not like to be violent, and who hate aggression of the individuals. And the fact is, they as much possible avoid them whenever possible.

What does socialization do?

1)Helps in becoming human through socialization:

Socialization is the process whereby people learn, through the interaction with others, that they must know in order to survive and function within their society. Through, this process people learn their roles and the roles of others in the society, and they also develop a self- image.

2) Helps in learning about the norms and social roles:

Various studies show that the human being including primates has an innate need, for interaction with the others of their kind. Thus, we can conclude that the children are dependent on adults for:

• Meeting basic physical needs, without which they cannot survive.
• Finding meaning of the need for the social interaction, without which their learning capacity is lost and normal behavior is impossible.

Types of socialization

Primary Socialization

It can be defined as the process in which the child becomes socialized through the family in the early childhood years .In case of the primary socialization the key agent is the family .Lets take an example: the young child in the family possess very little information about his culture and he/she is not aware about the values, practices and the social norms, they learns about the do’s and don’ts of the society via the family. According to Talcott Parsons two specific processes are conducted by the family when speaking of primary socialization and they are:

-Internalization of the society’s culture

-structuring of the personality

Secondary socialization

It is the process that start in the later years through agencies such as education and peer group. Primary and the secondary socialization occur at the different time period, in case of secondary socialization the involvement of the family will be less and other social agents or the agencies plays the dominant role. This can understood from the schools as school acts as the bridge between the family and the society and in school child learns to be equally  treated as other as they don’t get special attention as in the home .So through school child gets exposed to the actual society.

References

Bhandari, L. P. (2015). Fundamentals of Sociology. Kathmandu: Buddha.

Sumner,W.G Folkways. New York: Ginn, 1906

Tishler, Henry L. 3013. Introduction to Sociology, 11^th Ed. Cengage Advantage Books

Openstax College, Introduction to Sociology. Open Stax College. 21 June 2012