Role of different Agency in my Socialization

Socialization is a term used to refer to the lifelong process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs and ideologies, providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within his or her own society. Socialization is thus ‘the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained.’Socialization helps me learn to function successfully in my social worlds. How does the process of socialization occur? How do we learn to use the objects of our society’s material culture? How do we come to adopt the beliefs, values, and norms that represent its nonmaterial culture? This learning takes place through interaction with various agents of socialization, like peer groups and families, plus both formal and informal social institutions.
In each stage of my life there are influences or agents of socialization who have an impact on my socialization and the messages of socialization being received. As I develop and advance in psychosocial development, the agents become stronger or weaker in their capacity for influence. Early in my development, the family is, of course, the strongest agent, but I advances to preschool age, programs or schools begin to exert influence. At school age, peers are active socialization agents. For the first eight years, family, school, community, and peers play a role in the following aspects of a child’s socialization: The development of trust
The development of independence

The tendency to take initiative
The sense of competence and ambition
Decisions about who one is
Relationships with others
Decisions about future generations
Reflections on one’s life
Social groups often provide the first experiences of socialization. Families, and later peer groups, communicate expectations and reinforce norms. People first learn to use the tangible objects of material culture in these settings, as well as being introduced to the beliefs and values of society.
Family: The family is the most important primary group in the society. It is the simplest but most elementary form of the society. The meaning of the family can be explained better by the following definitions. M.F. Nimkoff says that “Family is a more or less durable association of husband and wife with or without child, or of a man or women alone with children.” Burgess and Locke says that “Family is a group of persons united by ties of marriage, blood or adoption constituting a single household interacting and intercommunicating with each other in their respective social roles of husband and wife, father and mother, son and daughter”
Family is the first agent of socialization. Mothers and fathers, siblings and grandparents, plus members of an extended family, all teach me what I need to know. For example, they show me how to use objects (such as clothes, computers, eating utensils, books, bikes); how to relate to others (some as “family,” others as “friends,” still others as “strangers” or “teachers” or “neighbors”); and how the world works (what is “real” and what is “imagined”). As you are aware, either from your own experience as a child or your role in helping to raise one, socialization involves teaching and learning about an unending array of objects and ideas. It is important to keep in mind, however, that families do not socialize us in a vacuum.
Many social factors impact how a family raises its children. For example, we can use sociological imagination to recognize that individual behaviors are affected by the historical period in which they take place. Sixty years ago, it would not have been considered especially strict for a father to hit his son with a wooden spoon or a belt if he misbehaved, but today that same action might be considered child abuse. Sociologists recognize that race, social class, religion, and other societal factors play an important role in socialization. For example, poor families usually emphasize obedience and conformity when raising their children, while wealthy families emphasize judgment and creativity (National Opinion Research Center 2008).
This may be because working-class parents have less education and more repetitive-task jobs for which the ability to follow rules and to conform helps. Wealthy parents tend to have better educations and often work in managerial positions or in careers that require creative problem solving, so they teach their children behaviors that would be beneficial in these positions. This means that children are effectively socialized and raised to take the types of jobs that their parents already have, thus reproducing the class system (Kohn 1977). Likewise, children are socialized to abide by gender norms, perceptions of race, and class-related behaviors. In Sweden, for instance, stay-at-home fathers are an accepted part of the social landscape. A government policy provides subsidized time off work—480 days for families with newborns—with the option of the paid leave being shared between both mothers and fathers.
As one stay-at-home dad says, being home to take care of his baby son “is a real fatherly thing to do. I think that’s very masculine” (Associated Press 2011). School: Most Bangladeshi children spend about seven hours a day, 180 days a year, in school, which makes it hard to deny the importance school has on our socialization. We are not only in school to study math, reading, science, and other subjects—the manifest function of this system. Schools also serve a latent function in society by socializing children into behaviors like teamwork, following a schedule, and using textbooks.School and classroom rituals, led by teachers serving as role models and leaders, regularly reinforce what society expects from children.
Sociologists describe this aspect of schools as the hidden curriculum, the informal teaching done by schools. For example, in the Bangladesh, schools have built a sense of competition into the way grades are awarded and the way teachers evaluate students. When children participate in a relay race or a math contest, they learn that there are winners and losers in society. When children are required to work together on a project, they practice teamwork with other people in cooperative situations. The hidden curriculum prepares children for the adult world. Children learn how to deal with bureaucracy, rules, expectations, waiting their turn, and sitting still for hours during the day.Schools in different cultures socialize children differently in order to prepare them to function well in those cultures. The latent functions of teamwork and dealing with bureaucracy are features of American culture.
Schools also socialize children by teaching them about citizenship and national pride. In the United States, children are taught to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Most districts require classes about U.S. history and geography. As academic understanding of history evolves, textbooks in the United States have been scrutinized and revised to update attitudes toward other cultures as well as perspectives on historical events; thus, children are socialized to a different national or world history than earlier textbooks may have done. For example, information about the mistreatment of African Americans and Native American Indians more accurately reflects those events than in textbooks of the past.
Peer group: A peer group is made up of people who are similar in age and social status and who share interests. Peer group socialization begins in the earliest years, such as when I was kids on a playground teach younger children the norms about taking turns or the rules of a game or how to shoot a basket. As I grow into teenagers, this process continues. Peer groups are important to adolescents in a new way, as they begin to develop an identity separate from their parents and exert independence. Additionally, peer groups provide their own opportunities for socialization since kids usually engage in different types of activities with their peers than they do with their families. Peer groups provide adolescents’ first major socialization experience outside the realm of their families. Interestingly, studies have shown that although friendships rank high in adolescents’ priorities, this is balanced by parental influence.
Religion: While some religions may tend toward being an informal institution, this section focuses on practices related to formal institutions. Religion is an important avenue of socialization for many people. The United States is full of synagogues, temples, churches, mosques, and similar religious communities where people gather to worship and learn. Like other institutions, these places teach participants how to interact with the religion’s material culture (like a mezuzah, a prayer rug, or a communion wafer). For some people, important ceremonies related to family structure—like marriage and birth—are connected to religious celebrations. Many of these institutions uphold gender norms and contribute to their enforcement through socialization. From ceremonial rites of passage that reinforce the family unit, to power dynamics which reinforce gender roles, religion fosters a shared set of socialized values that are passed on through society.
Mass media: Mass media refers to the distribution of impersonal information to a wide audience, such as what happens via television, newspapers, radio, and the Internet. With the average person spending over four hours a day in front of the TV (and children averaging even more screen time), media greatly influences social norms (Roberts, Foehr, and Rideout 2005). I learn about objects of material culture (like new technology and transportation options), as well as nonmaterial culture—what is true (beliefs), what is important (values), and what is expected (norms).
Community: Large social network that families can use as a support system is called community. It can consist of people who live in the same town, area, or even neighborhood Include a group of people who share the same values or interests such as religion, sports, etc. The community’s purpose in the socialization process Children’s first interactions with the local community is where community can help develop my identity (self-concept) and how I fit into the group setting (group identity). I can learn self- control, social skills and values of society when they are in these community based programs.Community Institutions School After school child care programs Churches Libraries Parks Support services offered by local agencies Example: hospitals, police, fire departments, etc. BG the Tiger, Boys and Girls Club Mascot Religion and churches are vital institutions the communities. They serve various functions in the community.
It can range from helping the homeless, to charity events, and going on field trips. This is a good way for children to meet other children in their faith, and become active leaders in their community. Development and Socialization Children in community are exposed to many other children and learn the skills to play and be friends with them. They are also exposed to children from other cultures, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. It’s important for children to have interaction with each other by playing, doing art projects and other various activities; which they will learn to socialize better instead of staying home where their social interaction with other people is limited.All in all, community as socialization agent is a great way for children to interact with the community, find friends who also love the same activities as them, and most of all, learning about themselves and the social roles.
If there weren’t any community programs or after school programs in the year 2008 then the lives of children and their family would be very difficult. During this fast moving, flourishing time in the U.S. history we depend on the community programs and schools to help take care of our children. As for the saying, “It takes a village (community) to raise a child,” it means that we all need to take a part in help raising not only our children, but our neighbor’s children because they are our future and we need to help the children become positive adults. Law: Law is one of the important agencies in my socialization. MYexperiences in interactions with police and other legal actors subtly shape their perceptions of the relation between individuals and society.
These experiences influence the development of adolescents’ notions about law, rules, and agreements among members of society, and about the legitimacy of authority to deal fairly with citizens who violate society’s rules. It is likely that these beliefs influence compliance with the law, both among adolescents in general and among juvenile offenders in particular, after they have been sanctioned for their offenses. Because one focus of the Network’s activity is on understanding influences on patterns of desistance or re-offending, we are concerned about youths’ understanding of and participation in legal processes that express societal norms, their assessments of the fairness of the process, and their views of the legitimacy of the law and the institutions that enforce it.
Legal socialization, the process through which individuals acquire attitudes and beliefs about the law, has received only scant attention from those interested in adolescent development. It includes both affective components (e.g., the extent to which one feels fairly treated by representatives of the legal system, sometimes referred to as “procedural justice”) and substantive components (e.g., one’s actual beliefs about the legitimacy and fairness of the law). Legal socialization is critical in shaping adolescents’ perceptions of the law, rules, and agreements among members of society, as well as the legitimacy of authority to deal fairly with citizens who violate society’s rules.
Because the enforcement of law differs by neighborhood, children and adolescents growing up in neighborhoods of different social composition experience the law in very different ways. This Network project is a pilot study that assesses variation in legal socialization as a function of adolescents’ neighborhood contexts. The study will measure differences by neighborhood in: (1) the development of adolescents’ notions about the law; (2) their understanding of and participation in legal processes that express societal norms; (3) their assessments of the fairness of the process; and (4) their views of the legitimacy of the law and the institutions that enforce it.
The specific aims of this pilot study are:
• to identify and measure interactions of children and adolescents with law and legal actors, estimate differences in these interactions by neighborhood, gender, race and age;
• to describe developmental trajectories of legal socialization by neighborhood, gender, race and age;
• to assess influence of interactions with legal actors on legal socialization, assess mediating effects of neighborhood, family, and individual factors; and
• to develop methods and measures for a longitudinal study of legal socialization of adolescents.
Arts and literature:
Perceptions and attitudes directly influence our interpretation of literature and are formed as a product of our socialization. We all carry a unique package of knowledge, memories, hopes and dreams. This knapsack acts as more than a depository of experiences; it also serves as a foundation for our perspectives. Motivational speaker and author Stephen Covey said: “We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.” Literature has the power to direct this journey, to open roads that might not be traveled, and perhaps to change one’s path. In the process of socialization the literature has the power to ignite the imagination, express beliefs in a way that may not be heard otherwise, and form impressions. Like as, the poem, “Banalota Sen” of Jibonanondo Das, makes us to see how a lady could posses the natural beauty in its actual mean. Literature can unlock a door to new cultures and ideas, expose peoples of all different backgrounds to imaginary or actual situations, and make the impossible become real thus helps people on socialization.
Role Model:
A role model is a person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people. The term “role model” is credited to sociologist Robert K. Merton, who coined the phrase during his career. Merton hypothesized that individuals compare themselves with reference groups of people who occupy the social role to which the individual aspires. A person’s chosen role models may have a considerable impact on their socialization. People try to act, behave and even try to lead their life according to their role model. In fact, the role model has a big impact on choosing their career.