SOCIALIZATION

Socialization is an important process through which the individual get training to get adapted to
the society. So, socialization is a process for the functioning and continuation of society.
Different societies have different ways and methods to train their new born members so that
they are able to develop their own personalities. It's considered as the passing of culture from
one generation to the next. In another word, socialization is a process of learning rules, habits
and values of a group to which a person belongs whether it is family, friends, colleagues or any
other group. It is the process by which a child slowly becomes aware of her/himself as a
member of a group and gains knowledge about the culture of the family and also the society into
which she/he is born.
Socialization is a concept which helps us to explain the ways people acquire the general
competencies necessary for participation in society. Socialization take place at three level.
 First at the societal level, socialization helps explain how and the extent to which large
numbers of individuals comes successfully to cooperate and adapt to the demands of
social life.
 Second at the organizational level, it summarizes processes by which newcomers to social
groups and organizations are transformed from outsiders to participating members.
 Third, at the personal level, it refers to the social and cultural shaping and development
of the mental, emotional, and behavioral abilities of individuals.
Over the period different Sociologist gave different meaning to the concept of socialization.
Some of them look at how social order is possible given the egoistic, asocial nature of
individuals. Socialization helps us to describe the ways that people come to understand societal
norms and expectations, to accept society’s beliefs, and to be aware of societal values. So,
socialization is firstly, a process of learning, secondly, a process of personality formation and the
development of self and finally, a process of internalisation of social norms, values, moral codes
and ideals of society.
DEFINITION OF SOCIALIZATION

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.
Green defined socialization “as the process by which the child acquires a cultural
content, along with selfhood and personality”.
According to Lundberg, socialization consists of the “complex processes of interaction
through which the individual learns the habits, skills, beliefs and standard of judgment
that are necessary for his effective participation in social groups and communities”.
In the above mentioned definitions of socialization emphasized on the process of cultural
learning whereby a new person acquires necessary skills and education to play a regular part in a
social system. The process is essentially the same in all societies, though institutional
arrangements vary.
On the basis of the definition and the meaning of socialization we can list out seven main
objectives of socialization.

They are;
 Socialization inculcates basic disciplines and self-control in the individual.
 Socialization develops skills and capacities needed to fit into the society.
 Socialization teaches social roles (responsibilities) and their supporting attitudes.
 Socialization instills aspirations and satisfies needs of the individual.
 Socialization helps in the transmission of culture from generation to generation.
 Socialization develops a sense of identity and the capacity for independent thought and
action.
 Socialization develops conscience which is one important characteristic product of this
process.

HUMAN BIOLOGICAL BASES OF SOCIALIZATION

From among the animal kingdom, humans are the only ones who are capable of socialization
because they are endowed with the necessary biological bases that are lacking in other animals.
The following are the key biological characteristics of human beings on which socialization is
based: Absence of instincts, social contact needs, longer period of childhood dependence,
capacity to learn and language (Broom and Sleznki, 1973; Henslin and Nelson, 1995)
I. Absence of Instincts: The term "instinct" in its current social science usage refers to the
complex behavior patterns for which some animal species as biologically programmed.
For example, nest-building among birds is an indistinct. But humans have no comparable
behavior patterns which are biologically fixed, although they have innumerable built-in
physiological reflexes. Human have biological drives or impulses such as hunger, thirst,
sex, etc, rather than instincts. This absence of instincts makes humans dependent on
social direction and their behaviors are amenable to such direction. The open-endedness
of humans is thus the biological ground for social conformity.
II. Social Contact Needs: Humans need sustained social contacts. Studies conducted on
primates and human infants revealed that lack of body stimulation and contact in infancy
appear to inhibit and prevent the development of higher learning functions. Satisfaction
of the social contact and initiations needs in humans is a strong biological imperative.
III. Longer Period of Childhood Dependence: A third biological condition that makes
extensive socialization essential for humans is that the human infant need much longer
period of physical dependence and sexual immaturity than other animals. The need to
acquire the techniques and skills of social living further prolongs the\ dependence. Such
longer period of dependence, during\ which the child is cared for and controlled by
others, results in an intense emotional dependence that remains throughout life.
IV. Capacity to Learn: A high level of intelligence is an innate human biological potential.
Hence, humans are highly educable; they can learn much more than other animals and
can continue to learn more over a longer period of time.
 V. Language: Man's ability to learn is a function of his capacity for language. Other animals
may have some degree of intelligence but only humans have reasoning capacity because
they have language. Language expresses and arouses emotion; conveys feelings, values
and knowledge. Whether as vehicle for knowledge or for attitude, language is the key
factor in the creation of human society. Symbolic communication, which is possessed
only by humans, makes language possible. Humans innately possess the potential and
capacity to create culture and to be guided by cultural and social norms. At the center of
all these is language.

TYPES OF SOCIALIZATION

I. Primary and Secondary Socialization

Primary Socialization: Primary socialization takes plays in the early years of a child's life.
During the infancy and childhood individual learn basic knowledge and language to survive in
the society. Most of the time primary socialization takes place in the family. From the family and
through the interactions with the relatives he/she learn language and some basic skills. Through
direct and indirect observation and experience, he/she gradually learns the basic norms values
relating to the social life.
Secondary socialization: The secondary socialization starts from outside the immediate family
relationship. During this phase more than the family some other agents of socialization like
school and peer groups begin to play important role. The growing child learns very important
lessons in social conduct from these groups. In other word, secondary socialization generally
refers to the social training received by the child in institutional or formal settings and continues
throughout the rest of his life.
Simmons (1978) outline three specific ways these two parts of socialization differ:
a) Content: Socialization in childhood is thought to be concerned with the regulation of
biological drives. In adolescence, socialization is concerned with the development of
overarching values and the self-image. In adulthood, socialization involves more overt
and specific norms and behaviour, such as those related to the work role as well as more
superficial personality features.
b) Context: In earlier periods, the socializee (the person being socialized) more clearly
assumes the status of learner within the context of the family of orientation, the school,
or the peer group. Also, relationships in the earlier period are more likely to be
affectively charged, i.e., highly emotional. In adulthood, though the socializee takes the
role of student at times, much socialization occurs after the socializee has assumed full
incumbency of the adult role. There is also a greater likelihood of more formal
relationships due to situational contexts (e.g., work environment), which moderates
down the affective component.
c) Response: The child and adolescent may be more easily malleable than the adult. Also,
much adult socialization is self-initiated and voluntary; adults can leave or terminate the
process at any time. Socialization is, of course, a social process. As such, it involves
interactions between people.
 II. Gender socializations: Gender socialization is very powerful, and challenges to it can be
disturbing. Gender learning by infants is mainly an unconscious process. Before a child
can see itself as either a boy or a girl, it receives a range of pre-verbal cues from adults.
Men and women usually handle infants differently, women’s cosmetics contain scents
which are different from those babies learn to associate with men, and other systematic
differences in dress, hairstyle, and so on, provide visual cues during the learning process.
By the age of two, children have an understanding of whether they are boys or girls and
can usually categorize others accurately. Not until the age of five or six does a child know
that a person’s gender doesn’t continually change.
III. Anticipatory Socialization: Anticipatory Socialization is a process by which someone is
consciously socialized for future occupations, positions and social relationships. Through
anticipatory socialization people are socialized into groups to which they wish to or have
to join so that entry into the group does not seem to be very difficult. Some people
suggest that parents are the primary source of anticipatory socialization when it comes to
socializing their children for future careers or social roles.
IV. Re-socialization: Re-socialization refers to the process of leaving certain behaviour
patterns and roles in order to adopt new ones as part of one’s evolution in life. Re-
socialization occurs when there is a major transformation in the social role of a person. It
occurs throughout life where individuals experience radical breakthroughs from their past
experiences and learn new manners and values which are starkly different from what they
had learnt previously.
V. De-socialization typically precedes re-socialization. De-socialization refers to stripping
individuals of their former life styles, beliefs, values and attitudes so that they may take up
other partially or totally new life styles, attitudes and values. The individuals have to
abandon their former values and take up new ones in order to become part of the new
social group.

De-socialization and re-socialization often take place in what is called total institutions, which
are an all encompassing and often isolated from the community.
They demand a thorough de-socialization of the new entrants before they assume full-fledged
membership. Total institutions include: mental hospitals, prisons, religious denominations and
some other political groups, and military units. In each case, persons joining the new setting have
first to be de-socialized, before they are re-socialized.

Total Institutions:
Not all socialization is voluntary nor is all socialization successful. There are components of
society designed specifically to re-socialize individuals who were not successfully socialized to
begin with. For instance, prisons and mental health institutions are designed to re-socialize the
people who are deemed to have not been successfully socialized. Depending on the degree of
isolation and re-socialization that takes place in a given institution, some of these institutions are
labeled total institutions.
In his classic study of total institutions, Erving Goffman (1961: 6) provides the following
characteristics of total institutions:
 All aspects of life are conducted in the same place under the same authority.
 The individual is a member of a large cohort, all treated alike.
 All daily activities (over a 24-hour period) are tightly scheduled.
 There is a sharp split between supervisors and lower participants.
 Information about the member's fate is withheld.

The most common examples of total institutions include mental hospitals, prisons, and military
boot camps, though there are numerous other institutions that could be considered total
institutions as well. The goal of total institutions is to facilitate a complete break with one's old
life in order for the institution to re-socialize the individual into a new life.

VI. Reverse Socialization

Reverse socialization refers to the process of socialization whereby the dominant socializing
persons, such as parents, happen to be in need of being socialized themselves by those whom
they socialize, such as children. This idea seems to be associated with the fact that socialization is
a two-way process. It involves the influences and pressures from the socializees that directly or
indirectly induce change the attitudes and behaviors of the socializers themselves. In reverse
socialization, children, for example, may happen to socialize their parents in some roles, skills,
and attitudes which the latter lack.

AGENTS OF SOCIALIZATION
As we understood, socialization is a lifelong process. It starts from the early childhood and
continue until the death. At every stage of our lives, we confront new situations and have to
learn new ways of doing things, new values, or new norms. Though the crucial time of
socialization is infancy and early childhood in the later stage also we confront with new situations
and social order. In the early childhood individual learns the language of his/her group and come
to understand the norms and values important to their family and society. Agencies of
socialization are groups or social contexts in which significant processes of socialization take
place.

The primary socialization is the most intense period of socio-cultural learning. During this time
children learn language and basic behavioural patterns that form the personality of the individual
and help him/her to learn social norms and values. In this stage family play an important role
and work as the main agent of socialization. Secondary socialization takes place later in
childhood and into maturity. In this phase, other agents of socialization take over some of the
responsibility from the family. Schools, peer groups, organizations, the media and, eventually, the
workplace become socializing forces for individuals.
The various agencies can be classified as formal/informal, active/passive or primary/ secondary.
However, there is no clear demarcation as all of them are very much interrelated.

I. Family: Family is the most important agents of socialization. Among the family
members it is the mother who plays an important role the socialization of the child.
Socialisation in basic values such as love and affection, and manners are taught in the
family. In the traditional joint family other than parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents play
an important role in the socialization of the child. Family socialization has often been
conceptualized as children learning their parents’ beliefs, values, worldviews, and
behaviors. Some researchers argue that families serve as seedbeds of a child’s basic
orientations to society, and that parental social attitudes serve as powerful predictors of
children’s attitudes throughout life.
II. Peer groups: ‘Peer groups’ means those group made up of the contemporaries of the
child, his associates in school, in playground and in street. He learns from these children,
facts and facet of culture that have they have previously learnt at different times from
their parents. The members of peer group have other group sources of information
about the culture – their peers in still other peer groups – and thus the acquisition of
culture goes on. It is true that the ‘peer culture’ becomes more important and effective
than be ‘parental culture’ in the adolescent years of the child.
III. School: It is in the school that the culture is formally transmitted and acquired. It is not
only the formal knowledge of the culture that is transmitted there but most of its
premises as well as its ethical sentiments, its political attitudes, its custom and taboos.
The communications children receive from their teachers help to socialize them and to
make them finally mature members of their societies.
IV. Religion: Religions play an important role in the process of socialization of the
individual.
The religious institutions such as synagogues, temples, churches, mosques, and similar
religious communities play in important role in the shaping of individuals behavior. Like
other institutions, these places teach participants how to interact with other people and
teach codes of contact for the betterment of the social system. For some people,
important ceremonies related to family structure—like marriage and birth—are
connected to religious celebrations. Many religious institutions also uphold gender norms
and contribute to their enforcement through socialization. From ceremonial rites of
passage that reinforce the family unit to power dynamics that reinforce gender roles,
organized religion fosters a shared set of socialized values that are passed on through
society.
V. Mass media: Over the years mass media (radio, television, newspapers, magazines,
media portals and websites) has become the greatest source of influence especially for
children, when compared to the other tools of communication. The mass media is a
vehicle for spreading information on a massive scale and reaching to a vast audience or a
large number of people. There are different kinds of programmes that are available on
the these mass medias ranging from serials, movies, cartoons to news, music, fashion,
food, history and geography that cater to people belonging to different age groups.
THEORIES OF SOCIALIZATION

As we discussed, the main focus of the process of socialization is the development and
constitutions of the individual self. So, the theories of socialization try to elaborate different
dimensions of the development of the self. In this section we will discuss three important
theories of the development of self in sociology and social psychology. The first theory is the
'looking-glass self' developed by Charles Horton Cooley in 1902. It state that a person’s self
grows out of society’s interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of others. The term
refers to people shaping themselves based on other people’s perception, which leads people
to reinforce other people’s perspectives on themselves. People shape themselves based on
what other people perceive and confirm other people’s opinion on themselves.

In the second theory George Herbert Mead explain how social experience develops an
individual’s personality. Mead’s central concept is the self: the part of an individual’s
personality composed of self-awareness and self-image. Mead claimed that the self is not
there at birth; rather, it is developed with social experience.

Sigmund Freud, in the third theory, proposed that the human psyche could be divided into
three parts: Id, ego, and super-ego. The id is the completely unconscious, impulsive, childlike
portion of the psyche that operates on the “pleasure principle” and is the source of basic
impulses and drives; it seeks immediate pleasure and gratification. The ego acts according to
the reality principle. Finally, the super-ego aims for perfection and it comprises that
organized part of the personality structure.

CHARLES HORTON COOLEY AND “LOOKING GLASS SELF”

Charles Horton Cooley the American sociologist is best known for his concept of the
“looking glass self”. Children develop a concept of their selves with the help of others
around them. She/he forms an idea about oneself based on the opinions of others about
her/him. The kind of social self that develops out of an imagination of how one appears to
the other person and the kind of feeling about one’s self can be referred to as “looking glass
self” or “reflected self”. The knowledge about ourselves develops in us through the opinions
and reactions of others around this. The social “looking glass self” consists of these other
people through whom we build an image of ourselves. This knowledge about one’s self is
first obtained from the parents and later it is reformed by the judgements of others. Cooley
believed, personality arises out of people’s interactions with the world. According to Cooley,
there are three main features that make up the idea of the self. They are;

a. How we think others see us

b. What we think about their reaction to what they see in us.

c. How we respond to the perceived reaction of others.

 According to Cooley, primary groups play crucial role in the formation of self and
personality of an individual. Contacts with the members of secondary groups such as the
work group also contribute to the development of self. For Cooley, however, their influence
is of lesser significance than that of the primary groups. The ‘looking glass self assures the
child which aspects of the assumed role will praise or blame, which ones are acceptable to
others and which ones unacceptable. People normally have their own attitudes towards social
roles and adopt the same. The child first tries out these on others and in turn adopts towards
his self. The self thus arises when the person becomes an ‘object’ to himself. He is now
capable of taking the same view of himself that he infers others do. The moral order which
governs the human society, in large measure, depends upon the looking glass self.

This concept of self is developed through a gradual and complicated process which
continues throughout life. The concept is an image that one builds only with the help of
others. A very ordinary child whose efforts are appreciated and rewarded will develop a
feeling of acceptance and self-confidence, while a truly brilliant child whose efforts are
appreciated and rewarded will develop a feeling of acceptance and self – confidence, while a
truly brilliant child whose efforts are frequently defined as failures will usually become
obsessed with feelings of competence and its abilities can be paralyzed. Thus, a person’s self
image need bear no relation to the objective facts.

G.H. MEAD AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF SELF

The American psychologist George Herbert Mead (1934) went further in analyzing how the
self develops. According to Mead, the self represents the sum total of people’s conscious
perception of their identity as distinct from others, just as it did for Cooley. However, Mead’s
theory of self was shaped by his overall view of socialisation as a lifelong process. Like
Cooley, he believed the self is a social product arising from relations with other people. At
first, however, as babies and young children, we are unable to interpret the meaning of
people’s behaviour. When children learn to attach meanings to their behaviour, they have
stepped outside themselves. Once children can think about themselves the same way they
might think about someone else, they begin to gain a sense of self.

The process of forming the self, according to Mead, occurs in three distinct stages.

I. The first is imitation. In this stage children copy the behaviour of adults without
understanding it. A little boy might ‘help’ his parents vacuum the floor by pushing a toy
vacuum cleaner or even a stick around the room.
II. During the play stage, children understand behaviours as actual roles- doctor,
firefighter, and race-car driver and so on and begin to take on those roles in their play. In
doll play little children frequently talk to the doll in both loving and scolding tones as if
they were parents then answer for the doll the way a child answers his or her parents.
 This shifting from one role to another builds children’s ability to give the same meanings to
their thoughts; and actions that other members of society give them-another important step
in the building of a self.

III. During Mead’s third stage, the game stage, the child must learn what is expected not
just by one other person but by a whole group. On a baseball team, for example, each
player follows a set of rules and ideas that are common to the team and to baseball.
These attitudes of ‘other’ a faceless person “out there”, children judge their behaviour by
standards thought to be held by the “other out there”. Following the rules of a game of
baseball prepares children to follow the rules of the game of society as expressed in laws
and norms. By this stage, children have gained a social identity.

SIGMUND FREUD: THEORY OF PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality development is somewhat opposed to Mead’s, since it is

based on the belief that the individual is always in conflict with society. According to Freud,
biological drives (especially sexual ones) are opposed to cultural norms, and socialization is the
process of taming these drives.

The Three-part self: Freud’s theory is based on a three-part self; the id, the ego, and the
superego.

 The id is the source of pleasure-seeking energy. When energy is discharged, tension is

reduced and feelings of pleasure are produced, the id motivates us to have sex, eat and
excrete, among other bodily functions.
 The ego is the overseer of the personality, a sort of traffic light between the personality
and the outside world. The ego is guided mainly by the reality principle. It will wait for
the right object before discharging the id’s tension. The superego is an idealized parent:
It performs a moral, judgemental function.
 The superego demands perfect behaviour according to the parents’ standards, and later
according to the standards of society at large.

All three of these parts are active in children’s personalities. Children must obey the reality
principle, waiting for the right time and place to give into the id. They must also obey the moral
demands of parents and of their own developing super egos. The ego is held accountable for
actions, and it is rewarded or punished by the superego with feelings of pride or guilt.
Stages of development:

I. The Oral Stage. This stage begins with the birth of the child and continues up to the
completion of one year. For everything the child cries a great deal. By means of crying
the child establishes its oral dependency. The child here develops some definite
expectations about the feeding time. The child also learns to give signals for his felt
needs. In this stage the child is involved in himself and his mother.
II. The Anal Stage. The second stage normally begins soon after the first year and is
completed during the third year “toilet training” is the main focus of new concern. The
child is taught to do some tasks such as toileting, keeping clothes clean etc. The child in
this stage internalizes two separate roles – his own role and that of his mother. The child
receives ‘care’ and also ‘love’ from the mother and learns to give love in return. The child is
enabled to distinguish between correct and incorrect actions. The correct actions are
rewarded and the incorrect action is not rewarded but punished. In this second stage the
socializing agent, that is, the mother plays the dual role. She participates in the interaction
system with the child in a limited context and she also participates in the larger system
that is the family.
III. The Oedipal Stage. This stage mostly starts from the fourth year of the child and
extends up to puberty (the age of 12 or 13 years). It is in this stage the child become the
member of the family as a whole. It is here the child has to identify himself with the
social role ascribed to him on the basis of his sex. According to Freud, the body develops
the ‘Oedipus complex” – the feeling of jealousy towards father and love towards mother. In
the same way, the girl develops the ‘Electra Complex’ – the feeling of jealousy towards
the mother and love towards the father. In this stage sufficient social pressures are
brought on the child to identify with the right sex. Boys begin with rewarded, for
behaving like boys and girls are rewarded for acting like girls.
IV. The Latency Stage – The Stage of Adolescence. The fourth stage starts with the
period of adolescence. Due to the physiological and the psychological changes that take
place within the individual this stage assumes importance. During this stage the boys and
girls try to become free from parental control. At the same time they cannot completely
escape from their dependence on their parents. Hence they may experience a kind of
strain or conflict in themselves.
V. The Genital Stage. After a period of latency, in which neither boys nor girls pay
attention to sexual matters, adolescents enter the genital phase. In this stage some
aspects of earlier stages are retained, but the primary source of pleasure is genital
intercourse with a member of the opposite sex.
IMPORTANCE OF SOCIALIZATION

In terms of individual persons, the goal of socialization is to equip him or her with the basic
values, norms, skills, etc, so that they will behave and act properly in the social group to which
they belong. Socialization has also the following specific goals (Broom and Sleznki, 1973):
 To inculcate basic disciplines by restraining child or even an adult from immediate
gratification; a child who is toilet-trained will delay relieving himself/ her until the proper
environment is created.
 To instill aspirations;
 To teach social roles;
 To teach skills;
 To teach conformity to norms; and
 To create acceptable and constructive personal identities.
MULTIPLE AND CONTRADICTORY INFLUENCES OF SOCIALIZATION

So far, the picture of socialization presented may seem to be biased towards the structural
functionalist view of society and socialization. Hence, it would be useful to add few ideas that
may help balance the picture. In a critical conceptualization of socialization, the contradictory
and ambiguous sources and influences of socialization need to be highlighted.

A case in point could be alcohol and tobacco consumption. Evidences show that the
consumption of tobacco and alcohol is rapidly increasing in the Third world. There are
underlying and contradictory processes of socialization behind this phenomenon. The conflicting
influences arise when on the one hand, families, schools, and medical institutions warn
youngsters not to consume these products; and on the other hand, the global companies
producing these products are powerfully waging the war of getting the products to the youth,
through the lure of television advertisement.

This example shows us that often conflicting, competing messages pass from the various sources
of socialization. The various agents of socialization are also not accorded balanced share of
power, control and domination. The international companies, who forcefully promote the
culture of consumerism thorough the aid of the powerful global media, tend to play dominating
roles in influencing the attitudes and lifestyles of youngsters.

In short, socialization is the process that prepares humans to function in social life. It should be
reiterated here that socialization is culturally relative – people in different cultures are socialized
differently. This distinction does not and should not inherently force an evaluative judgment.
Socialization, because it is the adoption of culture, is going to be different in every culture.
Socialization, as both process and an outcome, is not better or worse in any particular culture.