Tyler Powell

DSIB Essays for 204

Learning Through Socialization

Socialization helps catapult children into being able to be productive in society as well as
help them understand how to build strong relationships. It teaches children self-concept, adds
value to their life, and teaches them different social roles that will be asked of them.
Socialization is also where morals and values are developed.
Erikson talks about socialization in stages. (pg 42-44) He splits it up into 8 different
stages based on the age of the child. When you apply these to your life, often you will find that
you also fit in these stages. The first stage is Trust vs. Mistrust, an infant wants to know whether
they can trust themselves and the people in the environment. The next is Autonomy vs Shame
and Doubt which means kids are wanting to do things on their own. The stage for children age 3-
5 is called Initiative vs Guilt which talks about how kids want to start new things but they want
to avoid failure. The 4th stage of Erikson’s is Industry vs Inferiority or school age kids. This
stage talks about how students want to feel success and recognition rather than feeling
incompetent or ignored. The next stage is adolescence and it deals with how students find their
identity. Students start to develop morals and values. The 7th stage is Intimacy vs Isolation.
Young adults look to become intimate with those with the same identity while trying to avoid
those who do not feel the same and make them feel isolated. The last stage is adulthood, where
people look to provide some support to the next generation who looks up to them.

Reference
Berns, Roberta. (2016) Child, family, school, community: socialization and support (10thed.).
Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Societal Shaping of Families

Families are a social group that is characterized by common residence, economic
cooperation, and reproduction. Families are the leader of all socialization that happens for kids.
The family can teach students about social roles, how to act in society, what some good morals
and values are, common knowledge, and some skills and techniques that will help children be
successful in school and in society. The family also helps protect the child by providing nurture
as well as emotional support. Back in the day, many schools taught basic reading, writing, math
but many schools now require the the student have learned the majority of those things before
entering a public school classroom.
Berns says, “"Parental divorce is not a single event but rather represents a series of
stressful experi-ences for the entire family that begins with marital conflict before the actual
separation and includes many adjustments afterward." Divorce forces families to learn a
completely new lifestyle. All of them have to learn the idea of split resources as well as learning
to balance time with both parents if that is allowed to happen. I also think divorce is so tough for
little kids because they really don’t understand what is happening. They don’t understand why
they aren’t seeing their parents together or why they are seeing one more than the other. Berns
refers to another study saying, "Studies by Hetherington (1988, 1989, 1993) show that during
and after parental divorce, children often exhibit marked changes in behavior, such as acting out,
particu-larly in school." (pg. 93) Children might also have to deal with a stepparent so they now
have two different sets of parents and that could mean different rules. Families are able to
socialize by different activities that they do as a family. These could be vacations, religious
groups, or sports.

Berns, R. (2016). Child, family, school, community: socialization and support. Stamford, CT:
Cengage Learning.

Equitable Education
To me, equity is doing what it takes to allow different children the opportunity to become
successful. The picture used above is the absolute best example of what that is. Kids today come
from many unique backgrounds. Some students grow up in a divorced family that. Others grow
up with parents with a strong relationship who both work very hard to provide a dual income.
Other parents work very hard but are just not quite able to make ends fully meet and live in
poverty. All of these situations change how children act, think, and work. Divorce could cause a
child to become sad and worry. Some kids may blame themselves for a divorce even if they were
not the reason. Kids with both dual income families and those who live in poverty face the same
idea in that their social interaction with their family may be lower just because so many hours are
being worked by their parents. This could lead to discipline problems because maybe the child is
left home alone often because their parents don't get off until 5 or later. Poverty could also lower
the opportunities that students are given to learn outside of school. In his presentation, Hassan
talked about how poor students have one book to every 300 of those in the middle class.
Family is where you learn the basic roles in life. Children learn how to act in public and
behave in many situations. Family is where some of your first friends come from and they
usually last a lifetime. I loved when we talked about that it was okay to fight with siblings
because it kept them interacting. Keeping children involved with others is allowing them to
develop better than any other way. They are learning how to speak, how to act, how to react to
different problems, how to put words into different order to make them better able to be
understood.

Berns, Roberta. Child, Family, School, Community: Socialization and Support. 10th ed.,
Cengage Learning, 2016.

Media Influence on Learning

Mass media can do many great things for humans around the world. It can connect people
who are miles and miles apart and make them feel much closer. It allows families to stay
informed with each other while spread throughout the country. Mass media also creates an
avenue for information to be spread very quickly. This could save money and human lives. This
could help the justice system catch dangerous criminals. Mass media can also be very
entertaining. The problems behind mass media are what worries many parents throughout the
world. Many of the problems with mass media could be narrowed down to just too much use of
this privilege. According to Berns, "According to studies (KFF, 2010; roberts & Foehr, 2008),
the total amount of media used by young people (ages 8–18) each day has increased to more than
eight hours, excluding schoolwork, with most of the increase coming from video games and
computers." Spending too much time on these devices can lead to not so great relationships. If
the child gives up time to build a relationship for their media device, they are already behind.
These relationship building periods are important for the development of the child. Video games
can also effect the students in different ways. Not in all cases, but in some, students may not
realize that the video game is fantasy and can build some type of false reality. The could be a
danger to themselves or to other people. Berns (pg. 340), uses a quote from Urie
Bronfenbrenner's talk to the National Association for the Education of Young Children saying,
"The primary danger of the television screen lies not so much in the behavior it produces—
although there is danger there—as in the behavior it prevents...". These television screens may
prevent a student from playing games, enjoying family outings, or prevent those deep
conversations from even starting. These are moments where students do actually learn many new
social skills that will help them later on in their life.
Media can be very successful, if used right, in the classroom. Teachers can use
educational videos change up how they have been teaching students in their classroom. This
could spark their students interest or increase their memorability. The sparking of their interest
might encourage a class discussion as students want to talk about it and learn more. Berns uses
Cooperation for Public Broadcasting's take on what media in the classroom does for students.
They said, "...educational TV in the classroom reinforces reading and lecture material, aids in the
development of a common base of knowledge among students, enhances student comprehension
and discussion, provides greater accommodation of diverse learning styles, increases student
motivation and enthusiasm, and promotes teacher effectiveness".

Berns, Roberta. (2016) Child, family, school, community: Socialization and support (10th ed.).
Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.