Socialization

Concept

Human infants are born without any culture.  They must be transformed
by their parents, teachers, and others into cultural and socially adept
animals.  The general process of acquiring culture is referred to as
socialization. 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.

Socialization is the process by which human infants begin to acquire the

skills necessary to perform as a functioning member of their society, and
is the most influential learning process one can experience. Unlike many
other living species, whose behavior is biologically set, humans need
social experiences to learn their culture and to survive. . Many scientists
say socialization essentially represents the whole process of learning
throughout the life course and is a central influence on the behavior,
beliefs, and actions of adults as well as of children.

Defination
Socialization, according to MacIver, “is the process by which social
beings establish wider and profounder relationships with one another, in
which they become more bound up with, and  perceptive of the
personality of themselves and of others and build up the complex
structure of nearer and wider association.”
Socialization is a process by which culture is transmitted to the younger
generation and men learn the rules and practices of social groups to
which they belong. Culture is transmitted through the communication
they have with one another and communication thus comes to be the
essence of the process of culture transmission. In a society there exists
a number of factors to socialize the child.
Positive socialization and Negative socialization
Positive socialization is the type of social learning that is based on
pleasurable and exciting experiences. We tend to like the people who fill
our social learning processes with positive motivation, loving care, and
rewarding opportunities.
 Negative socialization occurs when others use punishment, harsh
criticisms, or anger to try to “teach us a lesson;” and often we come to
dislike both negative socialization and the people who impose it on us.
Family:
The family is rightly called the cradle of social virtues. Family being a
mini society acts as a transmission belt between the individual and
society. The family plays an outstanding role in the socialization process.
The family is the most important agent of socialization because it is the
center of the child’s life, as infants are totally dependent on others.
According to Robert. K. Merton, “it is the family which is a major
transmission belt for the diffusion of cultural standards to the oncoming
generation”. The family serves as “the natural and convenient channel of
social continuity. 

Peer Group:
A peer group is a social group whose members have interests, social
positions and age in common. This is where children can escape
supervision and learn to form relationships on their own.  A peer
group consists of friends and associates who are about the same age
and social status . Peer Group means a group in which the members
share some common characteristics such as age or sex etc. It is made
up of the contemporaries of the child, his associates in school, in
playground and in street. The growing child learns some very important
lessons from his peer group. 

Religion:
Religion has been an important factor in society. In the early society
religion provided a bond of unity. Though in modern society the
importance of religion has diminished, yet it continues to mould our
beliefs and ways of life. In every family some or the other religious
practices are observed on one or the other occasion. The child sees his
parents going to the temple and performing religious ceremonies. He
listens to religious sermons which may determine his course of life and
shape his ideas.

Educational Institutions:
Every civilized society therefore has developed a set of formalized
agencies of education (schools, colleges and universities) which have a
great bearing on the socialization process. It is in the educational
institutions that the culture is formally transmitted and acquired.
The educational institutions not only help the growing child in learning
language and other subjects but also instill the concept of time,
discipline, team work, cooperation and competition. Through the means
of reward and punishment the desired behavior pattern is reinforced.

Mass Media:
The mass media are the means for delivering impersonal
communications directed to a vast audience. The term media comes
from Latin meaning, “middle,” suggesting that the media’s function is to
connect people.
The mass media include many forms of communication–such as books,
magazines, radio, television, and movies–that reach large numbers of
people without personal contact between senders and receivers. Since
mass media has enormous effects on our attitudes and behavior, notably
in regards to aggression, it is an important contributor to the socialization
process.