As you moved through your childhood and adolescence, how did the relative importance of your family, school, peers, and the mass media as agents of socialization change? How would you account for these changes? Socialization is the process of making a person to learn to live in terms of the expectations of the society and making him adapted to the society (Marcionis, 2010). In other words, it is the process which familiarizes a particular human being to a particular society.
Family was the most important and crucial institution of being raised in an upper class family. There was a stay at home mother, which was the cultural “ norm”. My family shaped me just as most typical families do with rewarding, threatening, punishing, and bargaining to conformed to society. There were two parents who showed love and affection that strongly influenced the development of my personality. School provided stability and helped create individuality that could only happen in a school of a vast diversity.
School also provided the intellectual and social experiences from which knowledge, skills, customs, and certain other beliefs helped shape adult roles that are still evolving each day. However, all these practices keep changing from society to society. A peer group is a social group consisting of people who are equal in such respects as age, education, or social class (Macionis, 2010). The socialization that takes place with peers is different from those of the family and school. Similar tastes, likes, dislikes and ideas influence of the formation of such groups.
There was a feeling of acceptance In certain peer groups, as a child I was more inclined to play music, so I was not accepted into groups of well liked students because I was referred to as a “ nerd”. As a result, it has had a positive impact by shaping what is now an independent and thoughtful adult. MedIa was an important role through magazines, radio, films, CDs, television, and later in life the Internet These kinds of media, especially television, affected behavior in different ways. When watching different TV shows seeing all those actors and actresses with these great figures affected ersonal body image, such as the age of the “ super model”, with role models like Cindy Crawford.
There are some programs which were helpful with lots of information for children. For example, there is a program called “ Dora, the Explorer”. Children can learn to speak Spanish and also do things such as singing, standing up and pronouncing words in English. There was and still exists a program called “ Sesame Street”. These programs have been cultural icons that have been providing children knowledge while entertaining.
At last we have the ability to come to a conclusion that the socialization is the persistent process of familiarizing individuals to the society. Socialization provides an understanding in respect of society and culture in which the individual lives and also helps to form his personality. Amongst them the primary socialization is done by family influences the formation of individual’s personality. In addition to it, school, peer groups, mass media, religion, work place and politics influence in forming a particular individual’s personality (Haralambos and Holborn, 2004).