Socialization

This is the term which refers to the process of inheriting the ideologies, customs, and the norms of socialization. The skills and the habits that are necessary for the effective participation of an individual in a society are being provided by socialization. There are several customs, values, norms, symbols which develops a culture in a society. The ultimate purpose of the society is to attain the cultural continuity.

Even the view of an individual to some specific issues like economics and race are being socialized in a society. There are several socio-political theories which suggest only a partial explanation about the behaviour and the belief of human being is provided by socialization. There are strong evidences provided by the scientific research in shaping the social and the biological make up of the society. The interaction between the environment and the genotype of an individual in order to influence the behavioural outcome of an individual is shown explicitly by the generic studies.

Infants Acquiring

As an effective functioning member in the society, every human infant is expected to acquire certain skills. Socialization serves as the primary means for enriching these skills in the infants. These skills are considered as the most influential learning process in one’s life. Though the cultural variability is very much visible in the customs, the actions, and the behaviour of the societies, the basic appearance of culture is seen at the individual level. The expression of the culture occurs only after an individual is allowed to be socialized with the parents, family, then with the extended family and finally with the extended social networks. The continuity is attained by the social characteristics only through the reflexive process of the teaching and learning.

Types of Socialization

There are different types of socialization. They are the primary socialization, secondary socialization, developmental socialization, Anticipatory socialization and re socialization.

The primary socialization occurs in the early stage especially during the infant period when the child learns to acquire the values and actions which would shape the attitude of the child. Children do learn by imitating. If a child sees his/ her mother giving a discriminatory opinion about a particular minority group then the child will take that behaviour as an acceptable behaviour and starts following it.

The process of learning the appropriate behaviour is referred to as the secondary socialization.  Here the individual learns the appropriate behaviour by being a member of smaller group in a larger society. The developmental socialization refers to the learning behaviour in a particular social institution. On the other hand, Anticipatory socialization is referred to the process of socializing to acquire future positions. Finally, re socialization is the process of discarding the previous patterns and acquiring new ones.

Questions:

• What is socialization?
• Mention the different types of Socialization?