Socialization is a growth process that enables humans to adapt to social norms and customs. This process enables people to function in society during growth and transformation into adulthood. Socialization is a lifelong learning process and internalization of values, norms, beliefs, and culture. Agents like school, religion, family, mass media, workplace, cultural background, and political groups play a crucial role in the socialization and learning process. All life experiences are important in socialization, although they do not hold the same value. The paper will explore the impact of family, culture, school, and media on social development.
Who am I?
From childhood to adulthood and old age, everyone strives to identify their identity in society. I was born in a family of three, and as the firstborn, I had to take care of my siblings whenever my parents were not round. One of the agents of socialization is the role one plays in the family setting. My parents taught me the importance of helping in household chores from an early age. By the time I was five years, I had helped wash dishes, sweep the floor, and make my bed. As I grew into self-awareness, I understood my position in the family. As an older child, I was expected to care of the younger children and impart them basic knowledge and skills. My parents were strict and did not tolerate any deviant behavior.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Individual behavior changes due to the adoption of different roles and norms enable individuals to fit into others' expectations. As a son in the family and a student, there are certain roles that I have to pay to live in harmony with the environment and with others. I address my parents, members of the society, teachers, and colleagues with respect while adhering to institutional and government regulations. While in school, I attend to all my classes on time, finish all assignments, and maintain social order to avoid disrupting others. I relate well with members of the opposite sex and appreciate others while respecting diversity and differences in society. I am also a group leader in my discussion group from class and take the responsibility of ensuring all members adhere to set rules.
I realize that I have to fulfill many social roles as I grow up. I obey the law, my parents, and school rules and remember to thank all those who extend their kindness towards me. My parents are not worried about my behavior outside the home because of their confidence in my sense of responsibility. I come from a community where culture is strongly upheld, and I learned values and vices from an early age. One of the cultural values that my parents emphasized was self-reliance, obedience, and respect for others. I learned that the best way to succeed in life is to work hard and avoid harming others. Although I work hard in life, I realize that I have little time to chat with my friends and family, which is quite unhealthy. I am working towards changing my schedules to incorporate recreation time with friends and family.
Agents of Socialization
Socialization is a growth process that calls for biological adaptation and learning from infanthood, during growth, and aging transformation. Man is a social being that needs to experience psychological fitness, social adaptability, self-esteem, and social skills. School, family, media, and culture are an integral part of development as they shape social beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes of individuals.
School
The role of the school is to stimulate the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor development of students. The positive influence of parents, teachers, and peers enhances learners' social development while facilitating competent and satisfactory participation in the community. According to Blazevic (2016), communities like school, family, and peer groups are the basis of social development. From middle childhood, I developed a relationship of trust with teachers and peers. Schools prepare children for future professions, and hence teachers play a crucial role in motivating learners to work in cooperation as communities, and partnerships. During middle childhood, I had intensive social interactions with my classmates, and my teachers facilitated peer relationships formation. The friendships were solely based on loyalty, mutual support, and sharing. As I advanced to higher classes, I developed the feeling of self-respect and self-determination that I owned my destiny. My teachers always told me that students with low self-esteem and respect do not trust themselves and give in to peer pressure and are likely to end up with delinquent behaviors.
School is an environment where children grow up while feeling satisfied and successful while sharing their skills, knowledge, and abilities. I developed crucial social skills while in school, because I felt accepted, welcomed, respected. Engagement in various activities enhanced my creativity and development of realistic expectations for others due to the numerous conversations on the significance of failures on the learning process. The school environment helps students develop a sense of responsibility and positive relations towards self and others while acquiring crucial life skills like decision making, problem-solving, self-evaluation, and active learning.
Family
Children inherit characteristics from parents who promote development and growth through traditional influences and cultural ideals. Families highly influence the social development of children in all aspects of life. Parents who talk to their children enhance their social behaviors and attitude towards life. My parents are authoritative because of their sensitive and caring relations to our needs while setting clear limits. This enabled me to develop a positive image of myself (Blazevic, 2016). Parenting styles and education interventions enhance the academic skills and social behavior of children. My parents have been sensitive to my issues, especially during my early teen years. This enabled me to understand anxiety, realize mood changes, and depression. The interaction I experienced with my family has enabled me to develop social connections and satisfaction with others.
Media
Media is a socio-cultural transformational agent that has both positive and negative impacts on individuals. Trends in media actions are crucial in socialization, adaptation, exteriorization, and internalization of individuals. Mass media has enabled me to understand and perceive the social reality of information by offering a positive and negative experience. Television has extensive implications on the users' behavior like prosocial behavior, sexual experiences, violence, eating disorders, political attitudes, perception of gender, stereotyping of minorities, and cognitive skills (Genner and Suss, 2016). In the contemporary era, media penetrates all spheres of life, including schools, children's rooms, and senior's rooms. I have interacted with various media forms at all stages of my life through radio, cinema, computer, mobile communication, and the internet. While growing up, my mother insisted on us watching age-appropriate content that facilitated learning language, skills, and social values. However, as I grew up into got into elementary school, I was compelled to adopt the use of digital devices as a preferred learning and research tool.
Youths and children are more exposed to the impacts of media, as they do not passively adapt to the environment. They actively perceive their understanding from social interactions with the cultural environment. During my high school years, I was emotionally attached to internet-enabled devices that I rarely interacted with friends and extended family. I soon realized that this was an addiction that weakened the bond between my family members and I (Genner and Suss, 2016). On the other hand, media facilitated the identity formation by identifying with values, beliefs, and moral standards, forming relationships, and friendships, and renegotiating my relationship with my parents. Media personnel and fictional characters are a tool for testing social interactions and identity exploration hence facilitating identity development.
Culture
Culture affects human development through a comparison of self and society. An increase in political and economic integration, technological development, cross border trade, and immigration has contributed to cultural change in societies. Moreover, interactions and exchanges have resulted in co-existence and merging of value systems (Che et al., 2015). I grew up in a conservative white community where neighbors shared baked foods and visited each other for a cup of tea. However, when we relocated to an urban setting, I realized that the neighbors had developed individualistic values. During urbanization, social change in group-oriented societies followed greater individual autonomy. The system guides social interactions and individual behavior. Culture enhances the ideology of social culture, where interactions between people shape people's behavior and personal identity. Interaction with students from other cultures has facilitated my appreciation of diversity and the adoption of cooperative behaviors to survive in the economic complex society.
Socialization is a lifelong process that continues throughout an individual's life while aiding in the mastering of standards, values, roles, social state, and social behaviors. Social development of people is highly influenced by family, school, media, and culture. The influence of family during my childhood is still present in my life, and school and media have heightened by development. Cooperation and support from family and school have improved my social interaction with people. Similarly, media and culture have shaped my perception, beliefs, and tolerance towards other cultures.
References
Blazevic, I. (2016). Family, peer, and school influence on children’s social development. World Journal of education , 6(2), 42-49.
Chen, X., Fu, R., &Zhao, S. (2015). Culture and socialization . In J. E. Grusec & P. D. Hastings (Eds.) Handbook of socialization (pp. 451-471). New York: Guilford.
Genner, S. &Suss, D. (2016). Socialization as media effect. The International Encyclopedia of Media Effect.
