Socialisation: The Meaning,

Features, Types, Stages and

Importance
Article shared by :
This article provides information about the meaning,
features, types, stages and importance of socialisation!
Every society is faced with the necessity of making a
responsible member out of each child born into it. The child
must learn the expectations of the society so that his
behaviour can be relied upon. He must acquire the group
norms. The society must socialise each member so that his
behaviour will be meaningful in terms of the group norms. In
the process of socialisation the individual learns the
reciprocal responses of the society.

Socialisation is a processes with the help of which a living

organism is changed into a social being. It is a process
through which the younger generation learns the adult role
which it has to play subsequently. It is a continuous process
in the life of an individual and it continues from generation
to generation.

Meaning of Socialisation:
The newborn is merely an organism. Socialisation makes him
responsive to the society. He is socially active. He becomes a
‘Purush’ and the culture that his group inculcates in him,
humanises him, and makes him ‘Manusha’. The process
1
indeed, is endless. The cultural pattern of his group, in the
process gets incorporated in the personality of a child. It
prepares him to fit in the group and to perform the social
roles. It sets the infant on the line of social order and
enables an adult to fit into the new group. It enables the man
to adjust himself to the new social order.

Socialisation stands for the development of the human brain,

body, attitude, behaviour and so forth. Socialisation is known
as the process of inducting the individual into the social
world. The term socialisation 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.

From the point of view of society, socialisation is the way

through which society transmits its culture from generation
to generation and maintains itself. From the point of view of
the individual, socialisation is the process by which the
individual learns social behaviour, develops his ‘self.

The process operates at two levels, one within the infant

which is called the internalisation of objects around and the
other from the outside. Socialisation may be viewed as the
“internalisation of social norms. Social rules become internal
to the individual, in the sense that they are self-imposed
rather than imposed by means of external regulation and are
thus part of individual’s own personality.
2
The individual therefore feels an urge to conform. Secondly,
it may be viewed as essential element of social interaction.
In this case, individuals become socialised as they act in
accordance with the expectations of others. The underlying
process of socialisation is bound up with social interaction.

Socialisation is a comprehensive process. According to

Horton and Hunt, Socialisation is the process whereby one
internalises the norms of his groups, so that a distinct ‘self
emerges, unique to this individual.

Through the process of socialisation, the individual becomes

a social person and attains his personality. Green defined
socialisation “as the process by which the child acquires a
cultural content, along with selfhood and personality”.

According to Lundberg, socialisation consists of the

“complex processes of interaction through which the
individual learns the habits, skills, beliefs and standard of
judgement that are necessary for his effective participation
in social groups and communities”.

Peter Worsley explains socialisation “as the process of

“transmission of culture, the process whereby men learn the
rules and practices of social groups”.

H.M. Johnson defines socialisation as “learning that enables

the learner to perform social roles”. He further says that it is

3
a “process by which individuals acquire the already existing
culture of groups they come into”.

The heart of socialisation”, to quote kingsley Davis.” is the

emergence and gradual development of the self or ego. It is
in terms of the self that personality takes shape and the
mind comes to function”. It is the process by which the
newborn individual, as he grows up, acquires the values of
the group and is moulded into a social being.

Socialisation takes place at different stages such as primary,

secondary and adult. The primary stage involves the
socialisation of the young child in the family. The secondary
stage involves the school and the third stage is adult
socialisation.

Socialisation is, thus, a process of cultural learning whereby

a new person acquires necessary skills and education to play
a regular part in a social system. The process is essentially
the same in all societies, though institutional arrangements
vary. The process continues throughout life as each new
situation arises. Socialisation is the process of fitting
individuals into particular forms of group life, transforming
human organism into social being sand transmitting
established cultural traditions.

Features of Socialisation:

4
Socialisation not only helps in the maintenance and
preservation of social values and norms but it is the process
through which values and norms are transmitted from one
generation to another generation.

Features of socialisation may be discussed as under:

1. Inculcates basic discipline:
Socialisation inculcates basic discipline. A person learns to
control his impulses. He may show a disciplined behaviour to
gain social approval.

2. Helps to control human behaviour:

It helps to control human behaviour. An individual from birth
to death undergoes training and his, behaviour is controlled
by numerous ways. In order to maintain the social order,
there are definite procedures or mechanism in society. These
procedures become part of the man’s/life and man gets
adjusted to the society. Through socialisation, society
intends to control the behaviour of its-members
unconsciously.

3. Socialisation is rapid if there is more humanity

among the- agencies of socialisation:
Socialisation takes place rapidly if the agencies’ of
socialisation are more unanimous in their ideas and skills.
When there is conflict between the ideas, examples and
skills transmitted in home and those transmitted by school
or peer, socialisation of the individual tends to be slower and
ineffective.
5
4. Socialisation takes place formally and informally:
Formal socialisation takes through direct instruction and
education in schools and colleges. Family is, however, the
primary and the most influential source of education.
Children learn their language, customs, norms and values in
the family.

5. Socialisation is continuous process:

Socialisation is a life-long process. It does not cease when a
child becomes an adult. As socialisation does not cease when
a child becomes an adult, internalisation of culture continues
from generation to generation. Society perpetuates itself
through the internalisation of culture. Its members transmit
culture to the next generation and society continues to exist.

Types of Socialisation:
Although socialisation occurs during childhood and
adolescence, it also continues in middle and adult age.
Orville F. Brim (Jr) described socialisation as a life-long
process. He maintains that socialisation of adults differ from
childhood socialisation. In this context it can be said that
there are various types of socilisation.

1. Primary Socialisation:
Primary socialisation refers to socialisation of the infant in
the primary or earliest years of his life. It is a process by
which the infant learns language and cognitive skills,
internalises norms and values. The infant learns the ways of

6
a given grouping and is moulded into an effective social
participant of that group.

The norms of society become part of the personality of the

individual. The child does not have a sense of wrong and
right. By direct and indirect observation and experience, he
gradually learns the norms relating to wrong and right
things. The primary socialisation takes place in the family.

2. Secondary Socialisation:
The process can be seen at work outside the immediate
family, in the ‘peer group’. The growing child learns very
important lessons in social conduct from his peers. He also
learns lessons in the school. Hence, socialisation continues
beyond and outside the family environment. Secondary
socialisation generally refers to the social training received
by the child in institutional or formal settings and continues
throughout the rest of his life.

3. Adult Socialisation:
In the adult socialisation, actors enter roles (for example,
becoming an employee, a husband or wife) for which
primary and secondary socialisation may not have prepared
them fully. Adult socialisation teaches people to take on new
duties. The aim of adult socialisation is to bring change in
the views of the individual. Adult socialisation is more likely
to change overt behaviour, whereas child socialisation
moulds basic values.

7
4. Anticipatory Socialisation:
Anticipatory socialisation refers to a process by which men
learn the culture of a group with the anticipation of joining
that group. As a person learns the proper beliefs, values and
norms of a status or group to which he aspires, he is
learning how to act in his new role.

5. Re-socialisation:
Re-Socialisation refers to the process of discarding former
behaviour patterns and accepting new ones as part of a
transition in one’s life. Such re-socialisation takes place
mostly when a social role is radically changed. It involves
abandonment of one way of life for another which is not only
different from the former but incompatible with it. For
example, when a criminal is rehabilitated, he has to change
his role radically.

Theories of Socialisation:
Development of Self and Personality:
Personality takes shape with the emergence and
development of the ‘self’. The emergence of self takes place
in the process of socialisation whenever the individual takes
group values.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

The self, the core of personality, develops out of the child’s

interaction with others. A person’s ‘self is what he
consciously and unconsciously conceives himself to be. It is

8
the sum total of his perceptions of himself and especially, his
attitudes towards himself. The self may be defined as one’s
awareness of and ideas and attitudes about his own personal
and social identity. But the child has no self. The self arises
in the interplay of social experience, as a result of social
influences to which the child, as he grows, becomes subject.

In the beginning of the life of the child there is no self. He is

not conscious of himself or others. Soon the infant feels out
the limits of the body, learning where its body ends and
other things begin. The child begins to recognise people and
tell them apart. At about the age of two it begins to use ‘I’
which is a clear sign of definite self-consciousness that he or
she is becoming aware of itself as a distinct human being.

Primary groups play crucial role in the formation of the self

of the newborn and in the formation of the personality of the
newborn as well. It can be stated here that the development
of self is rooted in social behaviour and not in biological or
hereditary factors.

In the past century sociologists and psychologists proposed a

number of theories to explain the concept of self.

There are two main approaches to explain the concept of self

– Sociological approach and: Psychological approach.

Charles Horton Cooley:

9
Charles Horton Cooley believed, personality arises out of
people’s interactions with the world. Cooley used the phrase
“Looking Glass Self’ to emphasise that the self is the product
of our social interactions with other people.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

To quote Cooley, “As we see our face, figure and dress in the
glass and are interested in them because they are ours and
pleased or otherwise with according as they do or do not
answer to what we should like them to be; so in imagination
we perceive in another’s mind some thought of our
appearance, manners, aims, deeds, character, friends and so
on and variously affected by it”.

The looking glass self is composed of three elements:

1. How we think others see in us (I believe people are
reacting to my new hairstyle)

2. What we think they react to what they see.

3. How we respond to the perceived reaction of others.

For Cooley, the primary groups to which we belong are the

most significant. These groups are the first one with whom a
child comes into contact such as the family. A child is born
and brought up initially in a family. The relationships are
also the most intimate and enduring.

10
According to Cooley, primary groups play crucial role in the
formation of self and personality of an individual. Contacts
with the members of secondary groups such as the work
group also contribute to the development of self. For Cooley,
however, their influence is of lesser significance than that of
the primary groups.

The individual develops the idea of self through contact with

the members of the family. He does this by becoming
conscious of their attitudes towards him. In other words, the
child gets his conception of his self and latter of the kind of
person he is, by means of what he imagines others take him
to be Cooley, therefore, called the child’s idea of himself the
looking glass self.

The child conceives of himself as better or worse in varying

degrees, depending upon the attitudes of others towards
him. Thus, the child’s view of himself may be affected by the
kind of name given by his family or friends. A child called
‘angel’ by his mother gets a notion of himself which differs
from that of a child called ‘rascal’.

The ‘looking glass self assures the child which aspects of the
assumed role will praise or blame, which ones are
acceptable to others and which ones unacceptable. People
normally have their own attitudes towards social roles and
adopt the same. The child first tries out these on others and
in turn adopts towards his self.
11
The self thus arises when the person becomes an ‘object’ to
himself. He is now capable of taking the same view of
himself that he infers others do. The moral order which
governs the human society, in large measure, depends upon
the looking glass self.

This concept of self is developed through a gradual and

complicated process which k continues throughout life. The
concept is an image that one builds only with the help of
others. A very ordinary child whose efforts are appreciated
and rewarded will develop a feeling of acceptance and self-
confidence, while a truly brilliant child whose efforts are
appreciated and rewarded will develop a feeling of
acceptance and self – confidence, while a truly brilliant child
whose efforts are frequently defined as failures will usually
become obsessed with feelings of competence and its
abilities can be paralyzed. Thus, a person’s self image need
bear no relation to the objective facts.

A critical but subtle aspect of Cooley’s looking glass is that

the self results from an individual’s imagination of how
others view him or her. As a result, we can develop self
identities based on incorrect perceptions of how others see
us. It is because people do not always judge the reactions of
others accurately, of course and therein arise complications.

Stages of Socialisation:
G.H. Mead:

12
The American psychologist George Herbert Mead (1934)
went further in analysing how the self develops. According
to Mead, the self represents the sum total of people’s
conscious perception of their identity as distinct from others,
just as it did for Cooley. However, Mead’s theory of self was
shaped by his overall view of socialisation as a lifelong
process.

Like Cooley, he believed the self is a social product arising

from relations with other people. At first, however, as babies
and young children, we are unable to interpret the meaning
of people’s behaviour. When children learn to attach
meanings to their behaviour, they have stepped outside
themselves. Once children can think about themselves the
same way they might think about someone else, they begin
to gain a sense of self.

The process of forming the self, according to Mead, occurs

in three distinct stages. The first is imitation. In this stage
children copy the behaviour of adults without understanding
it. A little boy might ‘help’ his parents vacuum the floor by
pushing a toy vacuum cleaner or even a stick around the
room.

During the play stage, children understand behaviours as

actual roles- doctor, firefighter, and race-car driver and so
on and begin to take on those roles in their play. In doll play
little children frequently talk to the doll in both loving and
13
scolding tones as if they were parents then answer for the
doll the way a child answers his or her parents.

This shifting from one role to another builds children’s

ability to give the same meanings to their thoughts; and
actions that other members of society give them-another
important step in the building of a self.

According to Mead, the self is compassed of two parts, the ‘I’

and the ‘me’ The ‘I’ is the person’s response to other people
and to society at large; the ‘me’ is a self-concept that
consists of how significant others – that is, relatives and
friends-see the person. The ‘I’ thinks about and reacts to the
‘me’ as well as to other people.

For instance, ‘I’ react to criticism by considering it carefully,

sometimes changing and sometimes not, depending on
whether I think the criticism is valid. I know that people
consider ‘me’ a fair person who’s always willing to listen. As
they I trade off role in their play, children gradually develop
a ‘me’. Each time they see themselves from someone else’s
viewpoint, they practise responding to that impression.

During Mead’s third stage, the game stage, the child must
learn what is expected not just by one other person but by a
whole group. On a baseball team, for example, each player
follows a set of rules and ideas that are common to the team
and to baseball.

14
These attitudes of ‘other’ a faceless person “out there”,
children judge their behaviour by standards thought to be
held by the “other out there”. Following the rules of a game
of baseball prepares children to follow the rules of the game
of society as expressed in laws and norms. By this stage,
children have gained a social identity.

Jean Piaget:
A view quite different from Freud’s theory of personality has
been proposed by Jean Piaget. Piaget’s theory deals with
cognitive development, or the process of learning how to
think. According to Piaget, each stage of cognitive
development involves new skills that define the limits of
what can be learned. Children pass through these stages in a
definite sequence, though not necessarily with the same
stage or thoroughness.

The first stage, from birth to about age 2, is the

“sensorimotor stage”. During this period children develop
the ability to hold an image in their minds permanently.
Before they reach this stage. They might assume that an
object ceases to exist when they don’t see it. Any baby-sitter
who has listened to small children screaming themselves to
sleep after seeing their parents leave, and six months later
seen them happily wave good-bye, can testify to this
developmental stage.

15
The second stage, from about age 2 to age 7 is called the
preoperational stage. During this period children learn to
tell the difference between symbols and their meanings. At
the beginning of this stage, children might be upset if
someone stepped on a sand castle that represents their own
home. By the end of the stage, children understand the
difference between symbols and the object they represent.

From about age 7 to age 11, children learn to mentally

perform certain tasks that they formerly did by hand. Piaget
calls this the “concrete operations stage”. For example, if
children in this stage are shown a row of six sticks and are
asked to get the same number from the nearby stack, they
can choose six sticks without having to match each stick in
the row to one in the pile. Younger children, who haven’t
learned the concrete operation of counting, actually line up
sticks from the pile next to the ones in the row in order to
choose the correct number.

The last stage, from about age 12 to age 15, is the “stage of
formal operations. Adolescents in this stage can consider
abstract mathematical, logical and moral problems and
reason about the future. Subsequent mental development
builds on and elaborates the abilities and skills gained
during this stage.

Sigmund Freud:

16
Sigmund Freu’s theory of personality development is
somewhat opposed to Mead’s, since it is based on the belief
that the individual is always in conflict with society.
According to Freud, biological drives (especially sexual ones)
are opposed to cultural norms, and socialization is the
process of taming these drives.

The Three-part self:

Freud’s theory is based on a three-part self; the id, the ego,
and the superego. The id is the source of pleasure-seeking
energy. When energy is discharged, tension is reduced and
feelings of pleasure are produced, the id motivates us to
have sex, eat and excrete, among other bodily functions.

The ego is the overseer of the personality, a sort of traffic

light between the personality and the outside world. The ego
is guided mainly by the reality principle. It will wait for the
right object before discharging the id’s tension. When the id
registers, for example, the ego will block attempts to eat
spare types or poisonous berries, postponing gratification
until food is available.

The superego is an idealized parent: It performs a moral,

judgemental function. The superego demands perfect
behaviour according to the parents’ standards, and later
according to the standards of society at large.

17
All three of these parts are active in children’s personalities.
Children must obey the reality principle, waiting for the
right time and place to give into the id. They must also obey
the moral demands of parents and of their own developing
super egos. The ego is held accountable for actions, and it is
rewarded or punished by the superego with feelings of pride
or guilt.

Stages of Sexual Development:

According to Freud, personality is formed in four stages.
Each of the stages is linked to a specific area of the body an
erogenous zone. During each stage, the desire for
gratification comes into conflict with the limits set by the
parents and latter by the superego.

The first erogenous zone is the mouth. All the infant’s

activities are focussed on getting satisfaction through the
mouth not merely food, but the pleasure of sucking itself.
This is termed the oral phase.

In the second stage, the oral phase, the anus becomes the
primary erogenous zone. This, phase is marked by children’s
struggles for independence as parents try to toilet-train
them. During this period, themes of keeping or letting go of
one’s stools become sailent, as does the more important
issue of who is in control of the world.

18
The third stage is known as the phallic phase. In this stage
the child’s main source of pleasure is the penis/ clitoris. At
this point, Freud believed, boys and girls begin to develop in
different directions.

After a period of latency, in which neither boys nor girls pay

attention to sexual matters, adolescents enter the genital
phase. In this stage some aspects of earlier stages are
retained, but the primary source of pleasure is genital
intercourse with a member of the opposite sex.

Agencies of Socialisation:
Socialisation 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. Through it
that a society maintains its social system. Personalities do
not come ready-made. The process that transforms a child
into a reasonably respectable human being is a long process.

Hence, every society builds an institutional framework

within which socialisation of the child takes place. 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 agencies to socialise the child.

To facilitate socialisation different agencies play important

roles. These agencies are however interrelated.

19
1. Family:
The family plays an outstanding role in the socialisation
process. In all societies other agencies besides the family
contribute to socialisation such as educational institutions,
the peer group etc. But family plays the most important role
in the formation of personality. By the time other agencies
contribute to this process family has already left an imprint
on the personality of the child. The parents use both reward
and punishment to imbibe what is socially required from a
child.

The family has informal control over its members. Family

being a mini society acts as a transmission belt between the
individual and society. It trains the younger generation in
such a way that it can take the adult roles in proper manner.
As family is primary and intimate group, it uses informal
methods of social control to check the undesirable behaviour
on the part of its members. The process of socialisation
remains a process because of the interplay between
individual life cycle and family life cycle.

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.

2. Peer Group:

20
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. Since
members of the peer group are at the same stage of
socialisation, they freely and spontaneously interact with
each other.

The members of peer groups have other sources of

information about the culture and thus the acquisition of
culture goes on. They view the world through the same eyes
and share the same subjective attitudes. In order to be
accepted by his peer group, the child must exhibit the
characteristic attitudes, the likes and dislikes.

Conflict arises when standards of the peer group differ from

the standards of the child’s family. He may consequently
attempt to withdraw from the family environment. The peer
group surpasses the parental influence as time goes on. This
seems to be an inevitable occurrence in rapidly changing
societies.

3. Religion:
Religion play a very important role in socialisation. Religion
instills the fear of hell in the individual so that he should
refrain from bad and undesirable activities. Religion not only

21
makes people religious but socialises them into the secular
order.

4. Educational Institutions:
Parents and peer groups are not the only agencies of the
socialisation in modern societies. Every civilised society
therefore has developed a set of formalised agencies of
education (schools, colleges and universities) which have a
great bearing on the socialisation process. It is in the
educational institutions that the culture is formally
transmitted and acquired in which the science and the art of
one generation is passed on to the next.

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 behaviour pattern is reinforced whereas
undesirable behaviour pattern meets with disapproval,
ridicule and punishment.

In this way, the educational institutions come next to the

family for the purpose of socialisation of the growing child.
Educational institution is a very important socialiser and the
means by which individual acquires social norms and values
(values of achievement, civic ideals, solidarity and group
loyalty etc) beyond those which are available for learning in
the family and other groups.

22
5. Occupation:
In the occupational world the individual finds himself with
new shared interests and goals. He makes adjustments with
the position he holds and also learns to make adjustment
with other workers who may occupy equal or higher or lower
position.

While working, the individual enters into relations of

cooperation, involving specialisation of tasks and at the
same time learns the nature of class divisions. Work, for him,
is a source of income but at the same time it gives identity
and status within society as a whole.

Wilbert Moore has divided occupational socialisation

into four phases:
(a) Career choice,

(b) anticipatory socialisation,

(c) conditioning and commitment,

(d) continues commitment.

(a) Career Choice:

The first phase is career choice, which involves selection of
academic or vocational training appropriate for the desired
job.

(b) Anticipatory Socialisation:

23
The next phase is anticipatory socialisation, which may last
only a few months or extent for years. Some children inherit
their occupations. These young people experience
anticipatory socialisation throughout childhood and
adolescence as they observe their parents at work. Certain
individuals decide on occupational goals at relatively early
ages. The entire adolescent period for them may focus on
training for that future.

(c) Conditioning and Commitment:

The third phase of occupational socialisation takes places
while one actually performs the work-related Role.
Conditioning consists of reluctantly adjusting to the more
unpleasant aspects of one’s job. Most people find that the
novelty of new daily schedule quickly wears off and realise
that the parts of the work experience are rather tedious.
Moore uses the term commitment to refer to the enthusiastic
acceptance of pleasurable duties that come as the recruit
identifies the positive task of an occupation.

(d) Continues Commitment:

According to Moore, if a job proves to be satisfactory, the
person will enter a fourth stage of socialisation. At this stage
the job becomes an indispensable) art of the person’s self
identity. Violation of proper conduct becomes unthinkable. A
person may choose to join professional associations, unions

24
or other groups which represent his or her occupation in the
larger society.

6. Political Parities:
Political parties attempt to seize political power and
maintain it. They try to win the support of the members of
the society on the basis of a socio-economic policy and
programme. In the process they disseminate political values
and norms and socialise the citizen. The political parties
socialise the citizen for stability and change of political
system.

7. Mass Media:
The mass media of communication, particularly television,
play an important role in the process of socialisation. The
mass media of communication transmit informations and
messages which influence the personality of an individual to
a great extent.

In addition to this, communication media has an important

effect in encouraging individuals to support the existing
norms and values or oppose or change them. They are the
instrument of social power. They influence us with their
messages. The words are always written by someone and
these people too – authors and editors and advertisers – join
the teachers, the peers and the parents in the socialisation
process.

25
To conclude, environment stimuli often determine the
growth of human personality. A proper environment may
greatly determine whether the social or the self-centered
forces will become supreme. Individual’s social environment
facilitates socialisation. If his mental and physical capacities
are not good, he may not be able to make proper use of
environment. However, the family plays perhaps the
important part in the process of socialisation.

The child learns much from the family. After family his
playmates and school wield influence on his socialisation.
After his education is over, he enters into a profession.
Marriage initiates a person into social responsibility, which
is one of aims of socialisation. In short the socialisation is a
process which begins at birth and a continues unceasingly
until the death of individual.

Importance of Socialisation:
The process of socialisation is important from the point of
view of society as well as from the point of view of
individual. Every society is faced with the necessity of
making a responsible member out of each child born into it.
The child must learn the expectations of the society so that
his behaviour can be relied upon.

He must acquire the group norms in order to take the

behaviour of others into account. Socialisation means
transmission of culture, the process by which men learn the

26
rules and practices of social groups to which belongs. It is
through it that a society maintain its social system, transmits
its culture from generation to generation.

From the point of view of the individual, socialisation is the

process by which the individual learns social behaviour,
develops his self. Socialisation plays a unique role in
personality development of the individual.

It is the process by which the new born individual, as he

grows up, acquires the values of the group and is moulded
into a social being. Without this no individual could become
a person, for if the values, sentiments and ideas of culture
are not joined to the capacities and needs of the human
organism there could be no human mentality, no human
personality.

The child has no self. The self emerges through the process
of socialisation. The self, the core of personality, develops
out of the child’s interaction with others.

In the socialisation process the individual learns the culture

as well as skills, ranging from language to manual dexterity
which will enable him to become a participating member of
human society.

Socialisation inculcates basic disciplines, ranging from toilet

habits to method of science. In his early years, individual is
also socialised with regard to sexual behaviour.
27
Society is also concerned with imparting the basic goals,
aspirations and values to which the child is expected to
direct his behaviour for the rest of his life. He learns-the
levels to which he is expected to aspire.

Socialisation teaches skills. Only by acquiring needed skills

individual fit into a society. In simple societies, traditional
practices are handed down from generation to generation
and are usually learned by imitation and practice in the
course of everyday life. Socialisation is indeed an intricate
process in a complex society characterised by increasing
specialisation and division of work. In these societies,
inculcating the abstract skills of literacy through formal
education is a central task of socialisation.

Another element in socialisation is the acquisition of the

appropriate social roles that the individual is expected to
play. He knows role expectations, that is what behaviour and
values are a part of the role he will perform. He must desire
to practise such behaviour and pursue such ends.

Role performance is very important in the process of

socialisation. As males, females, husbands, wives, sons,
daughters, parents, children, student’s teachers and so on,
accepted social roles must be learned if the individual is to
play a functional and predictable part in social interaction.

28
In this way man becomes a person through the social
influences which he shares with others and through his own
ability to respond and weave his responses into a unified
body of habits, attitudes and traits. But man is not the
product of socialisation alone. He is also, in part, a product
of heredity. He generally possesses, the inherited potential
that can make him a person under conditions of maturation
and conditioning

29