SOCILAIZATION
Vikas Kumar Sharma
AIBAS AUMP
The Socialization process
The process of socialization
• is the process of learning and internalizing the
values, beliefs, and norms of our social group
and by which we become functioning members
of society.
• The socialization process begins in infancy and
is especially productive once a child begins to
understand and use language
• but it also is a lifelong process that continues
into adulthood.
The process of socialization
Is a twofold process:
1. The process by which a society, culture, or
group teaches individuals to become
functioning members
2. The process by which we internalize the values
and norms of the group
• Works both on the individual as on the social
level: we learn our society’s way of life and
make it our own
2 main goals of socialization
1. It teaches members the skills necessary to
satisfy basic human needs and to defend
themselves against danger, in order to
ensure that society itself will continue to exist
2. It teaches individuals the norms, values and
believes associates with their culture and
provides ways to ensure that members
adhere to their shared way of life
Becoming biographies?
Theories of socialization
Freud: the importance of the unconscious
The unconscious goes deep
“the cornerstone of my work is the
workings of the repressed
unconscious: people’s lives are partly
shaped by emotional experiences,
traumas and ‘family romances’ which
then become too difficult to confront
and so become hidden from the
surface workings of life, while still
motivating our actions”
Sigmund Freud
Id, superego and ego
• Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic approach divides the mind into
three interrelated systems:
1. The id consists of basic inborn drives that are the source of
instinctive psychic energy. It is based on pleasure principle.
2. The superego is composed of the conscience, which serves to
keep us from engaging in socially undesirable behavior, and
the ego-ideal, which upholds our vision of who we believe we
should ideally be. The superego represents the internalized
demands of society. It is based on moral principle.
3. The ego is the realistic aspect of the mind that balances the
forces of the id and superego. It follows the reality principle.
Freud’s importance to sociology
• Freud’s notion that we internalize social norms
and that childhood experiences have a lasting
impact on socialization
• just as human beings develop through
instinctual repression, so civilisation as a
whole advances through controls. Civilisation,
then, depends upon repression but in the
process it generates many problems
Agents of socialization
Agents of socialization
• Agents of socialization are the social groups,
institutions, and individuals that provide structured
situations in which socialization takes place.
• Name 4 different agents of socialization?
• The four predominant agents of socialization are:
– the family
– Schools
– peers
– the mass media.
Family, schools, peers and the mass media
• The family is the single most significant agent of socialization in and
teaches us the basic values and norms that shape our identity.
• Schools provide education and socialize us through a direct as well as
a hidden curriculum (a set of behavioral traits such as punctuality,
neatness, discipline, hard work, competition, and obedience) that
teaches many of the behaviors that will be important later in life.
• Peers provide very different social skills and can become more
immediately significant than the family, especially as children move
through adolescence.
• The media has become an important agent of socialization, often
overriding the family and other institutions in instilling values and
norms.