AGENTS OF SOCIALIZATION
There are a number of things that can affect an individual’s socialization process. The amount of impact that each of the agents has on an individual will depend on the situation, the individuals experiences, and the stage of life the individual is in.
Taken from Canadian Society: a Changing Tapestry, 1994, 36.
We are going to look closely at 4 of the above.
Family
First emotional tie
Greatest impact on
socialization process
First place to learn
language, norms, and values of the culture
May be problematic
Parents/Guardians may
reproduce negative modeling that they experienced as a child
Schools
Opens the door to a new
social world
Provides importance
that society places on gender and race
Provides information to
individuals understand themselves and others
Provides skills to
function as a citizen and a worker
Exposure to inequality
First experience of
economics and social status
Reduces opportunities
for control and makes children feel less competent
Peers
Influential from late
childhood through adolescence and early adulthood
Learn how to form
relationships without adult supervision
May encourage good and
bad interests
May guide short term
choices
Change behaviour and
personality to be accepted by peers
Mass Media
Represents impersonal
communication directed at a certain audience
Major type of secondary
socialization
Influences people’s
behaviour through modeling and imitation
The mass
media can create and influence/control perceptions of what is important in
society selecting and stressing particular topics, views,
interpretations, and themes.
Advertising secretly manipulates the audience