Socialization: by Kipruto Kirui

Socialization
By kipruto kirui
Objectives
At the end of this chapter students will be able to:
• Define the term "socialization";
• Appreciate the aims of socialization;
• Describe human biological bases of, and capacity for, socialization;
• Understand the modes of social learning;
• Identify the modes and /or patterns of
socialization;
• Describe the major types of socialization; and
• Describe the components and agents of socialization.
Definition
• Socialization is a process of making somebody social and fully
human.
• Or more appropriately, it is a process whereby individual
persons learn and are trained in the basic norms, values,
beliefs, skills, attitudes, way of doing and acting as appropriate
to a specific social group or society.
• It is an on-going, never ending process- from cradle to the
grave.
• That means an individual person passes thorough various
stages of socialization, from birth to death.
• Socialization may be formal or informal.
• It becomes formal when it is conducted by formally organized
social groups and institutions, like schools, religious centers,
mass media universities, work places, military training centers,
internships, etc.
• It is informal when it is carried out through the informal social
interactions and relationships at micro-levels, at interpersonal
and small social group levels.
The Goals of Socialization
• To inculcate basic disciplines by restraining a child or even an adult

from immediate gratification; a child who is toilet-trained will delay
relieving himself/ herself until the proper environment is created.
• To instill aspirations;
• To teach social roles;
• To teach skills;
• To teach conformity to norms; and
• To create acceptable and constructive personal identities.
The five human biological bases of socialization
• Absence of instinct
• Social contact needs
• Capacity to learn and teachability
• Capacity for language
• Longer period of childhood dependence
Modes of Social Learning
• Sociologists have, however, identified four modes of

social learning. These are: conditioning, identity taking,
modeling-after and problem solving.
• Conditioning: This involves learning based on the
principle of association.
• Conditioning refers to the response pattern which is built
into an organism as a result of stimuli in the environment.
Operant and classical conditioning
• There is what is called classical conditioning in which the
response remains constant while the stimuli vary, as in
Pavilovian experiment.
• In contrast, in operant or instrumental conditioning,
response is controlled.
• Conditioning is important in socialization in that through
classical conditioning children learn to respond to various social
and man-made stimuli;
• and through operant conditioning, they learn to inhibit certain
response and adopt others as habitual.
Identity Taking:
• Studies show that children begin to identify themselves and others by sex and learn to behave in
the normative gendered ways according to the society of which they parts.
• This happens by age five.
• Researchers of socialization believe that sex-type behavior emerges through operant conditioning.
• Emerges through operant conditioning.
• However, it is not the case that conditioning alone accounts for sex-differences in behavior,
although the individuals take their identity of maleness and femaleness through approval and
disapproval as well as reward and punishment.
Modeling After
• Children learn to model their behavior after someone who is an

admired, loved or feared figure.
• This is considered as a typical stage in personality formation
and in the development of personal autonomy and social
involvement.
• Through modeling after someone, our behavior acquires
meaning and coherence.
Problem Solving
• The above three mechanisms of social learning are ways in

which individuals internalize the values and norms of society.
• They may be termed as modes of internalization.
• However, social learning transcends beyond simply internalizing
values and norms.
• It also includes learning to involve in cooperative and conflict-
ridden activities, to cope with new situations and to achieve
one's goals.
Patterns of Socialization
• There are two broadly classified patterns of socialization.

• These are: Repressive and participatory socialization.
• Repressive socialization is oriented towards gaining obedience,
while participatory socialization is oriented towards gaining the
participation of the child.
• Punishment of wrong behavior and rewarding and reinforcing
good behavior are involved in the two kinds of socialization,
respectively.
•
Repressive Socialization Participatory Socialization
• Punishing wrong behavior • Rewarding good behavior
• Material rewards and • Symbolic rewards and
punishment punishment
• Obedience of child • Autonomy of child
• Non-verbal communication • Verbal communication
• Communication as command • Communication as
interaction
• Parent-centered socialization • Child-centered
socialization
• Child's discernment of • Parents' discernment of
parents' wishes child's needs
• Family as significant other • Family as generalized other
Major Types of Socialization
Box 3.2. Major types of socialization

o Primary or childhood socialization
o Secondary or adult socialization
o Re-socialization
o De-socialization
o Anticipatory socialization
o Reverse socialization
• Primary socialization: This is also called basic or early socializatio
• The human infant who is a biological being or organism is changed
into a social being mainly at this early stage.
• Secondary socialization: Secondary or adult socialization is
necessitated when individual take up new roles, reorienting
themselves according to their changes social statuses and roles, as in
starting marital life.
• Re-socialization means the adoption by adults of radically
different norms and lifeways that are more or less completely
dissimilar to the previous norms and values.
• Desocialization refers to stripping individuals of their former life
styles, beliefs, values and attitudes so that they may take up
other partially or totally new life styles, attitudes and values.
• Anticipatory socialization refers to the process of adjustment
and adaptation in which individuals try to learn and internalize
the roles, values, attitudes and skills of a social status or
occupation for which they are likely recruits in the future.
• Reverse socialization refers to the process of socialization
whereby the dominant socializing persons, such as parents,
happen to be in need of being socialized themselves by those
whom they socialize, such as children.
Agents and components of sociolization
• Agents of socialization are the different groups of people and
institutional arrangements which are responsible for training
new members of society.
• Some of them could be formal, while others are informal.
• They help individual members get into the overall activities of
their society.
• There are three components to socialization process.
• There is the socializee who could be either a newborn child, a
recruit to the army or the police force or a freshman in a college
or an intern in medical service.
• Then again there are the socializers who may be parents, peer
groups, community members, teachers or church members.
• Both the socializee and the socializer interact with one another
not in a vacuum but in a social environment which plays an
important role in the socialization process.
• These different socializing environments are called socialization
settings.

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Socialization

• To inculcate basic disciplines by restraining a child or even an adult

• Sociologists have, however, identified four modes of

• Children learn to model their behavior after someone who is an

• The above three mechanisms of social learning are ways in

• There are two broadly classified patterns of socialization.

Box 3.2. Major types of socialization

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