Sociology and Socialization

Socialization Socialization, which is the process of people learning the attitudes and behaviors appropriate for members of a particular culturei, plays an important key role in our daily life. An agent of socialization, such as family, school, workplace, peer group, mass media and religion, is an individual or institution tasked with the replication of the social order. It is responsible for transferring the rules, norms, values and folkways of a given social order, and it influences and orientates people’s personality and lifestyle. The first and most important agent in socialization is the family. Families are those whom guide us to grow up and become individuals since our birth. We learned how to speak and walk with the help of our family, and we adopt the beliefs, values, and attitudes from those who raised us. And usually, these ideas stay with us for the rest of our life. Without these foundations, we could never become part of this civilized society. Just like the experiment from the textbook, the girl who was isolated in the all closed-up dark room from human contacts since her birth did not know how to speak; she acted like a wild animal. People are created of what’s around us. For me as an example, I was raised in a traditional Chinese family, and it had a huge impact on establishing who I am today. I’ve always been working hard, acting conservative, and being respectful to elders even though I live in a country thousands mills away from my hometown because these are what I was taught in my childhood, and I’m already used to acting in this way even without my parents’ whines. School, workplace and peers are some other big socialization agents too. School and workplace provide the best opportunities for us to meet people and make friends. While a family forms our basic values, peer groups have greater influences in our lifestyle because we most of the time are with our friends. A friend circle determines how we socialize and a healthy peer group