Effect of Socialization

Normally defined as the process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and learns the norms, values and social skills appropriate to his or her social position, Socialization , I believe is the general course of one’s life. Human infants are born without any culture. They need to be transformed into socially adept animals for a mentally healthy and satisfying life. Thus, Socialization begins when an individual is born. Being essentially social animals, people engage in relationships with others thus acting as socializing agents. For an infant, the family proves to be his “school of love”. Through examples, rewards and the concept of discipline, adults impart their rules of social interaction on the young, thus providing a foundation for them to live as a social being in the wider society. The successful existence and development of a society, therefore, depends largely upon the socialization children receive at home.
However with the rapid rate of modernization in the past couple of decades, the world is today on its way to becoming a global village. One is needed to strive hard to be able to sustain himself, giving him very little time to engage in socio- cultural activities with his loved ones. Moreover, with more and more nuclear families coming into the picture, children of today are being enrolled into playschool and pre – nurseries, tremendously increasing the pressure on these educational institutions.
Today, ones school has become his/her first environment. More often than less, a child learns his or her values from his teacher, understands social norms amidst his or her friends and becomes aware of his own culture by understanding the difference between the various others. Thus, a school is today, one of the strongest socializing agents potentially possessing the power to make or break one’s life.

One a more personal level, being educated in the UAE, I couldn’t agree more to the above stated facts. I distinctly remember my first day at