Agents of Socialization
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Socialization is the process by which people learn how to interact with others as well as the expectations of the society towards them (Arnon, Shamai & Ilatou 376). People learn how to talk, feed, walk and the norms and values that guide them through life. In this regard, they can fit well in the society they live in (Arnon, Shamai & Ilatou 380). The groups and people who help in socialization are called agents of socialization. Here we shall look at two agents of socialization. We will focus on the peers and the family as well as compare both in their roles.
The family forms an important agent of socialization since it is from the family that children learn how to form relationships (Arnon, Shamai & Ilatou 379). The first set of norms and values are learnt within the family (Arnon, Shamai & Ilatou 383).
On the other hand, the peers form a most important agent of socialization. In this case, the norms and values are learnt from people of the same age group or age set (Arnon, Shamai & Ilatou 389). In this regard, the people at this level share common interests. Unlike in the family, peers learn how to behave without the watching eye of an adult in their life (Arnon, Shamai & Ilatou 380)
The peers are an important agent of socialization since one spends most of the time with peers. From the moment they learn to make friends, to the time they become adults, people spend most of their time with peers (Arnon, Shamai & Ilatou 386). Peers therefore, play a major role in shaping the behavior of the people. There is always that sense of wanting to belong because of the extent of time spent with peers. Therefore, more often than not, the people find themselves associating with the values learnt among the peers than those learnt elsewhere.
Peers, by the fact that they are from different families come together with different set of learnt values. This added to the age gap between the peers and their parents always tend to develop values that contradict those learnt in the family.
These behaviors learnt among peers see people, especially those in schools, even at the college levels in rebellion to their parents (Arnon, Shamai & Ilatou 380). This is because they often try to identify with the peers with whom they spend most of their time with and with whom they share interests (Arnon, Shamai & Ilatou 376). However, our reactions towards peer influence were dictated more by the values we learnt at the family level (Arnon, Shamai & Ilatou 385).
We learnt these values as children. The need to belong to a group however, made most of us conflict with our superiors including our parents. In our desire to establish independence, we often found ourselves going contrary to those values we were given as children in preference to those of our peers. This more often than not got us on a collision path with our parents and those older than us.
In conclusion, peers as agent of socialization are very strong. They tend to influence much of our behavior, whether positively or negatively. Whichever way, their influence on the socialization process cannot be overemphasized. Striking a perfect balance between values learnt elsewhere and the influence of the peers is therefore very important. The point here is that we need to take those norms and values that are beneficial to us and reject those that do not add value to our lives.
Works cited
Arnon, S., Shamai, S. & Ilatou, Z. Socialization Agents and Activities of Young Adults. Libra Publishers Inc. Sandiego C.A. 2008, 378-396.