Discuss ‘we are never completely socialised, or are we?’

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Discuss ‘we are never completely socialized, or are we?’
Socialization is the process by which living organisms both human and animals acquire culture and learn how to exist with one another. It starts from the birth of an infant until death. Every infant is born without any personality, and it learns the culture of the society where it is born. Socialization is passed from one generation to another, and it involves learning communication languages, learning how to associate with other beings, learning the duties one is expected to play in the society among others. Socialization can be termed as a gradual process whereby an individual’s obtain a personal identity through learning the values, behaviors, norms, and social skills that is convenient to his or her social status (Thornton, Kim, and Buck, 176). It is taught by various agents such as school, family, peers and mass media that create a context in which socialization takes place.
Consequently, socialization in human beings has features such as basic discipline in the individual learning control in order to fit in the society; human behavior control where there are procedures that control individual’s life in order to maintain order in the society. This can be both formal and informal since it is learned through instructions in education institutions as well as informally through families and peers (Thornton, Kim, and Buck, 176). Furthermore, it is a continuous process in life due to the fact that it never stops even after one becomes an adult and is passed through generations.

It is also rapid if there is humanity in the agencies of socialization since it tends to be slow whenever there is a conflict between the ideas and skills learned formally or informally (Samiksha, 1).
Contrarily, the importance of socialization can be viewed in two perspectives. The first one is from the society point of view, where it is the society’s responsibility to ensure that an individual is well socialized in order to fit in the society’s norms and culture. This helps the society to maintain order among its social beings. From an individual point of view, it helps in social growth and development. It is through socialization that a newborn child learns the norms and culture that mold him or her to fit into social groups. Therefore, this is vital in developing an individual’s personality. It is through socialization that an individual learns different skills or basic behaviors. These skills or behaviors are also advanced as he or she socializes more.
Since we have defined socialization as a lifelong process, several steps are incorporated in this process. For instance, the process can occur formally or informally simultaneously. When a person is born, he has no knowledge of anything (Thornton, Kim, and Buck, 176). Gradually from the parents and those close to him or her, the child starts to learn. They directly or indirectly learn through observations and listening to the language as well as the culture in the society they are born. They then start imitating whatever they are observing or hearing, and this starts molding their personality. This is why most of the times children are seen role-playing, and the content of the games they play is mainly what they have observed.
With time they get more advanced and learn their statuses in the society where they can start learning how to apply them. As they grow, they start learning the difference between right and wrong. Additionally, they learn what things or behaviors are considered right or wrong. The learning continues both at home and in school. In school, they are formally taught by professionals, and they start acquiring formal skills for their future careers. Also in school, they interact with their peers and adopt some skills such as making friends through knowing how to relate to friends. We also learn things such a gender both formally and informally (O’Neil, 1).
Apart from families, peers, and school, some experiences also form part of agents of socialization. For instance, something may occur, and you learn lessons from it. More ever, the experience may be good or bad depending with the societal norm (O’Neil, 1). For instance, we may have learned from the society it is good to trust others, but a person may learn not to trust due to an incidence such as rape. As we grow up, we move into employments and meet with people from diverse cultures. In as much as we have learned how to behave in our cultural norms, we get to learn other people’s culture for peaceful coexistence and have a healthy working environment. Sometimes we envy other people’s culture such as religion, and we get interested in learning more about it (O’Neil, 1).
From learning from others, our personal self-forms part of socialization. When we grow up, we sometimes change what we have learned since we feel that we there is a certain way that we would like others to see us. This includes our behaviors, thoughts, manners, etc. in other words we use others as a mirror to mold ourselves.
In order to understand socialization as a process, it is important to look at the agencies of socialization. Starting with the family, which is the most important agent of socialization as it helps in the formation of an individual’s personality right from childhood. As we grow up, we continue learning from the society and another agent is introduced that is the aspect of peers. In order for us to be accepted into peer groups, we acquire features that exhibit our likes and dislikes. The other agent is the education institutions that we formally get introduced to certain cultures.
After school, we get absorbed into occupation. In this sector, we learn how to adjust our positions in order to accommodate our colleagues and other people in our professions. This is because we meet people with shared interests and we have to adjust ours to coexist in harmony. In every society, there is a political part of it, and it forms the other agent of socialization. When we become adults, we learn about politics and start understanding political representations as part of our life. We affiliate ourselves to parties that represent our values and interests. Mass media also helps mold our social life as it influences our mentality on what is right and what is wrong. The mass media transmit information that is compiled by people in the society who also influence out values and personalities (Samiksha, 1).
In conclusion, it is evident that we are never completely socialized as every day we move from one setting to another and environment to another where we learn different values. As we grow, we learn various social values at every stage of life from childhood to adulthood from families, schools, workplace and also in marriage life. We start by learning from our family members then school professionals as well as playmates then workmates and also from our marriage partners. Stage is socialization, and we cannot put an end to our socialization as long as we interact with others and want to exist in harmony.Work Cited
BIBLIOGRAPHY O’Neil, Denis. “Socialization.” Anthropalomar education web site, 2011. http://anthro.palomar.edu/social/soc_1.htm.
Samiksha, S. “Socialization: The Meaning, Features, Types, Stages and Importance.”YourArticleLibrary Website, 2016. http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/sociology/socialisation-the-meaning-features-types-stages-and-importance/8529/.
Thornton, Kim C, and Buck Jones. Socialization. New York: BowTie Inc, 2013. Internet resource.