Ch-8 Socialisation
Process by which individuals acquire the knowledge, language, social skills, and value to conform to the norms and roles required for integration into a group or community. It is a combination of both self-imposed (because the
individual wants to conform) and externally-imposed rules, and the expectations of the others. In an organizational setting, socialization refers to the
process through which a new employee 'learns the ropes,' by becoming
sensitive to the formal and informal power structure and the explicit and implicit rules of behavior.
Stages of Socialisation:
A view quite different from Freud’s theory of personality
has been proposed by Jean Piaget. Piaget’s theory deals with cognitive
development, or the process of learning how to think. According to Piaget, each
stage of cognitive development involves new skills that define the limits of
what can be learned. Children pass through these stages in a definite sequence,
though not necessarily with the same stage or thoroughness.
The first stage, from birth
to about age 2, is the “sensorimotor stage”. During this period children
develop the ability to hold an image in their minds permanently. Before they
reach this stage. They might assume that an object ceases to exist when they
don’t see it. Any baby-sitter who has listened to small children screaming
themselves to sleep after seeing their parents leave, and six months later seen
them happily wave good-bye, can testify to this developmental stage.
The second stage, from
about age 2 to age 7 is called the preoperational stage. During this period
children learn to tell the difference between symbols and their meanings. At
the beginning of this stage, children might be upset if someone stepped on a
sand castle that represents their own home. By the end of the stage, children
understand the difference between symbols and the object they represent.
From about age 7 to age 11,
children learn to mentally perform certain tasks that they formerly did by
hand. Piaget calls this the “concrete operations stage”. For example, if
children in this stage are shown a row of six sticks and are asked to get the
same number from the nearby stack, they can choose six sticks without having to
match each stick in the row to one in the pile. Younger children, who haven’t
learned the concrete operation of counting, actually line up sticks from the
pile next to the ones in the row in order to choose the correct number.
The last stage, from about
age 12 to age 15, is the “stage of formal operations. Adolescents in this stage
can consider abstract mathematical, logical and moral problems and reason about
the future. Subsequent mental development builds on and elaborates the
abilities and skills gained during this stage.
Agencies of Socialisation:
Socialisation is a process
by which culture is transmitted to the younger generation and men learn the
rules and practices of social groups to which they belong. Through it that a
society maintains its social system. Personalities do not come ready-made. The
process that transforms a child into a reasonably respectable human being is a
long process.
Hence, every society builds
an institutional framework within which socialisation of the child takes place.
Culture is transmitted through the communication they have with one another and
communication thus comes to be the essence of the process of culture
transmission. In a society there exists a number of agencies to socialise the
child.
To facilitate socialisation
different agencies play important roles. These agencies are however
interrelated.
1. Family:
The family plays an
outstanding role in the socialisation process. In all societies other agencies
besides the family contribute to socialisation such as educational
institutions, the peer group etc. But family plays the most important role in
the formation of personality. By the time other agencies contribute to this
process family has already left an imprint on the personality of the child. The
parents use both reward and punishment to imbibe what is socially required from
a child.
The family has informal
control over its members. Family being a mini society acts as a transmission
belt between the individual and society. It trains the younger generation in
such a way that it can take the adult roles in proper manner. As family is
primary and intimate group, it uses informal methods of social control to check
the undesirable behaviour on the part of its members. The process of
socialisation remains a process because of the interplay between individual
life cycle and family life cycle.
According to Robert. K.
Merton, “it is the family which is a major transmission belt for the diffusion
of cultural standards to the oncoming generation”. The family serves as “the
natural and convenient channel of social continuity.
2. Peer
Group:
Peer Group means a group in
which the members share some common characteristics such as age or sex etc. It
is made up of the contemporaries of the child, his associates in school, in
playground and in street. The growing child learns some very important lessons
from his peer group. Since members of the peer group are at the same stage of
socialisation, they freely and spontaneously interact with each other.
The members of peer groups
have other sources of information about the culture and thus the acquisition of
culture goes on. They view the world through the same eyes and share the same
subjective attitudes. In order to be accepted by his peer group, the child must
exhibit the characteristic attitudes, the likes and dislikes.
Conflict arises when
standards of the peer group differ from the standards of the child’s family. He
may consequently attempt to withdraw from the family environment. The peer
group surpasses the parental influence as time goes on. This seems to be an
inevitable occurrence in rapidly changing societies.
3. Religion:
Religion play a very
important role in socialisation. Religion instills the fear of hell in the
individual so that he should refrain from bad and undesirable activities.
Religion not only makes people religious but socialises them into the secular
order.
4. Educational
Institutions:
Parents and peer groups are
not the only agencies of the socialisation in modern societies. Every civilised
society therefore has developed a set of formalised agencies of education
(schools, colleges and universities) which have a great bearing on the
socialisation process. It is in the educational institutions that the culture
is formally transmitted and acquired in which the science and the art of one
generation is passed on to the next.
The educational
institutions not only help the growing child in learning language and other
subjects but also instill the concept of time, discipline, team work,
cooperation and competition. Through the means of reward and punishment the
desired behaviour pattern is reinforced whereas undesirable behaviour pattern
meets with disapproval, ridicule and punishment.
In this way, the
educational institutions come next to the family for the purpose of socialisation
of the growing child. Educational institution is a very important socialiser
and the means by which individual acquires social norms and values (values of
achievement, civic ideals, solidarity and group loyalty etc) beyond those which
are available for learning in the family and other groups.
5. Occupation:
In the occupational world
the individual finds himself with new shared interests and goals. He makes
adjustments with the position he holds and also learns to make adjustment with
other workers who may occupy equal or higher or lower position.
While working, the
individual enters into relations of cooperation, involving specialisation of
tasks and at the same time learns the nature of class divisions. Work, for him,
is a source of income but at the same time it gives identity and status within
society as a whole.
