Essay Example on Essential Role of Agents of Socialization in Society

Introduction

The agents of socialization are an essential aspect of socialization in any culture and community. In the society, it is the responsibility of the agents of socialization to ensure that an individual is worthy of being part of the community as they provide vital information that will help individuals to function as a member of the community successfully. Some of this information includes rules, values as well as expectations of the society. The agents of socialization are connected as they include both individuals and institutions that work together to internalize the values, social controls as well as the norms of the society in regards to what is right or wrong. The agents of socialization include family, education, peer groups, religion, work, mass media, and social media. Therefore, to understand my socialization experience with key agents of socialization, it is imperative that I understand the agents of socialization who played important roles in shaping my life as well as the theory that can be used to explain the development of self best. I should also explain how mass media and social media may contribute to an institutionalized system of unequal socialization experiences.

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Persons who Played Important Roles in Shaping My Life

My family, as an agent of socialization, has a great influence on my socialization experience. My family comprises of my parents and two older siblings. From my family, I have learned how to interpret and internalize the values of the society in which we live. My parents also taught me how to behave and think, as well as what is right or wrong. Through my family, I also learned values such as sharing, honesty, and discipline as they corrected me whenever I strayed from the correct path. Therefore, through my interaction with my family, I developed an inkling of the person I have become as they taught me how to care for myself as well as how to cultivate my internal feelings and external opinions to help me develop into a better person. My family also taught me the importance of close relationships as well as the importance of sharing resources. It is through their help and support that I first learned to coexist with the other people in the community peacefully.

My friends have also influenced my socialization experiences as my peer group is made from diverse people from different background. Through my interactions with m friends, I have learned how to cooperate, compete, and resolve conflicts within my peer groups. Furthermore, my friends have also helped me to gain my independence from my family as they help me to develop a different way of thinking and acting, which is not always similar to that of my family. My friends have also influenced my decisions and behavior as I tend to spend most of my free time with them. Therefore, through the help of my friends as agents of socialization, I have become an individual who is accepted and supported by my society.

Mass Media and Social Media as Contributors to an Institutionalized System of Unequal Socialization Experiences

Mass media and social media are key agents of socialization as they influence the preference f an individual in popular culture. Both mass and social media relay impersonal information through a one-way direction to a passive audience in the form of commercials, which affects our choices in products. In addition, both forms of media may expose children as well as young adults to negative scenarios through the portrayal of negative assumption of each gender. Moreover, both mass and social media empower the audience by giving them information that is not only related to their resident territory but also about the world, thus changing the world to a global village.

Mass communication media such as television greatly influences the behavior of children and young adults through the messages it communicates to them. For instance, through the numerous movies, music, and advertisements, children learn social identities that are associated by their gender such that boys learn from a tender age that they need to be strong and ready to fight while girls learn that they need to be pretty to attain high self-worth. As a result, both genders are objectified into the products that they use (CCFCvideo, 2008). Furthermore, the media, through advertisements, also highlight assumptions that further contribute to social inequalities. For instance, Marie (2009) illustrated how women were portrayed as inferior to men through advertisements which pointed out the gender roles of women as domestic workers who are meant to stay at home, cook and clean while men go to work, spend their free time watching television or having fun with their friends. Furthermore, at school, boys may also be selected to perform more physical activities, while girls are assigned less physical activities. This stereotype presented by the media, combined with the behavior of parents while bringing up the child can influence the children and teenagers to conform to the stereotypic roles assigned to them.

The advertisements presented by the mass media are also aimed at children in an attempt to convert them into life-long consumers who are shallow-minded as they only think about themselves and themselves, themselves now and themselves with the product (CCFCvideo, 2008). Thus, the advertisements venture into schools which are meant to be commercial-free zones. When students find advertisements within the school walls, they are prone to think that the product being advertised is good (ChallengingMedia, 2006). However, the children may not realize that the goals of education and the goals of advertising are different such that education aims at making the child dig deeper to identify the solution while advertisements provide the student with an easier solution which may not be correct (ChallengingMedia, 2006). Additionally, the media may also create different social classes among children through the advertisements made. For instance, if a child gets all the toys that are similar to the ones advertised, they may start believing that they are superior to those who do not have the same toys. As a result, the child may choose to interact with children who have the same toys and segregate those who do not have the same toys.

The Theory of "The Self"

The theory of the self was developed by George Mead, and it focuses on the notion that the social self is founded on the assumption that the self develops from social interactions such as interacting or observing other people in the community. Moreover, the theory also explains that the self can be developed from responding or internalizing the external opinions and internal feelings about oneself. Mead also stated that the self is developed over time through three activities; language, play, and games. Language helps to develop the self by enabling people to respond to each other, thus conveying attitudes and opinions. Play helps to develop one through enabling the individual to take part in different roles and express their expectation of others while game develops self through the understanding that there are rules to the activity that an individual must abide to be successful.

The theory of the self has two sides; 'I' and 'me.' The 'me' represents the attitudes as well as expectations of others from the society while the 'I' represents the identity of the individual based on the response to 'me.' According to Mead, the 'me' and 'I' have a moral relationship where the 'me' exercises the societal control over one's self as it prevents one from breaking the rules of societal expectation. The 'I' helps the individual to express individualism and creativity. This theory helped me to understand that I can adhere to the expectations of the society while at the same time maintain my individuality and creativity through practicing self-reflection to understand how I can become the person I want to be while at the same time observe the expectations of the society.

Do you think the agents of socialization in society contribute to America's social class system?

Yes. I believe that the agents of socialization, such as the family and school, contribute to social class in the American system. The family, as an agent of socialization, impacts the perception of a child. Children often want to become more like their parents when they grow up. Furthermore, socializing agents teach us what society expects from us as well as what is normal in such a way that we accept and internalize what they say. Thus, when they teach us that specific inequalities are normal, we are more likely to accept the idea. For instance, if our teachers tell us that it is normal for some people to be rich and others to be poor, we tend to accept and assign ourselves to the same role. Moreover, Putten, (2001) explained that the oddness between the social class of one's background and the social class of their current environment might create confusion and discontent among students from working-class backgrounds thus leading to them feeling out of place in a social class that is higher than that of their origin.

References

CCFCvideo. (2008, June 20). Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood (Trailer)[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maeXjey_FGA&list=PL570DE42E5A93D888

ChallengingMedia. (2006, October 4). Captive Audience: Advertising Invades the Classroom[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INJqXB_qFbo

Marie, A. (2009, February 11). Gender Stereotyping of Women in the Media [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z6ks8Z0X20

Putten, J. V. (2001). Bringing: Social Class: To the Diversity Challenge. About Campus: Enriching the Student Learning Experience, 6(5), 14-19. doi:10.1177/108648220100600504