It is impossible to be born as personality. Each of us becomes personality. This happens during the process of socialization. To socialize means learning how to live in the society, among people, having mastered the rules and norms of behavior. It also means fitting into existing social relations, such as economic, political, cultural, national, religious, and interpersonal. Socialization is both natural and directed process, at it is some kind of “entry” into the society. A person does not become personality if he does not pass the socialization. Moreover, any person does not acquire social qualities. The main aim of agents of socialization essay is to find out the content of socialization and essential agents of socialization.

What Does Contain The Socialization In Itself?

Our custom essay writing service will be glad to answer this question. If look on the thesis in the total psychology, which states about such thing, that any personality is not born, but becomes personality, it is clear, that socialization hides under its context the process of personality’s formation, which begins from the first minutes of life. There are three areas, in which the becoming of personality is carried out:

• activity;
• communication;
• self-awareness.

Each of these areas should be considered separately. A common characteristic of these all areas is the process of expansion and multiplying of the individual’s social relations with the outside world.

Let us look first on activity. Throughout the process of socialization individual deals with the extension of activities’ catalog. Moreover, person masters newer activities. Thus, three processes are more important. First, this is orientation in the system of bonds, which is present in each form of activity and between its different types. It is carried out through the personal meanings, therefore means identification for each individual especially significant aspects of the work, and not just clarification of them, but also their development. One could call the product of this as the personal choice of activity. Consequently, there is the second process, which has name of centering on main and chosen one, focusing on it and its subordination of all other activities. Finally, the third process is the development by the person new roles and understanding their significance during the realization of activity. If briefly express the essence of these changes in the activity’s system of already developed individual, it can be said, that it is a process of expanding an individual’s capabilities as the subject of activity.

The second area, which has name communication, is considered in the context of socialization also from the side of its expansion and deepening, which is obvious because of close link of communication with activity. The expansion of communication can be understood as multiplication of human contacts with other people, the specifics of these contacts at each age range. As for deepening of communication, it is primarily transition from monological communication to dialogical. It means decentration – ability to focus on the partner, a more accurate perception of him.

Finally, the third sphere of socialization is the development of self-awareness. In most general terms, we can say, that the process of socialization means the becoming in human the image of his own “I” being. Thanks to numerous experimental studies, it is established, the image of “I” being does not appear at once. It develops under the influence of numerous social influences. There are several different approaches to the structure of “I” being. The most common scheme involves three components into the meaning of this image:

• cognitive (self-knowledge);
• emotional (self-assessment);
• behavioral (self-attitude).

The most important fact, which emphasizes during the study of self-consciousness, is in that it cannot be represented as a simple list of features, but as understanding of the personality himself as a certain integrity in the definition of own identity.

That is why the process of socialization can be understood only as a unity of all three designated areas’ changes. Taken as one whole being, they create for individual “expanding reality” in which he acts, learns and communicates, thus, not only learning the immediate microenvironment, but also the entire system of social relations.

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What Does The Concept “Agents of Socialization” Mean?

In previous paragraph, we are acquainted with the content of socialization. However, what do we have in mind when we talk about such term as agents of socialization? In common words, agents of socialization are certain people, who teach human cultural norms and help to absorb the social roles. We can consider the agents of primary and secondary socialization.

Agents of primary socialization are people who make up the nearest human environment. They consist of:

• parents;
• friends;
• relatives.

They perform many functions (father – educator, friend, guardian, teacher, etc.). Their functions are interchangeable (for example, father under certain conditions can assume the mother’s functions in relation to the child). At the same time, each agent gives to the individual in the process of socialization the certain thing, which he usually can give. For example, parents can replace friends for the child, but they cannot teach him, what he learns from his friends:

• ability to fight;
• ability to cheat;
• ability to violate certain social norms;
• ability to be the leader in the group;
• ability to handle with contemporaries.

Agents of secondary socialization are representatives of the administration of school, university, army, enterprises, political parties, media etc. Contacts with these agents are short and their influence is generally weaker in compare with the primary agents of socialization. Each of them performs no more than one function and their functions have certain specifics. Therefore, they cannot be interchangeable (e.g. functions of police officer and priest). The peculiarity of these agents is in that they tend to receive remuneration for the performance of their functions.

The term “institutions of socialization” has the closest links with “agents of socialization”. In common words, this term means institutions, which affect the process of socialization. They develop personality by expanding his knowledge about the world and understanding what behavior is desirable and undesirable. They also divide on two types, as institutions of primary and secondary socialization.Family, group of friends or classmates can be great example of institutions of primary socialization.

• forms the first and strong social links. Human begins to speak the language, learns the basic elements of culture in family.  Family forms human identity in the categories of gender, race, nationality and religion. Psychologists believe, that human gains 20 percent of his prospective intellect to the end of his first year of life, 50 percent – up to 4 years, 80 percent – up to 8 years and 92 percent – up to 13 years. It is believed, that it is possible with high degree of probability to predict as the scope, also as a “roof” of possible prospective developments of individual.

In contrast to the family, company of friends consists of individuals of the same age and same social status, If the social status in the family acquires automatically, it should be gained in the company of contemporaries. Specifics of socialization in the company of friends is in that process of socialization flows here without a plan in compare with family and school, where it flows according to the plan. Company of friends performs the function of weakening of child’s links with family. Contemporaries offers to the child additional models of behavior, norms and values, which are sometimes alternate according to those, which are offered by family.

The institutions of secondary socialization are the army, school, church, media, etc.

• is a social institution, which is directly responsible for submitting  of certain information for the person, formation of abilities, skills and instilling the values, that society considers as necessary for life. School shows the child a very different environment, than what he learned in the family. The child is attached to the world of “foreigners” in the school. The teacher treats all children equally, evaluates children for what they are doing rather than who they are. Children are introduced to the formalized system of evaluation: scores, marks of distinction and diplomas. This is fundamentally different system than the practice if informal evaluation in the family. Children learn many important skills, which are important in interpersonal relationships, such as do something in turn, share with others etc.

Mass media, which are consisted of radio, television, movies, books, newspapers and magazines, affect the socialization by offering of additional and often alternative models of social roles, norms and values.

Conclusion

To sum up, process of socialization is the key process in becoming the human as personality. The process of socialization is marked with the concepts of activity, communication and self-awareness, which help to pass socialization successfully. All people, which surround us and do mission in order to help the us becoming as personality, can be considered as agents of socialization. They can do like many functions, also as no more than one function. The human cannot become a personality without the society. Agents of socialization play an important role in development of this mission, which successfully shows this essay.

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