Each person represents a unity of the individual and the social. Being unique and inimitable individuals, we are at the same time part of society and follow the norms and rules of behavior accepted in it. The social environment is a prerequisite for human existence. Adaptation to it begins at birth and lasts throughout life. This process, which is accompanied by the assimilation of norms, rules, behavioral stereotypes and moral values, is called socialization.
The essence of socialization
The need for socialization is determined by human nature itself. He is a unique phenomenon, because he is the only living creature that has virtually no innate forms of behavior. A child who has not undergone socialization is unable to communicate as a person, establish relationships with relatives, or behave as is customary in society. It is a cat or a dog that has innate programs of species behavior, but a person needs to learn everything.
Socialization, in essence, is the process of human adaptation in society. But this is not just knowledge of how to behave in a given situation. Knowledge of social norms does not guarantee compliance with them. For example, a criminal does not steal because he does not know that it is illegal. He knows this very well. But the norm “don’t steal” did not go through the process of socialization, was not appropriated by him, and did not become his intrapersonal norm of behavior. The phenomenon of transition of a social norm or meaning from the external to the internal level is called internalization.
This is the basis of socialization, its basic process. Initially, all norms of behavior and methods of social activity are external for the child. Parents, sometimes through persuasion and sometimes through coercion, instill in their child the habit of performing certain actions, making assessments of their own actions and the actions of others. For example, a small child does not feel any need to eat with a spoon, fasten buttons on his blouse, brush his teeth, say hello, much less put away his toys. But if the parents are persistent and patient enough, then these actions become habitual, and in a similar situation the child himself will feel the need for them. So, we, adults, will experience obvious discomfort if we have to eat salad with our hands or go out to strangers casually dressed.
The complexity of socialization also lies in the fact that a person is a member of different social groups with different norms and rules. We have to undergo additional socialization in every society we happen to find ourselves in.
Family: the emergence of personality
The family is the main agent of primary socialization , the child’s first environment, which determines the entire subsequent process of entering society.
With the help of the family, children fit into society. Parents shape the child's qualities from the early stages. The absence and lack of attention of parents contributes to the appearance in children of many psychological, social deviations and complexes that greatly disrupt normal activities in the future.
Parents create the basis of personal qualities, social status affects the status of the child, profession determines the educational and cultural level. The family lays the foundation for moral, family, and gender values.
Family can be a negative influence. Alcoholism, conflicts, divorces, social exclusion, and cruel treatment leave a serious imprint on the development of a child’s qualities that are important for society and his worldview.
The family is at the center of problems related to the physical, psychological, and social health of children. Social development also depends on other agents, the qualities of the individual, and innate traits. Therefore, children raised in a dysfunctional family do not necessarily grow up to be criminals, but can become highly moral people and full-fledged individuals.
Types of socialization
When they talk about socialization, they most often mean a child, his upbringing, mastery of speech and basic norms of behavior. But socialization is not limited to childhood; it is also characteristic of adults. Moreover, for accomplished individuals this process is more complex and problematic from a psychological point of view.
Three types of socialization can be distinguished: primary, secondary and permanent.
Primary socialization
This type of socialization can also be called children's. It begins at birth and continues until the beginning of independent life, more precisely, until the moment when a young man or girl becomes a full-fledged member of society.
Children's socialization is the most studied type of this phenomenon, because for a long time the description of the process as a whole was limited only to it. The peculiarity of primary socialization is that it is predominantly unconscious in nature; the child, in fact, is not a subject, but an object of the socializing influences of society. Adults play the role of both guides of social norms and those who exercise social control over their implementation: parents, educators, teachers. And the child, at best, only imitates the older members of the group. Therefore, the main condition for the success of primary socialization is a prosperous family in which social norms are observed.
True, the older the child becomes, the more conscious efforts he makes to master the norms. Or to resist them. Yes, and this happens when, for example, a teenager finds himself under the influence of an antisocial group. In this case, he is faced with a choice: to follow generally accepted norms of behavior that are supported by the adult society, or to abandon this for the sake of the values offered by the informal community. The choice is not easy, and it largely depends on how much the child has internalized social norms by adolescence.
Under normal conditions of upbringing, rules of behavior are learned quite early, become a person’s intrapersonal norms and restrain his antisocial behavior. The fact is that in the process of socialization a special mechanism of internal control is formed. It manifests itself in a feeling of shame or guilt when the norms accepted by the child are violated for some reason. These are quite unpleasant feelings, and they play the role of a behavior regulator.
But this happens if the process of socialization proceeds correctly, that is, adults not only themselves support social values and norms, but also show activity and persistence in instilling in the child the correct attitude towards them. Only under these conditions can social norms undergo a process of internalization.
Secondary or re-socialization
This is the socialization that a person goes through when moving to another group. It can also occur in childhood, for example, when entering kindergarten, school, or a sports section. An adult who gets a job in another team must also go through it. After all, everywhere there are rules and procedures that differ from those already familiar.
But if transitions occur within one society or state, then the basic norms are preserved. A person experiences the most serious difficulties when moving to another country, where even the customs and traditions differ from those that he learned in childhood and, as they say, absorbed with his mother’s milk. In some cases, the norms of life in another society seem so alien that the process of socialization is not completed, and the person feels like a “black sheep” for the rest of his life or returns to his homeland.
It is secondary socialization that gives rise to the greatest number of psychological problems that require the attention of specialists. It often happens that only a psychologist can help a person adapt to a new group. Moreover, this also happens in one’s own society, for example, when a young man joins the army, where the living conditions are very different from the usual.
Permanent socialization
Even if an individual has lived all his life in the same country, in the same family and worked in the same team, he still cannot avoid socialization. Permanent socialization is a person’s adaptation to an ever-changing society.
Our life does not stand still, conditions and activities change, new norms, values, ideals appear and old ones lose their meaning. People change along with society, for some it is easier, for others it is more difficult, but permanent socialization affects everyone. And she may also have psychological problems.
If changes in society occur gradually, then people get used to them and hardly notice the changes, and they themselves also gradually adapt to them. But when changes are revolutionary in nature, then disruptions occur in natural permanent socialization. Some people with a less flexible psyche or with more firmly internalized old norms cannot quickly integrate into the transformed society. They experience a feeling of discomfort and confusion because they feel like strangers in their native country. This phenomenon can be observed after revolutions, in an era of radical restructuring of the social system.
Education is an action aimed at the individual
Education is an indicator of development or a directed psychological, pedagogical process of the formation of important personal qualities. It depends on one’s own efforts, inclinations, inclinations, and performance, manifested in different types of activities. This explains its different effect on people living and brought up in the same conditions.
The role of the team in the education of the individual
It performs the following functions:
- organizes influences, factors;
- creates conditions for accelerated entry of a person into society;
- helps to overcome and reduce the negative consequences of spontaneous socialization, impart a positive personal orientation and motivation.
Stages of socialization and their factors
If we consider socialization as a continuous process of adaptation of a person to society, then several stages can be distinguished depending on the uniqueness of social conditions. This classification of stages of socialization was born in Soviet social psychology, which put the socio-economic aspect in first place.
Depending on the social role of a person and his place in social relations, three stages are distinguished.
- The pre-labor stage covers the entire period of growing up before the start of work and is divided into the primary and educational stages. During the pre-labor stage, basic norms of behavior are learned, and the main socializing factor is educational influence.
- Labor stage. During this period, all the abilities of the individual are revealed, and its development occurs against the background of interaction with other elements of society. This is a period of active development of social roles and formation of social status. The main socializing factor is the desire for professional growth. And the main institution of socialization is the work collective, the system of social relations.
- The post-labor stage begins with a person’s retirement. It manifests itself in the restructuring of the system of social relations and the loss by the individual of a number of his social functions. The main factor of this stage is the change in a person’s social position and the restructuring of his activities. A person has to learn to exist in new conditions and look for new ways of self-expression and personal development. Not everyone succeeds in this, so the fact of losing their social significance is experienced quite hard.
This classification of stages of socialization is not supported by all psychologists; to many it seems artificial. The third stage is the most criticized, because in adulthood a person should not lose value for society, but rather the opposite. After all, he has something that younger representatives of society do not have - invaluable experience - both professional and social.
Concept of education
Upbringing is a microfactor influencing socialization . A socialized individual conforms to norms, values, resists the negative effects of the environment, trends that inhibit or deviate the development of individuality.
There is no generally accepted definition of the term. This is due to the polysemy of the concept. It is considered as a socially oriented activity, process, impact on an individual.
Education is the directed influence on human activity of organized institutions of society, the environment, and one’s own activity. It is aimed at the formation of the necessary stable personality traits and individual qualities.
In psychological science, education is an activity that transfers social, historically accumulated experience to the next generation. It is a purposeful action on consciousness, then on behavior through the formation of life-significant attitudes, ideals, and value orientations that provide conditions for further development and preparation of the individual for life in society and work. The goal is the expected planned changes obtained under the influence of prepared actions. Results – the degree of assimilation of planned features, norms, rules. The norms that parents seek from the child become internal ideals, principles of worldview.
Important
Lack of education leads to deviations in mental development and disruption of the formation of social roles required for life in human society.
Stages of socialization
The process of socialization has its own patterns and characteristics. Its course is subject to strict socio-psychological laws, which are the same for primary, secondary, and permanent socialization. For this process to be considered fully completed, it must go through three stages.
Adaptation stage
This period is characterized by the active assimilation of norms, rules, and mastery of forms of sociotypical behavior. In children's socialization, it takes place under the guidance of adults; in re-socialization, a person, as a rule, is active himself. After all, it is very important to become a full member of a new team, so the individual tries to quickly find out what is accepted here, what is not, with whom and how to communicate, and what traditions should be remembered.
Young children follow group norms under the influence of adults. Initially, these norms are external for children, and only then do they undergo a process of internalization. The same is typical for an adult who behaves in a certain way in a new team, just so as not to stand out, not to seem like a stranger.
The internalization of social norms—their transition from the external level to the internal—is the main psychological mechanism of this stage. Becoming like everyone else is the main goal of an individual at the adaptation stage.
The gradual nature of the socialization process is clearly visible in young children, who, as they learn social norms, begin to notice their violations. But, first of all, not for yourself, but for other children. And when they notice, they snitch, that is, they report the violation to an adult - the main guarantor of correct social behavior. Although it is believed that lying is bad, it is a natural and, from the point of view of social psychology, a normal phenomenon. In children, of course. For them, it indicates that the adaptation stage is in the active phase.
Individualization stage
This is the most difficult and problematic stage, as it is often associated with the demonstration of antisocial behavior in adolescents. Having mastered the basic norms of society or a social group, a person no longer wants to be “like everyone else.” He feels the need for individualization, for self-expression, for the manifestation of his own “I”.
The child reaches this stage of primary socialization just in time for adolescence, and the crisis characteristic of it is superimposed on the teenager’s desire to prove his uniqueness, demonstrate his abilities and talents. This manifests itself in changing different hobbies and interests, because you can only understand what you are capable of through activity. Those children who were able to quickly find a sphere of self-expression (sports, fine arts, design, collecting, etc.) endure the crisis of adolescence much easier.
A child who has found his way is calmer, because he is confident in himself and feels respect from society. Accordingly, the adults around him also experience fewer problems. Therefore, an important task of parents and teachers is to help the teenager in search of self-realization, otherwise he will express himself in his own way, for example, in shocking behavior, violation of discipline, antisocial behavior, and aggressiveness.
This stage is also observed when an adult moves to another group, although it is usually less noticeable than in adolescents.
Integration stage
So, if a person has overcome the most difficult stage of socialization and has determined how he can earn the respect of society, then he begins to look for an area to apply his abilities and like-minded people for joint activities. This stage is clearly visible in adolescence, when young people are faced with choosing a professional activity or are just starting one. They strive to be active and demonstrate their talents, but, unfortunately, they still lack experience and public trust. Therefore, it is easiest for them to be in a circle of like-minded peers. This is the most “party” period, young people create their own fan clubs, informal groups, communities where they can discuss common interests and engage in a common cause, where they all have equal rights.
This is the final stage of socialization. On it, a person can demonstrate his importance to society and begin his path to success. If, of course, he successfully completed the first two stages. Unfortunately, often a person fails to find his calling at the stage of individualization, then he begins to feel like a failure and can still look for his path for a long time, changing different occupations and professions, or simply go with the flow.
This person is also a full-fledged member of society, but he is not able to realize himself fully. However, one should not be disappointed and give up; many have found their calling and way of self-realization even in adulthood. And from this they not only felt satisfaction, but even became younger.
Thus, socialization is one of those global processes that underlie the existence of society. Therefore, not only each individual, but also society as a whole is interested in its organization. We can say that all the forces of society are devoted to this and all its main institutions are engaged in socialization: the state, family, school, religious and public organizations, the media, literature and all types of performing arts.
Principles of harmonious development
The formation of a harmonious personality is aimed at achieving the following goals:
- formation of the consciousness of a citizen, a patriot;
- familiarization with universal human values;
- development of creativity, ability to create;
- formation of an adequate self-concept, the ability of self-realization.
Principles to be followed:
- respectful, trusting relationships between teachers and students;
- conformity with nature (taking into account age, gender, and other natural characteristics);
- cultural conformity (reliance on the cultural traditions of the people);
- humanization, aestheticization of the environment of an educational institution.
