Socialization

The process of socialization

The socialization term indicates the whole of the mechanisms by which the individual interiorizes the Norme S and Valeur S of its group of membership and built its social identity. It is of this process that its Intégration within the group depends, and more largely of the very whole company.

Definitions

Two definitions of socialization coexist:

one rather normative: socialization is the process by which the company attracts with it the individual, through the methodical training of rules and standards by the young generations; it supports and reinforces the homogeneity of the company (Durkheim)
the other more dynamic: socialization corresponds to the process by which the individual adapts the rules of an organization, with the whole of the interactions by which is built the social identity (approach weberienne)

The individual interiorizes a certain number of standards and values suitable for the social group in which he lives. The values are the manners that a company regards as front being respected. They are ideals shared by the members of this company: directions of the effort, professional success, solidarity… the standards are the more concrete incarnation, in a company they indicate all that a Individu can or cannot make, it is thus about the translation of the values in Loi S: to be specific with its work, cotiser with the social security…

Role and statute

The roles correspond to the Attitudes which are awaited from a Individu, taking into account its statute. An individual has several roles in turn: a Master, a husband, a friend. He implies necessarily other roles to be carried out.

The statute is the position occupied by a Individu within a given social framework (family undertaken…). It is primarily normative and makes that an individual can expect on behalf of an other such or such behavior.

Various authorities of socialization

There are various agents (or authorities) of socialization. There are also various stages in the process of socialization:

primary socialization: 1st process of socialization of a newborn via the family, the school, the pars, the media. This socialization is important because it will learn how with the child to live in company.
secondary socialization: it is superimposed on the first form of socialization. It will be done by the company, the pars (friends)… In the latter, it arrives of the very important events like the marriage, birth of the first child, marriage of this last,…

Agents

Socialization is established via various agents: the family, the school (educational professors), pars (friendly), educational medium in the broad sense (and the potentials transfers likely to be actuated there, as one sees it in various experiments carried out by the social psychologists within the frameworks of Politique of the city), professional environment, but also associations, the media which exert an influence varied on the individual according to their age.

Social reproduction and process of interactions

Some Sociologue S insist on the fact that socialization supports the social reproduction. Others consider on the contrary that the socialized individual plays an active role in his training of the life in society. Thus it is able to adapt, according to what he learned in situations very different from/to each other. Same manner, it interprets the values rather than it does not learn them, which contributes to make them evolve/move and supports the social change.

the social reproduction

For Bourdieu, the 3 characters are transmitted by the authorities of socialization. The determinism it is the fact that a behavior, a situation are given in advance taking into account certain characteristics socio-demographic like the age, the membership of an social environment of origin… The social reproduction is a sociological mechanism of maintenance of the social position and ways of acting, of thinking and of feeling a family. Example: the children of popular environments will tend not to make long studies. According to Bourdieu, this social reproduction is supported by the unequal distribution of the capital economic, cultural and social between the social classes. The families of the dominant classes seek to maintain their place in social space and use the school in order to reproduce their cultural capital.

Concept of Habitus

Pierre Bourdieu is not the only one to insist on the variations in the processes of socialization according to the social groups but it gave of it through the concept of habitus a theorization impossible to circumvent. The habitus is in fact the manner of interiorizing the standards and the eigenvalues with its environment, with its social group of reference consisted the family, the friends, the work place… Produced habitus of control and the social report/ratio.

Interactions

The interactions are reciprocal actions carrying mutual influences between the social beings. With the favor of these interactions build themselves, consolidate, demolish and reconfigure manners of being together, modes of coexistence, but also of the systems of attitudes. Socialization thus seems a process of interaction between an individual and his environment. Thus conceived, it is not only any more one mechanism supporting the social reproduction but it can even contribute to the evolution of the values and the social change.

Social change

It is the more or less fundamental modification of the standards and the values in a given company. Any socialization is the result of two different processes: assimilation and accommodation. By the assimilation, the subject would seek to modify its environment to make it in conformity with its desires and to decrease its feelings of anxiety and intensity. By accommodation, on the contrary, the subject would tend to change to answer the pressures and the constraints of its environment.

Consequently, socialization is not an one-way process and the individual is not a passive being. If the individual is marked by the values of his company and makes the training of certain standards and rules, it can constantly be called in question by its requests and the place and the part which it intends to play. Thus it is able to adapt, according to what he learned in situations very different from/to each other. Same manner, it interprets the values rather than it does not learn them, which contributes to make them evolve/move and supports the social change. Thus it is noted that the children never have completely the same beliefs, the same values and the same manners of living as their parents.

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