The document discusses the key agents of socialization: family and school. It states that the family is the primary agent of socialization, where children first learn language, gender roles, and values. Schools also play an important role as they teach children skills and values to prepare them for the wider world, through both formal classroom learning and informal peer interactions. While families may socialize children differently, schools aim to standardize learning and modify aspects that are not acceptable to the broader community. Overall, both families and schools significantly influence how children are socialized and learn the norms of their culture.

1. Socialization: Family and School
Dr.G.M.Sunagar
Asst.Professor
KSS Vijayanagar College of Education
Hubballi, girishsunagar@yahoo.co.in

2. Socialization is the process of creating a social
self, learning one’s culture and learning the
rules and expectations of the culture.

3. In general, it may be said that the total society is the agency for
socialization and that each person with whom one comes into contact
and interact is in some way an agent of socialization.
Socialization found in all interactions but the most influential interaction
occurs in particular groups which are referred to as agencies of
socialization.

4. Agents of Socialization

5. The family
The child’s first world is that of his family. It is a world in itself, in which the child learns to live,
to move and to have his being. Within it, not only the biological tasks of birth, protection and
feeding take place, but also develop those first and intimate associations with persons of different
ages and sexes which form the basis of the child’s personality development.
The family is the primary agency of socialization. It is here that the child develops an initial sense
of self and habit-training—eating, sleeping etc. To a very large extent, the indoctrination of the
child, whether in primitive or modem complex society, occurs within the circle of the primary
family group. The child’s first human relationships are with the immediate members of his
family—mother, father , siblings and other close relatives.

6. Here, he experiences love, cooperation, authority, direction and protection.
Language is also learnt from family in childhood. People’s perceptions of
behaviour appropriate of their sex are the result of socialisation and major part
of this is learnt in the family.
As the primary agents of childhood socialisation, parents play a critical role in
guiding children into their gender roles deemed appropriate in a society. They
continue to teach gender role behaviour either consciously or unconsciously,
throughout childhood. Families also teach children values they will hold
throughout life.

7. After family the educational institutions take over the charge of
socialisation. One social agency created to enhance the processes of
socialization and education is the school.
Among the most important agencies of socialization is the school; i.e. other
than the home the school is the other important institution in which
socialization takes place. Schooling has been defined by Biddle as “the
appearance of organized instructional activity in which the position of the
teaches is differentiated from other positions in the system and given the
explicit task of socializing neophytes”

8. In terms of socialization, the school has, in recent years, come to take over
some forms of the functions of the family and community i.e. the school has
become a primary agency of socialization. The school is the first large-scale
organization of which the child becomes a member. The school is reflecting
what goes on in the wider society.
The school is said to be next to the family in terms of importance as far as
socialization is concerned. The school combines the formal (e.g. classroom
teaching, fines caning, suspension expulsions official mention, prices) and
informal (e.g. peer group influences/ pressure) approaches in its socializing
function.

9. Conclusion
Since children come from different family backgrounds, the work of the school
therefore is to intercept and change or modify those aspects which may not be
acceptable to the community. At the same time, those aspects of training which are
meaningful are encouraged. Most of the informal learning occurs mainly within the
pees group setting. The pees groups affect the socialization process both in school and
in the neighborhood.
The school represents a formal and conscious effort by the society to socialize its young.
It does this through the content of the curriculum and co-curricular activities. They also
socialize the values that they communicate to the child. Teachers also act as models for
students.
In school the child learns skills and values which to a large extent, prepare him for the
world of human.