the paper looks at what socialization is, how the school acts as an agent of socialization and the importance of a teacher in the process of socialization.

1. THE UNIVERSITY OF ZAMBIA
SCHOOL OF EDUCTION
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND POLICY STUDIES.
COMPUTER NUMBER: 2016137067
COURSE COORDINATOR: MR. P. KAKUPA
COURSE TITLE: SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION
COURSE CODE: EDU 2011
TUTOR: MR. MULENGA
TUTORIAL DAY: THURSDAY
ASSIGNMENT: ONE (1)
VENUE: CAT LAB
DUE DATE: 15ft M AY, 2017
QUESTION: explain what is meant by socialization. How does the school
act as a socializing agent? What is the role of the teacher in this process?
NAME (S) COMPUTER NUMBERS
MASHONGA MARCO 2016137067

2. Socialization one could say is how children interact with their peers. There are many definitions,
but in school, socialization mostly involves how children play and get along with each other.
Academic certificates don't give us the skills to meet some situations we face in our everyday life.
These skills can be termed as social skills as we need them to move around the societal institutions.
But schools need to serve a number of functions in our society beyond just transmitting academic
knowledge and skills. We socialize as we grow up.
Acquiring socialization skills will equip our learners to face the challenges they face in their
practical lives. Socialization always takes place in specific contexts. It is culturally specific: people
in different cultures are socialized differently, to hold different beliefs and values, and to behave
in different ways. Socialization refers to a process by which individuals acquire a personal identity
and learn the knowledge, language, and social skills required to interact with others. Students only
learn from the academic curriculum but also learn social rules and expectations from interactions
with others in the school. Besides socialization, another significant manifest function of school is
the transmission of cultural norms and values to new generations.
Schools help to mold a diverse population into one society with a shared national identity and
prepare future generations for their citizenship roles. Students are taught about laws and our way
of lives through civic lessons, and they're taught patriotism through rituals. They learn how to
salute the national flag. It means they are taught how to honour the nation. The socialization
process involves learning how to be-with self, with others, with students and teachers, and with
life's adversities and challenges. The socialization outcomes of child-child interaction are
constrained by numerous subject and situational conditions, that is, the characteristics of the
children involved and the settings in which their interaction occurs (Hartup, 1999). Children
develop in many ways when they grow. They not only develop physically but also mentally. Each
child also acquires a consistent personality structure, so that he or she can be characterized as shy,
ambitious, sociable, or cautious to say the least. As children start to grow they move into a
widening world of persons, activities, and feelings. Culture is a real and significant dimension of
child socialization. Understanding various cultural styles of parenting and skills acquisition is
critical to understanding how, why, and under what circumstances socialization occurs (Coates &
Wagenaar, 1999).

3. The importance of the school as an agency of socialization can be divided into three subtopics such
as the school and society, the classroom, and the teacher. When children begin school it is usually
the first time that they come under the supervision of people who are not their relatives. It is likely
that the school is the first agency that encourages children to develop loyalties and sentiments that
go beyond the family and link them to a wider social order. The school as an agency of
socialization should be recognized as the first organizer of social relationships (Elkin & Handel,
1978).
The classroom is often seen as a place where the child is easily faced with socializing amongst
peers. Since most of the things that children do in the classroom are done in the presence of their
peers, they have to learn how to deal with a more formalized group situation. Parental expectations
and perceptions of their children's development of both cognitive and motor skills serve to affect
the transition to the school environment (Coates & Wagenaar, 1999). Socialization also continues
throughout life, from childhood to adulthood. This is significant because there is reason to believe
that childhood socialization sets limits to what may be accomplished through adult socialization
(Elkin & Handel, 1978).
Children spend a large amount of time with other children and, in so doing, have extensive
opportunities to influence one another. The same situation exists for adolescents, suggesting that
peer relations contribute substantially to socialization from early childhood through second decade
and beyond. Children and adolescents also make different attributions to themselves and others on
the basis of age, and these attributions figure prominently in social comparisons and other social
experiences (Hartup, 1999).
Learners' social interactions with their peers contribute to their cognitive development. Their play
is considered a form of social behavior, and they engage in several social situations such as
cooperation, assistance, sharing, and solving problems in appropriate ways. In these situations,
children acquire social skills and learn about their social world, such as the adults' and their
playmates' points of view, morals, social skills, and conceptions of friendship (Saracho, 1999).
Schools are major contexts for gender socialization also, in part because children spend large
amounts of time engaged with peers in such settings.

4. Certainly schools are important contexts for the socialization of young children's gender attitudes
and behaviour. Teachers receive relatively little training in recognizing and combating gender
stereotypes and prejudices-their own and others-and, as a consequence, teachers often model,
expect, reinforce, and lay the foundation for gender discrimination among their pupils. Thus, most
schools create and maintain traditional gender stereotypes, biases, and differences. Teachers need
training to recognize their own explicit and implicit biases and how these biases affect their
classroom behaviours.
As people grow up within a particular society, they pick up on the expectations of those around
them and internalize these expectations to moderate their impulses and develop a conscience
Second, socialization teaches individuals how to prepare for and perform certain social role such
as occupational roles, gender roles, and the roles of institutions such as marriage and parenthood.
Third, socialization cultivates shared sources of meaning and value. Through socialization, people
learn to identify what is important and valued within a particular culture. We must give a serious
thought to the point whether our existing educational institutions serve the purpose of socializing
our learners as they are going to occupy the key positions in the society.
The prevailing incidents and happenings we experience and hear every day around us bear
testimony to the moral degradation of our young generation. Eve-teasing, rape, mass rape by the
students and even in higher educational institutions undoubtedly prove that they have not been
socialized up to the expected standard. Even, the so-called cadres of highest seats of learning take
arms and ammunition in their hands replacing the academic books amply prove that our process
of socializing the learners has been far off the usual norm. The writer works as Education
Specialist in BRAC Education Programme.

5. References
Hartup, W.W. (1999). Journal of Child Psychology and psychiatry
(Coates & Wagenaar, 1999).
(Elkin & Handel, 1978).
(Saracho, 1999).