Agents of Socialization
ESSENTIAL LEARNING: Students will be able to explain the role of socialization.
The agents of socialization are individuals, groups, and social institutions that together help people
become functioning members of society.
1. Families
 Most important agent of socialization as the centre of a child’s life.
 Provide the child with the nourishment, love, and protection.
 Guide the child’s first experiences with the social world.
 Largely responsible for emerging identities, self-esteem, and personalities.
 Generally the first values and attitudes a child embraces are simple reflections of his or
her family’s.
 The family imparts messages regarding gender, class, and race issues.
 Provides socio-economic status (social status as determined by family income, parents’
education level, parents’ occupations, and the family’s social standing within the
community).
2. Peer groups
 Peer group = people who are closely related in age and share similar interests.
 A teenager’s relationship to his/her family changes as he/she becomes more influenced
by their peers.
 Ease the transition to adult responsibilities.
 Vital for establishing sense of community and for achieving/maintaining social influence.
 Teenagers imitate their friends in part because the peer group maintains a meaningful
system of rewards and punishments.
 Can be the source of harassment or support.
 Bullying is a major issue within peer groups.
3. School
 The education system not only teaches the prescribed curriculum, it also teaches its
students how to act in society.
 The socialization function of education emphasizes that children learn academic
content, social skills, and important cultural values.
 The unconscious, informal and unwritten rules that reinforce and maintain social
conventions is referred to as the hidden curriculum.
 Conflict perspective: schools foster competition, which can lead some students who are
learning a skill to feel stupid/unsuccessful. Schools also reinforce the divisive aspects of
society and socialize students to emulate the dominant values of society.
 Functionalist perspective: Schools fulfill the function of teaching children the values and
customs of the larger society.
Mrs. Saunders: Sociology 120
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Agents of Socialization
4. Mass media
 Mass media = forms of communication produced by a few people for consumption by
the masses
 Over last 75 years, media innovations (radio, movies, TV, downloadable music, the
Internet and cell phones) have become important agents of socialization.
 Socialization function of media more subtle; much occurs unconsciously
 Television = most influential of the mass media. Although television provides some
prosocial behaviour, the majority of its content reinforces competition and the desire
for financial wealth. TV defines and reinforces standards of behaviour, provides role
models, and communicates expectations about all aspects of social life.
5. Work Place:
 Learning to behave appropriately within an occupation is a fundamental aspect of
human socialization.
 Full-time work = adult status (harsh reality of adult world/the realization of ambition)
 Workplace for teenagers becoming almost as important as an agent of socialization due
to the increasing numbers of hours they are working.
 Four stages of socialization in the workplace:
i. Career choice
ii. Anticipatory socialization (observing the work)
iii. Conditioning (reluctantly adjusting to the more unpleasant aspects of one’s job)
iv. Commitment (enthusiastically accepting the pleasurable duties that comes with
the recognition of the positive tasks of an occupation)
Gender Socialization: an aspect of socialization through which one learns the attitudes, behaviours, and
practices associated with being male or female (gender roles) according to our society and social groups
within it.
1. Family: As the primary agents of childhood socialization, parents play a critical role in
guiding children into those gender roles deemed appropriate in a society. Social class
may also play a role in gender socialization. Members of certain social classes may be
more or less likely to engage in socialization patterns geared to traditional gender roles.
2. School: In teaching students the values and customs of the larger society, schools in
Canada have traditionally socialized children into conventional gender roles.
3. Peer Group: Gender differences are noteworthy in the social world of adolescents.
There is a difference in the levels of emotional intimacy between the genders; teenage
males are less likely to develop strong emotional ties than are females.
Mrs. Saunders: Sociology 120
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