Process and Functions of Primary and Secondary Socialisation - Essay Example

Process and Functions of Primary and Secondary Socialisation Socialisation is an important aspect of a healthy human beings life. It begins with the birth and continues till death. Primary socialisation signifies the relationship which one shares with one’s near and dear ones and the knowledge of basic skills of surviving in the society and culture that they learn from them. Secondary socialisation refers to the interaction with the society at large. So primary socialisation is more concerned with the initial phase of life, whereas secondary socialisation starts when one is at the adolescent stage. Functionalist, Talcott Parson stated, “society exists on different and quiet distinct level of organisation” (Layder, 1994, p.15). According to him in the process of socialisation we go through four phases. These are: the psychological, personality, social and cultural. These four phases condition our 1) body 2) individual psychology, 3) roles and positions in society 4) knowledge, art, literature and other human products respectively. So functionalism believes that in the first phase we get accustomed to the primary environment and in the next three stages we get accustomed to the secondary environment that begins at our adolescent years and continues to the whole of our adult life. Marxists believe in a more scientific way when it comes to identifying the process of socialisation. According to them “we experience the world as radiating outward from our personal here and now. There is no other way in which we could live and experience our lives…” (Sharrock, Hughes and Martin, 2003, p. 143) If we explore this viewpoint, we get to the conclusion that the people and situations that we come across during our primary socialisation days; gets fitted in our mindset forever. Therefore later, during the time of secondary socialisation we interpret all the situations or interpersonal communications according to our preconceived mindset. We perceive the world according to the way we are. Here the process of primary socialisation refers to an individuals contact with his primary relations. The secondary process of socialisation can be more complex according to Marxists who believe that all our interactions and the way we perceive people can be an extension of our values, education and attitudes towards culture, society etc, that we have gained in our primary socialisation days. The feminists believe that the process of both primary and secondary socialisation is different for people of different genders. Since one’s primary socialisation days, women experience patriarchy and a sense of discrimination. Feminism states that biological division plays an integral part in the process of socialisation. When females reach the secondary socialisation phase the male oriented society discriminates both at ideas and institutional level. Therefore learning how to behave like a human and act according to what is expected from the society is different for both men and women. Rules are more stringent for women. All the three i.e. the functionalists, the Marxists and the feminist believe that the function of socialisation is to overcome the constraints that is embedded in society, during the process of socialisation. Hence according to the fundamentalists the function of socialisation is to emphasize on external observation rather than introspection to judge the society. The Marxists feel that there are class relationships in society. So the function of socialisation according to them is to overthrow the constraint of class relationship to make the society better. The function of socialisation according to the feminists is to remove the patriarchal feeling and the inborn nature of men to control women’s behaviour completely from the mindset of people. Agents of socialisation All the agents of socialisation play a crucial role in the development of an individual and the society at large. Family is like a backbone to us and is widely known as a group of people who share blood relationship amongst them and take care of each other. Without our family we are nothing because our identity begins here. Our total personality is a shadow of the family we belong to. Different religion follows different rituals and beliefs. The rituals and beliefs of our religion our automatically followed by us. So a part of our being is influenced by our religion too. We think the same way as other people of our religion in most of the issues. How confused we would have been if we didn’t know which religion we belong to. Of late mass media has become an integral part of our existence. They guide our thought process in most of the burning issues. It is difficult to live without this agent of socialisation even for a day. We should not forget that it is due to the media that we are a part of the global socialisation. Education has provided us the ability to think and wisdom to differentiate between the bad and the good. Can we ever imagine ourselves as being uneducated? Will it enable us to indulge in the kind of socialisation we are habituated of? Parsons has stated in Giddens “the function of education is to enable children to move from the particularistic standards of the family to the universal standard needed in modern, adult society.” (2006, p.687) Similarly work too is a crucial agent of socialisation. There is a difference in how society treats working people and workless people. Next to family our basic requirement is to be able to communicate with our peer groups. The peer group is an integral part of both primary and secondary socialisation. Try to imagine a day without any one of the above agents of socialisation and feel how restless it makes you. The thought of being bereft of all the agents of socialisation is too threatening. Result of not being raised by human socialisation The scenario was other way round for the wild boy of Aveyon. He lived in wild woods for many years. Finally when he came in contact with human beings he got terribly scared and didn’t know how to react. It was also difficult for him to be able to communicate because he didn’t know how to do so. He even lacked the basic ability to think and was treated like an animal. Lack of the agents of socialisation had turned him from a man to animal. Similar is the following case. Newton stated: In 1996, a four-year-old boy from Moscow ‘left’ home because of his mother’s inability to cope with him or her alcoholic boyfriend. When successful at begging for food on the streets, Ivan Mishsukov would share a portion of his ‘spoils’ with a particular pack of feral dogs. Soon the dogs adopted him as their ‘pack leader’: he gaining protection and warmth in cold Russian winters, they gaining the smarts of a human. (para.3) So when people approached this boy he behaved as a dog because he lacked access to the agents of socialisation and was not raised by human socialisation. Class and socialisation “For Marx a class is a group of people who stand in a common relationship to the means of production – the means by which they gain a livelihood.” (Giddens, 2006. p.301) Earlier the society was divided into two broad categories i.e. those who owned the land or the aristocrats and those who engaged in agriculture – (the main occupation of yore) or the peasant class. With modernisation and industrialisation now the stratification of class is done in the following ways: 1) the upper class – those who have the most wealth, property, shares, etc. 2) the middle class – it consists of people engaged in a wide range of occupation like employees of the service industry, lawyers, teachers, doctors, media professionals etc. 3) the working class – people with blue collar jobs or the labour class. 4) The under class or lower class – people who have very low living standards, the underprivileged population. The differential socialisation in the context of class is related to the fields like health, gender, domestic violence, unemployment, religion, ethnicity and higher education. People from different class have to go through different experiences as far as health matters are concerned. Those who have less money find it difficult to get treated properly. The level of socialisation lowers for them as the fear of getting affected leads to isolation from the immediate society. Whereas those with money have the means to get back to health quickly and therefore there is no change in socialisation pattern for them. There is difference in the education level too. The most highly educated are the middle class as education is the only means of healthy living and socialisation for them. Education and money changes the mindset of people so the gender discrimination is lesser in the upper and middle classes. The socilisation scenario as far as gender is concerned enjoys a more satisfactory status in these two classes. This results in lesser domestic violence. The cases of domestic violence occurs more in lower classes because lack of good upbringing affects their entire attitude towards life. Social class and unemployment are related too. The lower the education levels the higher the unemployment. The Process of resocialisation Resocialisation can be explained as “ the needing to learn and be exposed to radically different norms and values. An example can be an intense experience, with the individual experiencing a sharp break with their past, might be the experience of a young man or woman leaving home to join the military.” (wikipedia , para.14) Another example can be a family moving to some other country. In this case the mannerisms, language, nonverbal communication etc. will drastically change for the members of that family. They will have to learn many new things to be able to adjust in the socilisation standards of their new country. This is the process of resocialisation which may look very difficult initially but with time people will adjust to the new situation properly. The lesser the age the easier it would be to resocialise. So being a child during the process of resocialisation is an advantage. Hence to conclude it can be said that man is a social animal. Lack of socialisation can affect his overall well being negatively. As we are in close contact with the subject sociology, socialisation is not essential to us from a layman’s point of view of interaction only but also an expert’s point of view of survival. Word count: 1712 ‘References’ Giddens, A. (2006). Sociology. (5th Ed.). UK: Polity Press Layder, D. (1994). Understanding Social Theory. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Sharrock, W, W., Hughes, J, A., Martin, P, J. (2003). Understanding Modern Sociology. Sage Publications Ltd. Foundation, Wikipedia. (2006). Retrieved November 25, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialization. Newton, M. (2005). Echo. Retrieved November 27, 2006 from http://www.echonews.com/910/book_reviews.html. Read More