Values Socialization Project - Essay Example

All people are born free of any values and social “settings”, but in the course of their life, since infancy, they are involved in the social relations and thus develop physically, intellectually and socially. The values and norms of the society people live in are absorbed and adopted by them, making them turn from mere individuals into sound personalities. To my thinking, socialization is a process of continuous cognition and learning that allows us to find our place in the world and fit in the immense social system full of its peculiar values and knowledge.

However, this process is impossible without any assistance from the outside – and we realize that, looking at small children who are entirely helpless without the adults’ help. Thus, on our way from a mere individual to a personality, we need help from the outside in order to learn the values, behavior patterns and mechanism of the society we live in. This help is transmitted by agents of socialization including individuals, groups and institutions that create a necessary context for this complex process (Monnier).

First, family is a socialization agent helping to transmit and teach the values and norms typical for a certain society an individual lives in. In fact, as the process of socialization and values adoption can be divided into primary and secondary stages, family as the immediate surroundings of a growing child plays a key role in the primary stage of socialization. Within the family, a child is perceived unconditionally – parents ensure emotional support, protection and care for him or her in the period of life when no one else offers equal support, except them.

As the primary stage of socialization, the life of a child is dominated by a mother who is normally an immediate teacher for him/her. Thus, the most elementary settings are transmitted by the mother who teaches to