SOCI110 Essay: Socialization as a Lifelong Process Analysis

This essay, written for a SOCI110 course at Columbia College, explores socialization as a lifelong process. It defines socialization and highlights its importance in shaping an individual's beliefs, behaviors, and actions. The essay divides socialization into primary and secondary categories, detailing the agents and processes involved in each stage. It discusses how family, friends, religion, social media, and schools influence a person's development and ability to integrate into society. The author connects sociological concepts to personal experiences, demonstrating an understanding of socialization theories and their impact on individual lives. The essay concludes by emphasizing the continuous nature of learning and adaptation throughout life and society.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
Socialization
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author Note

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Socialization is a process which lasts for a lifetime and prepared an individual to be able
to live and belong to the society. It can be described as the process in which people learn about
different norms, habits and ideologies. These attributes are collected and inherited from the
society. However, each person has different set of habits and ideology which are specific to their
own socializing process. In other words, socializing involves inheriting and dissipating customs
and norms and ideology which is necessary for being a part of the society (Garcia-Alexander,
Woo and. Carlson). The thesis of this paper is to discuss socialization as a lifelong process.
Socialization lasts through an individual’s life and sociologists regard it to be the most influential
factor to determine a person’s beliefs, behavior and actions, from a children to a grown up adult.
Socialization can be divided into two categories, primary and secondary socialization (Little).
The process continues throughout the life but it starts right after a child is born. The child starts
picking up the basic nuances of socialization from his or her surrounding at a very early age.
They tend to learn about the attitudes, actions, beliefs and values which are specific to each
culture and society (Little). They relate to these attributes and learn it from each member they
socialize it. When a child is too young, they learn from family, friends and other people who
build up the immediate society in which he or she is exposed to engage in interaction.
Secondary socialization can be defined is the process which involve the learning process
through which one gets to learn about the appropriate, expected and standard way of behavior.
One gets to learn about these processes being an individual within the larger society Socializing
agents such as schools and workplaces build up the behavioral patterns which are accepted and
meet the standardized order within the society (Little). The socializing agents where an
individual learn more about society are schools, higher education institutions and workplaces.
The life course approach was developed during the second half of the twentieth century in order

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to observe and analyze an individual’s social, structural and cultural contexts. The approach
allows examination of the earlier experiences and events which might have influences the
decisions taken in life.
There are various agents which are influential during the lifelong process of socialization
which include family, religion, friends, social media, schooling, colleagues and so on. These
attributes influence a person to a great extent and their decisions in life, which determine the
kind of person they become by coming in contact and influence of these factors to belong to the
society. A person grows potential and acquire knowledge about how to behave and belong to the
culture by acquiring the nuances. The purpose of socialization is to be accepted in the society.
According to Tyler, Tom and Trinkner one learns about the behavior and conduct which are
unacceptable, such as murder, theft, deceit, which develops a sense of good and bad in the
individuals.
It can, thus be concluded by saying that socialization is very important part in the process
of growing up and belonging to the society as one learns about behavior, etiquettes, norms and
the behavior which are categorized as acceptable and unacceptable. Socialization is a lifelong
process as a person continues to learn from the people and society to be a part of the same.

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References
Ely, Richard, and Jean Berko Gleason. "Socialization across contexts." The handbook of child
language (2017): 251-276.
Garcia-Alexander, Ginny, Hyeyoung Woo, and Matthew J. Carlson. "Social interaction,
socialization, and group influence." Social Foundations of Behavior for the Health
Sciences. Springer, Cham, 2017. 59-79.
Little, William. (2016). “Chapter 5. Socialization.” Introduction to Sociology: 2nd Canadian
Edition. P.243. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontosociology2ndedition/
ONLINE textbook.
Tyler, Tom R., and Rick Trinkner. Why children follow rules: Legal socialization and the
development of legitimacy. Oxford University Press, 2017.