Page 34 - Flipbook: Sociology Shortcuts Issue 3

agencies

Agents of socialisation are people Socialisation, however, isn’t simply a
responsible for teaching us “the rules” of process whereby a socialising agent, such
social behaviour and interaction: the first as a parent, teaches behaviour that is then
agency responsible for primary socialisation copied without question. Although part of a
is usually our family and the main agents child's socialisation does involve copying
are parents (although immediate relations the behaviour they see around them (acted
such as brothers and sisters and wider out through various forms of play and
relation such as grandparents may also be games, for example), the child is also
involved). In most societies the family actively involved - they don’t, for example,
group initially takes responsibility for always obey their parents. Children may
teaching the basic things we need to learn as also receive contradictory socialisation
part of growing-up, such as how to walk, messages from differing agents – a kindly
talk and use culture-appropriate tools (such relative may reward behaviour that a parent
as knives and forks) and behaviours. would punish. Many of the things we learn
Parents are also influential in teaching basic during our initial, family-based,
values, such as their perception of right and socialisation stay with us for life, mainly
wrong behaviour, how to relate because we learn basic behavioural rules
appropriately to other people such as family, that can be applied to new and different
friends, strangers and so forth. situations (such as how to behave towards
adults – teachers or strangers for example –
who are not personally related to us).

Secondary socialising agencies may include schools, religious organisations, the media
and so forth and the agents include people like teachers, priests, television personalities
and pop stars. In some cases, such as in school, we are in daily, face-to-face contact with
the people socialising us, without ever developing a primary attachment to them. In other
cases, such as admiring a particular actor or singer, we may never meet them, yet we can
still be influenced by how they look, what they do and how they do it.

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