Socialization is the processes in which we develop an awareness of social norms and values. It also allows us to achieve a distinct sense of who we are as a person. The socialization processes are particularly noteworthy during infancy and childhood, they continue throughout life. No one is immune from the reactions of others around them. The reactions of others influence and modify ones behavior at all times during ones life cycle. As a child grows, they develop in many ways. They become taller and heavier. They also mentally become capable of working out math problems and memorizing poems. Each parent socializes their child into their own patterns and instills their own values thus beginning the socialization cycle.
Female socialization has changed a great deal over the past 60 years, and remained the same in other ways. While the stereotypes of females have changed some, the construction of gender is limited and rigid throughout. Media has made it so that females are defined by their bodies, not their minds. The key to socializing a girl is to find her aspiration. “In the 50 girls wanted a home and family; however, today girls want to be sexually alluring” (Pipher, 1994, p. 32). “While these are different values they all lead to the same goal, having sex” (Pipher, 1994, p. 32). Girls of the 50s and of today have one thing in mind, and that is to attract men. Girls in the 50s did this by demonstrating they could be good wives, and mothers; however, girls of today attract men by using there sex appeal.
Today’s girls are taught that they can do anything they want; however, often time’s media depicts something different. “Look at any magazine geared toward adolescent girls and you will see that we are demonstrating that a girl’s best feature is her body” (Pipher, 1994, p. 45). The majority of today’s magazines are geared towards fashion, beauty, and love. Today girls spend a large amount of time on looking good. As a society we are teaching our girl’s that there body is there best asset.
Socialization is the process of creating values for that individual.
Female beauty ideals are an overwhelming force in teen media. Approximately 37% of articles in leading magazines for teen girls emphasize a focus on physical appearance. This is none to surprising considering two of the top contenders in this media genre are Seventeen and Teen Vogue. CosmoGIRL and Elle Girl were among the ranks of popular teen magazines, but in recent years have become exclusively online publications. Add in a dash of publications Tiger Beat and Bop, and it becomes glaringly obvious that girls are charged with the prime directive of looking good to get the guy. The story becomes more disturbing when the actual audience, which includes girls at least as young as eleven years old, is considered. In a stage when girls are trying for the first time to establish their identities, top selling publications are telling them that their exteriors should be their primary concern of focus. Of course, this trend doesn’t stop with magazines. A study conducted in 1996 found a direct correlation between the “amount of time an adolescent watches soaps, movies and music videos” a...
Gender may be a universal concept, but the meaning of gender differs between societies. The way humans behave, speak, experience, think, and view the world is the final product of socialization. From the moment the sex of a fetus is known, humans are being molded into the person society wants them to be. Different parts of society have different functions in the gender-socialization process. The familial relationships and interactions one has with their immediate surroundings—peers, school, religion, and neighborhood—are the most influential aspects of gender development. Loosely connected societal influences like mass media, politics, and culture are influential as well. Throughout childhood, one’s family and interactions with their immediate surroundings teach and reinforce gender, while the rest of society acts as a reinforcer. During adolescence, the broader society begins to take on a minor instructor role in relation to the family in the further development of gender. Essentially, family always acts as the main gender instructor and reinforcer, while society acts as the secondary gender instructor and reinforcer.
Diaries hold the most precious secrets that a young girl can have. This includes secrets about boys, embarrassing stories, arguments with parents, and also the true confessions of the transition into womanhood. In Joan Jacobs Brumberg’s book, The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, she examines the struggle with confidence and body image in adolescent girls not only in today's generation but in past generations as well. Brumberg states that “the process of sexual maturation is more difficult for girls today than it was a century ago because of a set of historical changes that have resulted in a particular mismatch between girls’ biology and today’s culture” explaining that the expectations of today’s culture are too demanding for an adolescent girl to uphold when the physical changes, such as weight gain and acne, become prevalent after puberty (Brumberg xvii).
The media is a fascinating tool; it can deliver entertainment, self-help, intellectual knowledge, information, and a variety of other positive influences; however, despite its advances for the good of our society is has a particular blemish in its physique that targets young women. This blemish is seen in the unrealistic body images that it presents, and the inconsiderate method of delivery that forces its audience into interest and attendance. Women are bombarded with messages from every media source to change their bodies, buy specific products and redefine their opinion of beauty to the point where it becomes not only a psychological disease, but a physical one as well.
Socialization is a lifelong process of acquiring one’s personal identity; when we interact within the four agents of socialization—family, school, media, and peer groups—we internalize norms, values, behavior, and social skills. Since our values, norms, and beliefs about society are first learned with family, family is the most important and influential agent of socialization.
"Introduction to Body Image: Teen Decisions." Body Image. Ed. Auriana Ojeda. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2003. Teen Decisions. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 20 May 2014.
If we try to categorize human by the term “gender”, people will be divided into two groups, males and females. Using this kind of categorization, it is considering people who belong in the same group are similar, and these two groups are very different from each other. However in real life, men and women’s characteristics tend to overlap (Crespi) . Even people who are in the same group may have different characteristics and personalities which are formed influencing by the environment and experiences.
General socialization begins in childhood with our parents and grandparents or caretakers. Simple verbal and nonverbal interactions taking place between those closest to us and our world around us creates ideas and beliefs and coach us in how we should react to our environment. General socialization can be seen when children are punished for being inappropriate or impolite, or when their behaviors are reinforced by authority figures around them. Growing up in a conservative home, one may ...
Socialization is defined as the process by which an individual internalizes the norms, values and beliefs of their social world. The socialization process occurs throughout the life course of the individual and is influenced by agents of socialization, which include a variety of social institutions and daily social interactions. Some examples of such agents are peers,family, neighborhood,sports, schools, religion, the workplace, and especially the mass media. Socialization agents in your life shapes, develops, and help highlight who you are as a person. The agents of socialization that have molded and shaped my life through high school and college are family,school,neighborhood..These agents have have helped me become who I am today and has
The term socialization refers to the “lifelong social experience by which individuals develop their human potential and learn culture.” [Macionis et al. p 55] The concept of socialization is that our actions are driven/learned by culture. Socialization is also the foundation of personality, which we build by internalizing our surroundings. Through the lifelong process of socialization, society transmits culture from one generation to the next.
The mass media plays a large role in shaping a teenage and adolescent girl’s body image. By pushing an ideal body type that is uncommon and untrue to life, girls strive, and struggle to obtain this image. When the mass media only shows one type of body as desirable, they are alienating every girl who does not fit into that category. Pushing these ideal bodies onto teenage girls at an important developmental time in their lives can be detrimental to their bodies and their self worth. By showing what a girl should look like, the mass media is damaging the body images of young girls, and unless awareness is raised, could become more and more adverse on young women today and tomorrow.
It seems that the media’s portrayal of women has negatively affected the body image of The Wykeham Collegiate senior school girls. The media has a negative effect on the youth of today, primarily amongst the female population when it comes to how young girls and women regard their bodies.
Socialization is a never ending process that continues to change our perspectives to help us learn and adapt to a social reality. This lifelo.ng process can be split up into two different parts; primary socialization, the first socialization an individual undergoes in childhood, and secondary socialization, when an individual adapts to a specific group within society. Although one may believe that secondary socialization has more power over primary socialization since it is current and therefore more relevant, primary socialization has more authority considering that it lays down the foundation for all future socializations. Our initial values, attitudes, and actions are more important since we internalize them
acceptable or "normal" behaviour. The Socialisation process continues throughout life and has many agents of socialisation. The first agents we usually encounter are our families. This primary socialisation teaches us the basic social skills for life. Generally the values we learn from our parents who stay with us throughout life.
Socialization is the process of passing down norms, customs, and ideologies that are important to the society by the previous generations to the younger generations. The school system is a social agency that was created to enhance the processes of socialization through education. The importance of school as an agent of socialization can be best explained by the amount of time students spend in school and in activities happen around school. The manifest functions of school are to educate students the social norms, and the knowledge and skills that help them become economically productive in order to benefit the society. But students not only learn from the academic curriculum but they also benefit from socialize with their teachers and peers.