Agencies of Socialization

About this chapter

This chapter unpacks how a child is moulded from a biological being into a social being. It defines socialization as a lifelong process running from 'womb to tomb' and traces it through three levels — micro (family, peer group, neighbourhood), meso (school, religion, social class) and macro (global community, mass media, electronic media, social networking). It explains how family is the first and most enduring agency, how peer influence rises sharply in adolescence, how the school operates through both the formal curriculum and the hidden curriculum, and how the teacher acts as an active agent of change. It also discusses gender socialization at each level — family, peer group and school. For CTET Paper I, this chapter feeds the 'Socialisation processes' sub-heading of the syllabus and is a steady source of recall and applied questions on family, peer group, school, hidden curriculum, mass media, and gender roles. The four tests cover: Practice — definitions and named agents; Quiz — applied classroom situations; Hard — PYQ-style statement and assertion items; Mastery — full mixed paper.